Judge Orders Breastfeeding Breaks
A Massachusetts appellate judge has ruled a Harvard med student should get more break time during a clinical licensing exam so she can pump breast milk.
Student Sophie Currier had claimed she needed an extra hour of breaks during the two-day exam. Judge Gary Katzmann agreed that the allotted 45 minutes was not enough, the New York Times reports.
Katzmann said the limited break time gave Currier a difficult choice. She could “use her break time to incompletely express breast milk and ignore her bodily functions, or abdicate her decision to express breast milk, resulting in significant pain.”
“Under either avenue,” he said, Currier “is placed at significant disadvantage in comparison to her peers.”
A trial level judge had refused Currier’s request for an injunction requiring the National Board of Medical Examiners to give her more time, ABAJournal.com noted in a prior post.
The board plans an appeal to a three-judge panel.
