EPPiC Broadcast

This week, we talk with Jackie Rosario, board member at the Indian River Public School Board in Florida, and Patti Sullivan, Parental Rights Foundation State Coordinator in Florida. The Indian River Public School Board recently passed a proclamation declaring October “Parental Rights and Appreciation Month.” Jackie and Patti tell us about how they passed the proclamation, why it’s important, and o...

Today, we welcome Jane Anderson onto the podcast. Dr. Anderson is the Vice President of the American College of Pediatricians , and author of the paper “ The Teenage Brain: Under Construction .” She gives us a crash course on how the teenage brain functions, and shows how science supports the idea that teenagers’ brains are not mature enough to make informed decisions yet on medical treatment and...

This week’s guest is Vivek Sankaran, a professor of law at the Michigan University School of Law and Director of their Child Advocacy Law Clinic. Vivek recently argued two cases in front of the Michigan Supreme Court, which highlight the harms of permanently terminating parental rights without considering other ways to preserve the parent-child relationship. Vivek argues that if a child is in a se...

This week, our guest is Kevin Boden, an attorney at the Home School Legal Defense Association. Kevin tells us about some potential changes to homeschooling law in West Virginia, and makes his case for why the state laws governing homeschooling there should remain unchanged.  The EPPiC Broadcast is hosted by Michael Ramey, president of the Parental Rights Foundation. You can sign up for email alert...

Welcome back to the EPPiC Broadcast ! We’re kicking off season 9 with returning guest Christine Gottlieb. Chris has been newly appointed the Director of the New York University School of Law's Family Defense Clinic. Today she tells us about the work the Clinic does to defend individual families in child welfare cases and to advocate for broader systemic change for family preservation in the c...

This week, we’re joined by Sixto Cancel. Sixto is the founder and CEO of Think of Us , a non-profit advocacy organization that seeks to reform and transform the child welfare system, led and guided by people who have been directly impacted by this system. Sixto tells us about the work that Think of Us is doing, and shares how his own experience growing in the foster care system led him to work tow...

This week, Kathleen Creamer is returning to the EPPiC Broadcast. Kathleen is the managing attorney of the Family Advocacy Unit at Community Legal Services in Philadelphia. This week, Kathleen gives us an overview of many topics under discussions at the ABA Center on Children and the Law’s recent National Conference on Parent Representation, which featured panels from many of the top scholars, lawy...

This week, we're rewinding to a a conversation with Ernestine Gray from April 2023. This week, we talk with former judge Ernestine Gray, who served for 35 years in the Orleans Parish Juvenile Court in Louisiana. During her tenure, the Orleans Juvenile Court went from what the New York Times described as “the worst juvenile court in the nation” to a model that other juvenile courts looked to f...

What effects would legislation proposed in various states have on families and the states' child welfare systems? To answer that, we looked to Texas, where the same measures have already become law. This week, we talked with Andrew Brown, vice president of Policy with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, about some of the laws Texas passed in recent years, including a new law guarenteeing a ri...

This week, we’re talking with Patti Sullivan, the Parental Rights Foundation's Florida State Coordinator. Patti and Michael were in DC to bring attention to two national bills aimed at protecting parental rights: the Families' Rights and Responsibilities Act and the Parental Rights Amendment. They discuss those bills and their efforts in this episode. The EPPiC Broadcast is hosted by Mic...

This week, we’re talking with James Mason, president and senior counsel at the Homeschool Legal Defense Association. Previously, James has served as the president of the Parental Rights Foundation and the host of the EPPiC Broadcast . This week, James tells us about a case in Texas that HSLDA has recently litigated on behalf of a homeschooling family caught up in a CPS investigation.  The EPPiC Br...

This week, Joanna Woolman returns to the podcast! Joanna is an associate professor of law at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law and the executive director of the Institute to Transform Child Protection . Today, Joanna tells us about a civil rights complaint brought forward to address the disproportionality of African American children in Minnesota's child welfare system, as well as the Africa...

