When I was 21, I got my dream job as a public school teacher. But a year later, I became visibly pregnant, and I was told that the job I’d been promised for next year would go to someone else. Was it pregnancy discrimination? You bet. But I was 22, I didn’t have a union, and Congress hadn’t yet outlawed pregnancy discrimination.

There are women all across this country who’ve had similar experiences, but even today many federal courts interpret the laws against pregnancy discrimination so narrowly that some employers can get away with it. Whether it’s pregnancy discrimination, Roe v. Wade, or harassment, it isn’t enough for women to focus just on laws — we also need to focus on the courts. The courts have considerable power to interpret the laws to undermine women’s rights — and with Donald Trump’s right-wing judges on the bench, it could get a lot worse.

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In just three years, Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell have installed more than 180 federal judges, including more than one in four circuit court judges. These judicial nominees are the least diverse in modern history, according to a report last year by the progressive judicial advocacy group Alliance for Justice — more than 85% are white and nearly 76% male — and many of them are unqualified, partisan, and extreme.

Some of these judges were confirmed with the help of Democrats, but the evidence is clear: Trump’s judiciary is already rolling back women’s rights. And, without reform — inside and outside of the courts — any Democratic president’s agenda will be at risk, too.

Take the Trump administration’s assault on Roe v. Wade. Republican lawmakers are hoping the Supreme Court will turn back the clock, outlaw abortion, and deny people reproductive health care — and Trump is playing along, promising to only nominate Supreme Court justices who want to overturn Roe. I’ll be blunt: It just might work. But even if the Supreme Court doesn’t overrule Roe immediately, it can continue chipping away at this precedent.

It’s more than abortion. Over the years, federal judges have narrowed the definition of what behavior constitutes illegal sexual harassment, according to a 2017 review of more than 1,000 job discrimination cases by two law professors. Workplace discrimination claims are dismissed before trial at a far higher rate than other civil lawsuits, perhaps because male judges think the harassment — from egregious verbal slurs to groping a worker’s breasts — just isn’t bad enough.

And far too many women can’t even take their cases to court in the first place. Courts have upheld forced arbitration, which can shield big corporations who legally bar workers from suing over harassment and discrimination. These clauses are frequently paired with nondisclosure agreements silencing employees from speaking out about discrimination, like the ones Mike Bloomberg and his company have used to prevent his employees from going public.* A report from the Economic Policy Institute found that over 60 million American workers — disproportionately women and people of color — can’t hold their boss accountable for illegal treatment as a result of forced arbitration. I’ve committed to ending forced arbitration and taking on sexual harassment — but we also need a fair and impartial judiciary that won’t roll back women’s rights.

Trump-appointed judges are also threatening to strip workers of their rights, attacking LGBTQ+ rights, and dismantling voting rights — compounding the pressures facing women, and especially women of color. To fight back and to preserve our hard-won victories for a new generation of women, we need to reform our courts and take back our government.

That’s why my first legislative priority as president will be to pass my anti-corruption plan. I was one of the first candidates to push for Brett Kavanaugh’s impeachment — but we need to hold judges accountable for misconduct moving forward, too. My plan holds our judiciary to the highest ethical standards, including by applying the judicial code of conduct to Supreme Court justices and strengthening ethics rules for all federal judges. And it prohibits federal judges accused of misconduct from escaping investigations by resigning — a strategy judges have used to avoid accountability for sexual harassment. Crucially, I’ll also dramatically increase the racial, gender, and professional diversity of the federal bench.

Of course, it’s going to take a long time to undo the damage done to our courts. Federal judges have lifetime appointments, and in addition to being radical, Trump’s appointees are young. But the courts are just one branch of our government.

That’s why it’s also critical for Democrats to win the White House, keep our House majority, and take back the Senate so we can codify our rights into law. I’ve called on Congress to pass new federal laws to protect reproductive care from right-wing ideologues in the states — laws that will stand no matter what the Supreme Court does. And we need to get rid of the filibuster so that our Democratic majority has a real shot at passing this legislation.

We also have to make sure we are protecting our rights at every level: That means taking back control of state legislatures and governorships. That’s why I’ve prioritized supporting down-ballot candidates during my own campaign for president and in 2018, when I raised or gave $11 million to elect other Democratic candidates across the country — many of them women.

We can’t ignore Trump’s conservative capture of our courts. But we can rein them in by holding them to the highest ethical standards, nominating a new, diverse set of judges that reflects America, and boosting Democrats up and down the ballot. That’s how we protect our rights for the long haul.

*Editor’s note: Bloomberg recently agreed to allow his company to release three women from nondisclosure agreements with his company related to offensive comments they say he made.

Want more from Teen Vogue? Check this out: Why It Matters That President Trump Has Stacked the Courts With Conservative Judges

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