Speech Delivered at New York Law School

Commencement 2007

Sybil Shainwald

 

Good afternoon, Chairman Abbey, Dean Matasar, Members of the Board, Faculty, Graduating Students, and Guests.

 

Thank you Arthur for those extremely kind remarks.  It is a great pleasure to have you introduce me on such a special occasion.

 

I will always be grateful to New York Law School for the wonderful opportunity that it has given to me, and now gives to all of you new graduates, to effect social change.  I must also thank New York Law School for the outstanding honor of being the first, but certainly not the last, woman to receive this prestigious award.

 

As I look out at this amazing group of new graduates, I am thrilled to see a class that is at least half women, and also richly diverse.  Thirty one years ago when I received my degree – it was very different.  Of the 159 students in my evening class, only 7 of them were women.  As women, we had to forge our way in a profession that was overwhelmingly male, and where women lawyers and women’s issues were a novelty.

 

I would like to take you back in time for a moment…

 

In 1962, while working on my PhD in History at Columbia University, I applied to the Law School and I was denied admission because, I was told, I would take the place of a man who would practice law for 40 years.  In other words – I was too old and the wrong gender.  They actually said this to me!  You could do that in 1962, when 3.6% of law students were women.

 

After this rejection, I thought that using the law as an avenue to activism was closed to me forever.  Ten years later, the Equal Rights Amendment was passed by Congress and Title IX banned sex discrimination in schools receiving federal funding.  I was immediately motivated by my passion and my politics to take a risk and to apply to New York Law School’s evening division.  Fortunately, New York Law School accepted me.

 

The greatest strength of this country is its ability to harness the brain power of people without regard to gender, race or age.  But, it wasn’t always thus.

 

It may be helpful to keep in mind what one exceptional woman had to say about the decade of the 70’s.  “It must be a time,” she said, “when equality becomes reality and our nation does what up to now has been left undone.”  That’s impressive – particularly when you realize that the woman calling for equality was Abigail Adams and the decade she was talking about was the 1770’s.

 

The founding fathers did not pay attention to the founding mothers.  Abigail wrote the first “Dear John” letter.  “Dear John,” she wrote, “in a new Code of Laws which I suppose it would be necessary for you to make, I desire you (to) remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than (were) your ancestors.  If particular care and attention is not paid to us, we are determined to foment a rebellion and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice.”

 

Husband John replied promptly in the first “Dear Abby” letter in American history and said that “men who would stand and fight the tyranny of a powerful king would never give in to despotism of a petticoat.”

 

Thomas Paine, the first pro-feminist man in America reread the Declaration of Independence one month after ratification and observed that women were not included in its liberating charter.  “Women,” he wrote, “have an equal right to virtue.”

 

Thomas Paine was the exception, and historically, women and power were mutually exclusive terms.  The hand that rocked the cradle was allowed to rule the world only if it belonged to a queen.

 

We know that our system was built on English common law written down principally by Sir William Blackstone who said, “Husband and wife are one – and that one is the husband.”  Until the mid 1800’s, women, besides not having the right to vote, were denied basic human rights without challenge: the right to own property, the right to make a contract, the right to keep their own earnings, the right to sit on juries, and the right to have custody of their children after a divorce.

 

*In 1869, St. Louis Law School became the first law school to admit women and Belle Mansfield becomes the first woman lawyer.  Although she could interpret the law, she would not be able to vote for another 50 years!

 

*In 1872, 100 years before I became a first year law student here, Myra Bradwell was refused admission to the bar.  She appealed her case to the United States Supreme Court, which set the tone for the next 100 years.  Myra Bradwell was told to remain in her place, and her place was not at the bar.  “The paramount destiny and mission of women are to fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother.  This is the law of the Creator.”  Myra was single.

 

*In 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment finally gave women the right to vote.

 

*In 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed and Title VII banned discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, and sex.

 

*In 1973, sex-segregated help wanted ads were outlawed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

 

*In 1974, President Gerald Ford signs legislation allowing girls to play Little League Baseball.

 

*In 1975, In TAYLOR v LOUISIANA, the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed the automatic exclusion of women from jury duty.

 

*In 1981, Sandra Day O’Connor became the first woman Justice on the United States Supreme Court.

 

Now, in 2007, more than three decades after my graduation, and as one of the few women who were admitted to law school in the early 1970’s, I have a law practice in which I work to change the world in some small way, everyday.

 

I have been called a pioneer, but put simply: much of what I have done has been propelled by common sense and justice – as seen through a woman’s eyes.  At my first job, a case came into the firm involving a seventeen-year-old-woman who had suffered from clear cell cancer.  Her reproductive organs were removed as a result.  Her condition was found to be caused by the drug, Diethylstilbestrol (“DES”), which had been administered to her mother during pregnancy.  DES had been a totally untested drug and a totally ineffective drug.

 

I was the only woman in the firm.  Nobody had brought a DES case and nobody in the firm thought it could be won.  A Bronx jury disagreed.  The verdict shook the pharmaceutical industry and there was clear proof that the industry placed profits over women’s lives.  It has been my life-long objective to change that.

 

I know that all of us are united as lawyers in our determination to make the world a better place, and I want to share with you some of the ideas and principles that have guided my practice, and, indeed, my life:

 

*It is not about the money!  Lawyers are the last bastion of hope for accountability in every area of our lives.  There is a tremendous need to continue to combat injustice.

 

*The law is a means to an end: it is the vehicle through which we can create a better society.  Martin Luther King once said, “It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but is CAN keep him from lynching me…”

 

*Be a passionate and compassionate risk-taker.  Take cases that other lawyers turn down.  Always do the right thing and always make things right.

 

I set out to make a perfect world, but I have left many issues for you to resolve: poverty, violence, genocide, the need for universal health care, the continued weakening of the agencies designed to protect us, and global warming.

 

I say all this not to overwhelm or depress you on this wonderful day, but simply to remind you that there is still a lot to be done by all of you for women, for men, for children, and for all of humanity.

 

So, take the rest of the day off, and then get back to work and get busy saving the world!  I urge each of you to always pursue your own sense of justice, and to blaze new trails.

 

Congratulations to you all!