[Ed. Note: Ms. JD is pleased to host this content by Michael Siegel.   Michael Siegel is a recent law school grad and incoming associate at Siegel & Yee in Oakland, California.  He hopes to be an ally of Ms. JD and righteous women everywhere.]

By Michael Siegel

“Young women attorneys should not be afraid to brave new areas of expertise and find creative ways to defend women, especially women of color, from all the misogynous ways that they are humiliated and discriminated against on a daily basis."—Anne Weills, Civil Rights Attorney, Oakland, CA

I am lucky to be a child of the women’s liberation movement.  My mother, Anne Weills, has been a politically active radical feminist and anti-imperialist since the latter days of the House Committee on Un-American Activities.  Her political maturation occurred during the Civil Rights, Anti-War, and Women’s Liberation Movements of the 1960s and 1970s, and to this day she remains engaged in work to empower women, people of color, workers, and other subjects of oppression and discrimination.

Anne is also an attorney, and I am working with her at a small civil rights firm in Oakland, California.  Although the attorneys here do a lot of work on issues ranging from labor union organizing to Alien Tort Claims Act actions for atrocities committed abroad, the main niche that we have carved out for ourselves is in the realm of employment discrimination.  And, more specifically, we have had a lot of success representing women who have been subject to discrimination, harassment, and retaliation while working at public and private universities.

This specialized practice began with a female mathematics professor at the University of California, Jenny Harrison.  Harrison is well-known in the world of advanced mathematics for work involving fractals and for solving a 100-year old calculus problem (which, alas, I cannot hope to adequately describe).  In 1986, despite her considerable accomplishments, Harrison was denied tenure at UC Berkeley by an all-male tenure review committee.  One of her most vocal opponents was a mathematician who was quoted as saying, “We all know women’s brains are biologically inferior.”  My mom took on the case as Harrison was unsuccessfully attempting to appeal the denial of tenure through internal University mechanisms.  After eight years of struggle and after filing a sex discrimination lawsuit, Harrison finally won a generous settlement and was promoted to the rank of full professor with tenure.

In the years since, Anne has represented a number of clients who found themselves victims of arbitrary and discriminatory university environments.  In 2000, for example, her client Colleen Crangle, a brilliant research scientist, won a trial for gender bias and retaliation against Stanford University.  This was the first time Stanford was defeated at trial in a civil rights case.  In 2003, her client Fred Shoucair, a Lebanese electrical engineering professor, won at trial based on claims that he was denied tenure due to his ethnic heritage.  Most recently, Anne’s client, a disabled professor of Native American Studies who was removed from her professorship, won at trial on disability and retaliation claims.

For those of you that may be interested in taking on similar work, it is important to note that my mom’s ability to attract good cases has a lot to do with her political and social engagement.  She is a past member of the American Association of University Women’s Legal Advisory Fund, a key organization in supporting women who find themselves hitting glass ceilings and experiencing hostile environments in the university setting.

Of course, hostility towards women is not limited to the universities, but in fact also permeates our own law offices.   “As an older female attorney, I’ve been struck by the fact that the culture of firms remains so hard-driven, so competitive, and often toxic towards young females and people of color,” Anne explains.  “The alternative is for us to become more cooperative and move the art of lawyering to a higher level both in terms of dealing with clients, colleagues and even opposing counsel.  I hope that the younger generation of women lawyers will seize the time to make significant and positive changes in the legal culture.”

When faced by adversity, my mom loves to cite an old revolutionary slogan, “Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win.”  I hope that we can all bring such hope and courage to our work in the legal profession.