Law

Content type
Collection

Martine Rothblatt

CEO Martine Rothblatt’s fascination with interconnectivity led her to found both GeoStar and Sirius Radio, but it was her drive to save her daughter’s life that led her to create biotech company United Therapeutics Corporation.

Harriet Lowenstein

Harriet Lowenstein gave the Joint Distribution Committee its name and led many of the organization’s efforts to aid those trapped in Europe during both World Wars.
Hobby Lobby and the United States Supreme Court

Losing Their Religion: A Law Professor Looks at Hobby Lobby

Jed Handelsman Shugerman

There are many reasons I think the Supreme Court is wrong as a legal matter in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby.

Topics: Law

Carol Ruth Silver

Carol Ruth Silver was one of the first two white women to be jailed in the Freedom Rides, an experience that sparked a career in law and politics, fighting for the rights of others.

Janice Goodman

Janice Goodman’s work on civil rights issues drove her to become a lawyer, arguing class action cases for women’s rights.

Sonia Pressman Fuentes

Sonia Pressman Fuentes, the first female attorney in the office of the general counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, helped extend the Civil Rights Act’s protections of equal opportunity to all people regardless of gender.

Joyce Antler

Using both field research and her own experiences posing as a pregnant woman, Joyce Antler not only helped repeal New York’s laws against abortion, but ensured that women had real access to medical services after the law was repealed.

Rebecca Young

Rebecca Young’s focus on prisoners’ rights led her to create programs to improve the juvenile justice system and monitor and report prisoner abuse.

Miriam Waltzer

As the first woman elected to the New Orleans Criminal District Court, Miriam Waltzer fought for the civil rights of minorities, children, and women.

Judy Somberg

Judy Somberg’s work with the Sister Cities Project in El Salvador helped locals return to their villages after the military takeover in 1987 and freed eleven people who had been “disappeared.”

Susan Maze-Rothstein

Susan Maze-Rothstein’s childhood experiences of injustice led her to help create a more just world for her children and her students.

Ruth Abrams

The first woman to serve on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Ruth Abrams upheld the rights of women and minorities throughout her career.

Senator Rosalie Silber Abrams

The first Jewish woman elected to the Maryland State Senate, Rosalie Silber Abrams was an energetic and activist legislator who oversaw the passage of nearly 300 bills during her seventeen-year career in the Maryland General Assembly.

Bette Midler Owns Her Own Voice

October 31, 1989

US Court of Appeals says Bette Midler's voice is distinctive.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The demand for justice runs through the entirety of Jewish history and Jewish tradition.

Sonia Pressman Fuentes

I became the staff person who stood for aggressive enforcement of the sex discrimination prohibitions of the Civil Rights Act.

Joyce Antler

Besides they told me, ‘only bad girls get abortions.’

Judy Wilkenfeld, 1943 - 2007

Judy Wilkenfeld brought people together, made everyone with whom she came into contact better, and became a close and trusted friend, confidante, mentor, and role model to so many people with whom she worked.

Beate Sirota Gordon, 1987

Meet Beate Sirota Gordon – Who Knew?

Elizabeth Pleck

Beate Sirota Gordon (1923-2012), feminist and Asian arts impressario, was only 22 years old when she wrote women's rights into Japan’s constitution. In her postwar career as a director of performing arts, first for the Japan Society and then the Asia Society in New York City, she introduced Americans to Asian visual and performing arts, from Japanese wood block prints to Burmese music to Vietnamese puppets.

Topics: Women's Rights, Art, Law
Sheryl Sandberg

I’m Hitting “Like” on Leaning In

Evelyn Becker

The spotlight is on Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, and her mission to change the balance of power in the United States.  Sandberg’s book Lean In hit the proverbial shelves this week and the media is buzzing.  Is Sandberg the new Gloria Steinem?  Will her message on women and leadership motivate real change? 

Stairway in the Woods

Redefine Success, Submit to Passion

Evelyn Becker

It's January 2013 in Denver, Colorado. Things are going well. My children have settled easily into the school year in second grade and pre-K. Becker Impact started a challenging and particularly meaningful new project. Then, as part of that project, I interviewed a charismatic young lawyer who mentioned what first year associates now earn at New York City law firms. Plus bonus.

Topics: Feminism, Israel, Law
Pro Choice Protester, 2010

The name may change but the belief stays the same

Talia bat Pessi

Not surprisingly, the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade kicked up a great deal of dust. In early January, Planned Parenthood announced that it will abandon the term "pro-choice" to describe people who believe abortion should be every woman's right; on January 25th, tens of thousands of  activists gathered on the Mall in Washington, D.C. for the annual Walk for Life. One of our regular guest bloggers, high school student Talia bat Pessi, shares her thoughts on the issue. 

Lit Candles

May Their Memory Be for a Blessing

Evelyn Becker

On the front page of this morning’s Denver Post a picture of Veronique Pozner, mother of Sandy Hook Elementary School victim Noah Pozner, at Noah’s gravesite at B’nai Israel Cemetery in Monroe, Connecticut, assaults me as I sit down to drink my morning coffee. Veronique stands next to her rabbi, and my eyes are drawn to his kippah. And I’d thought, that perhaps, I was going to be able to start this day without crying.

Topics: Children, Motherhood, Law
Phyllis Schlafly

Phyllis Schlafly: Groundbreaker for Women's Rights?

Talia bat Pessi

For today’s young feminists, the name Phyllis Schlafly may be totally unfamiliar; if anything, it triggers a distant memory of a footnote in an AP US History textbook. Those activists who lived and fought during the Second Wave are, however, all too familiar with the uber-conservative activist.

Topics: Feminism, Film, Law

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