Professor Saskia Valencia Takes Lead of Disability and Civil Rights Clinic

Following a national search, Professor Saskia Valencia, has been appointed Director of Brooklyn Law School’s Disability and Civil Rights Clinic, effective January 2026. She is formally stepping into a role that she has filled for the past year, bringing deep experience as a public defender advocating for those with psychiatric or intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs). 

Valencia, who first joined the Disability and Civil Rights Clinic in a teaching position as a legal fellow in July 2023, was named Interim Director in July 2025, and then Director and Assistant Professor of Clinical Law in January 2026. Previously, she was a senior staff attorney at Brooklyn Defender Services’ (BDS) family defense practice representing parents and caregivers accused of abuse and neglect. As a member of BDS’ Preserving Family Bonds team, she helped resolve lengthy and complex parental rights cases initiated by the New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), which often involved avoiding terminations of parental rights.  

"Those terminations have been equated to a civil death penalty, because it is a permanent legal severance of the bond between a parent and their child," Valencia said. "Their child is no longer their child in the name of the law." 

Challenging Stereotypes About Parents with IDDs 

Working with the IDD population was familiar to Valencia, because a disproportionate number of parental rights cases involve parents with IDDs who faced losing custody of their children, oftentimes due to discrimination over their disabilities.  

"Parents with intellectual and developmental disabilities tend to be overly scrutinized, overly punished based on outdated notions of what it means to parent safely," Valencia said. "These ideas or stereotypes lead to questions about whether parents with IDDs have the skillsets to actually parent their child."  

One common misperception is that a parent with an IQ at a certain level is unable to learn anything at all, parenting skills included. Another is that they cannot safely parent a child, according to Valencia, who was a community-based family therapist prior to becoming an attorney. These outdated notions can affect a parent and their child from the day a patient is in the hospital to give birth, a healthcare provider notices their disability and flags the person to ACS. Agency attorneys often lack familiarity with disabled people, and the misunderstandings lead to cases that can linger for extensive periods in court. Further compounding the issue is New York law, which permits ACS to file new allegations against a parent who has an open case or prior findings of neglect if they give birth again, even if there are no allegations of harm concerning that new child. 

The Disability and Civil Rights Clinic receives many of its client referrals from Brooklyn Defender Services and Neighborhood Defender Services of Harlem, and fields direct calls from clients, typically one or two each week. About half involve guardianship or anti-discrimination matters, with the other half parental rights cases involving parents with IDDs. The latter inspired an innovative clinic initiative.  

Providing Doulas to Parents with IDDs 

Since early 2023, the clinic has been piloting a project that gets at the root of a problem contributing to parents losing parental rights. This project involves creating a specialized training program for doulas in the community to support parents who have IDDs. Doulas trained through this program combine their expertise in working with people with IDDs with an understanding of the family regulation system. They will serve not only as advocates for their clients’ wishes during the birthing process, but also as informed allies should healthcare workers raise concerns about a parent’s ability to safely care for their baby. The goal of this project is to intervene at a critical period when parents with IDDs are at risk of family separation, ultimately reducing the number of removals at birth or even involvement with ACS at any level.  

This semester, several of the clinic’s students are helping to implement this comprehensive training program for doulas to prepare them to support expecting parents who have an IDD. They are also launching a training for healthcare providers on the benefits of having a doula present while they are providing services to those parents.

"It is challenging the biases that so many people have, including healthcare providers, who often lack formal education about the family regulation system and how it impacts people with intellectual and developmental disabilities," Valencia said. "So, it seeks to intervene at the point of care and say, 'Hey, let's just all challenge the stereotypes of parents with IDDs.'" 

As part of this project, students will also run "Know Your Rights" workshops for pregnant individuals with IDDs, which can help them become aware of their rights in family policing matters and how a doula can advocate on their behalf. The efforts have received a positive reception from public defenders, attorneys for children, and others in the community, and the clinic hopes to achieve measurable results in reducing the rates of newborn removals from parents with IDDs.  

In addition to launching the training program, the clinic’s students are creating a website that will serve as a hub of information and training for healthcare providers, doulas, and parents with IDDs. It will house live and virtual trainings to accommodate different schedules. In the future, Valencia would like to see this website expand into an online hub that will offer information on a wide range of legal issues impacting people with IDDs.  

For Valencia, the clinic’s impact extends beyond its clients. "I find that my students who come through the clinic have so many creative ideas, and it’s really helpful for me to have them involved because it only makes our work better," Valencia said. "On the very first day of the semester, so many of them are feeling nervous, and some have never worked with a client. By the end, there is this confidence that has emerged, and it is such great inspiration for the work we do." 

Ongoing Partnership with the Taft Foundation 

The Disability and Civil Rights Clinic’s important work is supported by a multiyear grant from the Taft Foundation, reflecting an ongoing partnership that strengthens the clinic’s capacity to serve clients and give students invaluable hands-on experience. The foundation is led by Howard Rothman ’71, its president and chairman of the board and the Law School’s Alumnus of the Year in 2025.