AC_1965_Web

95 AN T I OC H CO L L E G E C L A S S O F 19 6 5 5 0 t h A N N I V E R S A R Y B O O K A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z L AW Society. When the executive director of the EFC program resigned, I picked up his work including organizing the search for his successor. It was demanding work and I did it well. The applicants for director were all guys. I was actually doing the job. None were as qualified as I. I spoke with the higher-ups, suggesting that maybe I should apply.They said no. The message I took from all these ex- periences was not the obvious sex- ism but rather that I needed a better credential. I went to law school in 1965 at NewYork University. There I found another blessed community of people committed to social change and focused on ra- cial discrimination. Norman Dorsen, longtime head of the ACLU, allowed me to work with him through the Arthur Garfield Hays program and showed me, by example, editing, and attention to process,how to be an ef- fective civil rights lawyer. My partic- ular focus was on poor women and their families. The National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) was a vibrant political force in the late 1960s and I was honored to work with organized welfare recipients both on the Lower East Side and na- tionally. Dr. King’s embrace of the priority of economic justice was hugely important. Edward V. Sparer was the intellectual leader and gen- eral counsel of the NWRO. By 1970, the welfare rights movement had won many important victories in the courts. But Sparer recognized particular and inherent limits of a movement on behalf of the poorest of the poor. He sought to support a movement for social justice on behalf of “the less affluent majority” and saw health care as a strategic place for legal and politi- cal work. He asked me to direct the Health Law Project at the University of Pennsylvania.Health care—access for all, quality, costs—is endlessly fas- cinating and important and has been the major focus of my work. Phi ladelphia was another blessed community. I came late to feminism, not through intellectual, legal or political work, but rather by becoming part of a consciousness raising group. These women, stu- dents and faculty at the law school, (and their children) are among my closest friends in the world. Professionally, as a welfare rights lawyer, when the Supreme Court le- galized abortion in Roe v. Wade in 1973, I knew that the next big ques- tion would be whether the otherwise comprehensive Medicaid program would pay for abortions for poor women.That fight consumed me for a decade and so far has been unsuc- cessful. I have continued to work on issues of economic justice, racial and gender equality and reproductive freedom. While thousands of good people have done yeoman work, it is difficult to see improvement. During my Philadelphia years I met a health law student, Barry Ensminger.After our student/teacher relation ended, we became a couple and parents of Benjamin Ensminger/ Law. We separated in 1989 when Ben was 12. Ben was a great kid and is a magnificent adult. I have had a terrific professional life; nothing is more satisfying than being a mom. My relations with my sisters Kathy and Judy, and my brother, Bob, have become more cherished over the decades. Judy, a family lawyer in Oakland, lived with her husband Gary and his two kids in Hawaii in the 1970s. I went to visit in 1979 and fell in love with paradise. Judy, Gary and I bought a house in Kailua in 2000 and I now spend about half my time there,walking the beach, doing yoga and sometimes teaching at the Richardson School of Law. My sister, Kathy, retired as long-time head of the Fargo department of social ser- vices and now leads the women and Democrats in the North Dakota state legislature. Our brother, Bob, was a prosecutor inWalnut Creek. He died in 2008.We held a memorial service for him at a golf course and I spent a beautiful sunny afternoon drinking and talking story with David Landes, a close friend from Antioch days. Three months later, David was also gone. I am usually in NewYork City or Woodstock in the summer and fall and in Hawaii in the winter. Sylvia Law presenting at the Program on Heath Policy and Law inaugural lecture, Northeastern University School of Law, Boston, Mass.