Women "Manipulate" Maternity Leave

A former University of Colorado Law School student alleges that President Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch said women purposely manipulate maternity benefits from companies.

The student, Jennifer Sisk wrote about the incident in a letter posted by the National Employment Lawyers Association and the National Women's Law Center. 

Sisk wrote the letter so the "proper questions could be asked during his confirmation hearings".

Sisk alleges that during a class, Gorsuch presented a hypothetical situation for the class to discuss. 

The example was a female law student applying to jobs in her field because she has massive debt to pay off, but she also intends to start a family with her husband.

"He interrupted our class discussion to ask students how many of us knew women who used their companies for maternity benefits, who used their companies to — in order to have a baby and then leave right away."

She says that when only a few students raised their hands, Gorsuch said all of their hands should be up because it was very common.

Trump administration spokesman Ron Bonjean says Gorsuch is a well liked teacher and consistently got high ratings by students at the school.

Sisk was interviewed by NPR and when asked if this could have been a case of a law professor asking a provocative question to stir up a conversation, she said no.

"It wasn't what he was doing. This was second-to-last class, hadn't been the style he had been using to sort of raise issues all class, or all semester...he kept bringing it back to that this was women taking advantage of their companies, that this was a woman's issue, a woman's problem with having children and disadvantaging their companies by doing that."

Sisk also says that when she brought these concerns to school officials, they too said she may have misinterpreted his message.


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