This week we talk with Will Estrada, senior counsel at the Homeschool Legal Defense Association and former president of the Parental Rights Foundation, as well as the former host of the EPPiC Broadcast. Will has also served as attorney with the Federal Department of Health and Human Services.  In this episode, Will tells us about his upcoming law review article, in which he argues that parental ri...

This week, we’re talking with Michelle Weidner, executive director of the Family Justice Resource Center in Illinois, which represents families in CPS cases across the country. Michelle is also a parent with lived experience dealing with the child protective system. In this episode, she tells about her experience being falsely accused by a child abuse pediatrician over a blur on her infant son’s m...

This week, we're rewinding to a a conversation with Martin Guggenheim from February 2021. In this episode,  we talk with Martin Guggenheim, who has taught at the NYU School of Law for over 25 years, and is one of the foremost experts on family law and family rights today. Marty tells us about his lengthy career in the family law field, including how the current child welfare system came to be...

This week, we’re talking with Kelly Fong, author of Investigating Families: Motherhood in the Shadow of Child Protective Services , published in 2023. Kelly is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of California Irvine.  In this episode, Kelly explains how child protective services exert an inescapable surveillance over many parents, especially low income and minority mothers. Duri...

This week, we’re talking with Matt Sharp, senior legal counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom. Matt tells us about the Families Rights and Responsibilities Act, recently introduced into the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives that aims to safeguard parental rights and provide parents with strong legal protections at the national level. Matt explains what’s in the bill, why it was created, and...

Welcome back to the EPPiC Broadcast ! We’re kicking off season 8 with a returning appearance of Diane Redleaf. Diane is the legal consultant at Let Grow , an organization that promotes reasonable childhood independence. She’s also the author of They Took the Kids Last Night .  In this episode, Diane tells us what reasonable childhood independence is and why it matters for protecting parental and f...

This week we talk with Will Estrada, senior counsel at the Homeschool Legal Defense Association and former president of the Parental Rights Foundation, as well as the former host of the EPPiC Broadcast. Will has also served as attorney with the Federal Department of Health and Human Services.  Today, Will explains some of the parental rights-focused work that HSLDA is currently doing. Plus, hear a...

This week we talk with Kevin Boden, director of HSLDA International. Kevin tells us about the victories and challenges homeschooling is facing internationally. Kevin is the lead attorney for the Romeike family, who came to the US in 2006 after facing legal hardships in Germany for homeschooling their children.  Support the show

This week we talk with Jim Mason, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association and former president of ParentalRights.org and the Parental Rights Foundation.  In this episode, Jim explains how homeschooling has grown from its fringe roots in the 70's into an enduring education option today, with abundant resources to help parents best educate their children. He also explains what he...

This week we talk with Jane Spinak, author of The End of Family Court: How Abolishing the Court Brings Justice to Children and Families . Jane is a Clinical Professor of Law Emerita at Columbia Law School, where she directed clinical programs in family regulation for forty years. In this episode, Jane traces her journey from working to reform the family court system to advocating for its abolishme...

This week we talk with Michael Farris, constitutional law scholar, founding president of ParentalRights.org, and the former CEO and president of Alliance Defending Freedom . In this episode, Michael responds to a recent Washington Post article about his role in the parental rights movement and gives us an update on the projects he’s been working on recently.  Support the show

This week, we talk with Joyce McMillian. Joyce is a thought leader, advocate, community organizer, educator, and the Founder and Executive Director of Just Making A Change for Families ( JMACforFamilies ).  Joyce walks us through her work advocating for families that find themselves caught up in New York’s child welfare system, the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS). Black, low income fa...

This week, we talk with Melissa Moschella, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Catholic University of America, where her teaching focuses on bioethics and the moral and political status of the family. Melissa is also the author of To Whom Do Children Belong? Parental Rights, Civic Education, and Children's Autonomy . Melissa explains her argument that parental rights are pre-governmental...