Emma Hamilton learned she was pregnant the day before orientation at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law. She was 23 years old and had just quit her job to go to law school. Faced with uncertainty, she decided to move forward with her graduate school plans and opened the school’s website to check when final exams were scheduled. As it turned out, their due date was already a week past.
“I thought, OK, how feasible is this?” she told The Daily Telegraph. “As long as I can get all my studying done, I can spend a week with a newborn who is about to take an exam.”
The plan did not materialize. According to Emma’s profile in “With You,” her daughter arrived early and was rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit an hour away after a pregnancy complicated by preeclampsia. Emma attended two weeks of online classes from a hospital waiting room. She spent Easter in the neonatal intensive care unit, with finals still to come.
What her school did next is impressive. Emma sent an email to the writing professor at the hospital saying she couldn’t submit the portion of the motion that was due the next day. The reply, she recalls, told her to stop thinking about it. When the oral argument was due, the professor asked her to do it via Zoom. She is now the professor’s teaching assistant.
Unfortunately, Emma’s experience of feeling supported during pregnancy or having a baby while at university was not universal. The Demetree Institute for Life Advancement gave 553 state colleges and universities five-star ratings in areas such as housing, on-campus resources, financial aid, medical care, accommodations and policy transparency. The average score is 3.1 points.
According to the findings, shared first with The Telegraph, 98.6 per cent of schools lack at least two recommended accommodation facilities. About 73% of schools do not offer on-campus family housing, 91% do not offer parking spaces for pregnant women, and 85% do not offer pregnancy or parenting scholarships. Forty-six per cent of schools did not have on-site childcare and of those assessed, only seven received five stars.
Students of American Life selected the “Twelve” with the lowest scores. Dalton State College (Georgia), Dakota State University (South Dakota) and Concord University (West Virginia) tied for the worst one-star ratings. Nine others received 1.5 stars: College of the Florida Keys, Indiana State University, McNeese State University (Louisiana), Fairmont State University (West Virginia), Elizabeth City State University (North Carolina), Mayville State University (North Dakota), Rhode Island College, Radford University (Virginia) and the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.
“When a student can find a pregnancy test at a health center, but there is no family housing, no child care, no parking for pregnant women, and no scholarships, the institution’s intentions regarding her pregnancy are made clear,” said Kristan Hawkins, the organization’s president. Hawkins requires each Dirty Dozen college president to fix at least half of the missing content within an academic year.
Students for Life also urged the Senate to pass the Pregnant Student Bill of Rights, which would require colleges to tell students what rights and accommodations they have, including how to file a Title IX complaint. The bill passed the House in January and has since stalled in the Senate.
Fortunately, Emma found herself at the opposite end of the spectrum when she went to school. When she returned to campus after giving birth, she realized the school had a parents’ corner for students who needed to bring their children to campus, as well as a locked room with a sink, refrigerator and pumping table. For long exams, she had extra breaks. “I thought this was probably the best place for me to try to solve this problem,” she said.
Emma said the worst part of being a new mother in college was having it all over her head. Before anyone knew she was pregnant, she heard classmates talking about other pregnant students as if they couldn’t keep up. “I think a lot of harmful thinking comes from assumptions I make about other people’s thoughts,” she said.
Emma knew exactly what else made it work. Her mother watched her daughter during class. Her undergraduate school, Grand Valley State University, is across the state from her family and she may not be able to finish her degree, she said. “You can’t work, so if you don’t have child care, you’re basically restricted, but you can’t get child care unless you work,” she said.
This year, the Stand with You student lifelong initiative awarded her 12 $2,000 scholarships, and her story proves that with support, anything is possible. She will be entering her final year this fall and plans to take the Michigan bar exam.
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