Robyn Powell
Professor of Law
B.S. Bridgewater State University
M.A., Brandeis University
J.D., Suffolk University Law School
Ph.D., Brandeis University
Email: [email protected]
Courses
Professional Responsibility, Disability Law, Public Health Law
Biography
Dr. Robyn Powell previously served as Stetson Law’s Bruce R. Jacob Visiting Assistant Professor of Law before becoming an associate professor at University of Oklahoma College of Law
As a disabled woman, Dr. Powell has dedicated her career to advancing the rights of people with disabilities. Before coming to Stetson Law in 2020, Dr. Powell was a Research Associate at the Lurie Institute for Disability Policy at Brandeis University. For nearly five years, Dr. Powell served as an Attorney-Advisor at the National Council on Disability (NCD), an independent federal agency that advises the President and Congress on matters concerning people with disabilities. Previously, she served as the Disability Rights Program Manager at the Equal Rights Center, Assistant Director for Policy and Advocacy at the Disability Policy Consortium, and Staff Attorney at Greater Boston Legal Services. While in law school, Dr. Powell interned for both the NCD and the Disability Law Center, the Massachusetts Protection & Advocacy agency.
Dr. Powell is one of the country’s foremost authorities on the rights of parents with disabilities. She is the principal author of NCD’s Rocking the Cradle: Ensuring the Rights of Parents with Disabilities and their Children. Dr. Powell has written and presented extensively on the rights, needs, and experiences of parents with disabilities and has been interviewed by various news outlets, including NPR, BBC, ABC News, the Daily Beast, and the Associated Press. In May 2016, Dr. Powell was an invited speaker at the White House Forum on Civil Rights of Parents with Disabilities.
Featured Publications
From Carrie Buck to Britney Spears: Strategies for Disrupting the Ongoing Reproductive Oppression of Disabled People
In June 2021, Britney Spears made news headlines when she testified to a judge that she was being prevented from having children because her conservator would not allow her to stop using contraception. Britney Spears’ dreadful experiences are a glaring reminder that nearly 100 years after the infamous Buck v. Bell decision, reproduction is still weaponized to subjugate people with disabilities.
Disability Reproductive Justice
The fragility of reproductive rights in the United States has never been so clear. From the Supreme Court’s recent Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade, to a quickly growing number of states passing draconian state laws that drastically limit—and in some states, ban—access to safe and legal abortion care, reproductive freedom is under siege at every turn.