Introduction of Awardee, Kathryn Kolbert by Kathy Rodgers NYCLA Edith Spivack Award April 4, 2011 New York, NY

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "Introduction of Awardee, Kathryn Kolbert by Kathy Rodgers NYCLA Edith Spivack Award April 4, 2011 New York, NY"

Blaze Bruce
5 years ago
Views:

1 1. Good Evening! Introduction of Awardee, Kathryn Kolbert by Kathy Rodgers NYCLA Edith Spivack Award April 4, 2011 New York, NY 2. Thanks to the committee and NYCLA for inviting me. 3. My great pleasure to join you and our honoree, Kathryn Kolbert, a/k/a Kitty. 4. We are here tonight to recognize and to thank a truly extraordinary woman, a person of many talents -- all of which, apparently, are award-winning! 5. A woman whose multifaceted career has been -- and continues to be -- transformative for women at home and abroad. 6. I have no doubt that Edith Spivack would be beaming if she here tonight. ********************************************************** 1. Kitty is probably best known to most of us for long career as a public interest lawyer 2. I asked her how and when she knew that her passion would be devoted to women s reproductive rights and health. 3. Answer: It was completely accidental! 4. She didn t plan it -- the cause came to her. 5. On Kitty s first day of work at Philadelphia s Women s Law Project two years after law school -- there was going to be a City Council hearing that afternoon on ordinances restricting abortion rights. 6. Kitty was assigned to testify against the proposals. 7. Mind you, she had focused on family law in her prior job at legal services. *************************************************************** 1. But she met for a couple of hours with local advocates to learn what she needed to say and testified at the hearing.

2 2.. From that day on, there was no looking back. ****************************************************************** 1. For the next 20 years Kitty devoted herself to the cause, moving from the Women s Law Project to ACLU s Reproductive Freedom Project, here in New York 2. And from there to the Center for Reproductive Law and Polic,y which she co-founded in 1992 and directed its domestic litigation and public policy program until ******************************************************************** 1. We know her as a litigator for sure because we ve heard of her successful argument before the U.S. Sp. Ct. in Planned Parenthood v. Casey in I ll come back to that. 2. That was actually her second argument in a Supreme Court case! 3. But it s important to know as well there s more to legal advocacy than litigation. 4. Throughout these years, Kitty s expanded her toolkit to include grassroots political organization supporting women across the country who were on the front lines defending against a barrage of state anti-choice legislation. *************************************************************** 1. She became expert in policy advocacy, both developing policy and speaking out nationwide on behalf of reproductive freedom for women before audiences of all kinds, women s groups, political committees, college students, state legislators, Congress, and the media. 2. It was for this full array efforts that she has been recognized repeatedly by The National Law Journal as one of the 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America and by The American Lawyer as one of 45 public-interest lawyers whose vision and commitment are changing lives. ******************************************************************** 1. Kitty loved the work, all of it, 2

3 but eventually the time comes to take on new challenges. 2. She did just that in 1999 redirecting her career to journalism and public education, and expanding her reach to broader civil rights and constitutional issues 3. As Senior Research Administrator at U Penn s Annenberg Public Policy Center, 4. Kitty oversaw the program on law and American life, 5. She served as the executive producer of Justice Talking, an award-winning program distributed by Nat l Public Radio. ****************************************************************************** 1. She also directed an educational website called JusticeLearning. 2. This, too, was a winner -- recipient of the prized Webby Award in OH, And while she was at it, she co-authored four books, including her favorite: The Hip Pocket Guide to the United States Constitution. 4. Well, when you ve done everything in one field, move to another. 5. In 2008 Kitty became Pres. and CEO of People for the American Way, a national civil rights advocacy organization. 1. Under her leadership People For was recognized by the National Journal as the most effective grassroots player in the 2008 election cycle. Obviously, Kitty does nothing ½ way. 2. Wait! That s not the end! 3. More challenges beckoned. 4. In September 2009, Kitty became Director of Barnard College s new Athena Center for Leadership Studies. 5. Kitty is now teaching not only Barnard students, but also politically inclined New York women 3

4 from various communities, and international women s and student groups. 6. In fact, she s just back from 3 weeks working with women and girls in South Africa. ****************************************************************************** 1. The Center s programs cover communications, negotiation and management, and bring out in women their capacities for risk taking, resilience and entrepreneurship. 2. These are capacities Kitty has in full. 3. As I did my reading up on Kitty, I began to think the entire English language didn t have enough words adequately to describe her. 4. So I asked her to give me the one word she thinks best describes her. 5. Answer: BULLDOG. I like it. 6. For me the word captures the qualities of passion, commitment, toughness and courage to take risks that I think set Kitty apart. 7. It s not all of her, but an essential part. *********************************************************** 1. That brings me back for just a minute to Casey the case that saved Roe v. Wade -- because it illustrates how Kitty calls upon all her skills to succeed against what to most of us are impossible odds. and character traits 2. It also made for Kitty s proudest courtroom moment, she tells me. ********************************************************************** 1. The scene is fall For years the Supreme Court has been backsliding on its commitment to the holding in Roe v. Wade that women have a constitutionally protected right to abortion. 2. Planned Parenthood v. Casey involved five severe restrictions on abortions enacted by the anti-choice PA legislature. 3. On October 21, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals upheld four of those restrictions. 4. Kitty and her ACLU colleagues were the attorneys for Planned Parenthood. 4

5 ***************************************************************************** 1. I ll let Supreme Court journalist Jeffrey Toobin pick up the story with an excerpt from his book The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court. Kolbert thought it was time to challenge the Supreme Court and the American electorate. So she devised one of the most audacious litigation tactics in Supreme Court history. By the time the Third Circuit decided Casey, Kolbert and her colleagues thought that the protections of Roe v. Wade had been whittled away for so long that it was better for their cause to have the precedent reversed once and for all. Kolbert wanted the Supreme Court to decide Casey and presumably overturn Roe before the 1992 election. That way, there would be no doubt about the stakes for future Supreme Court appointments. [pp ] 2. This was out-of-the-box thinking. 3. To make it happen, Kolbert had to upturn traditional methodology: -- she filed the petition for certiorari in just three weeks a nanosecond in Sp. Court practice -- and she framed the question presented to make the Court explicitly tell the American people: Has the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade.? 4. Chief Justice Rehnquist was offended by this obvious effort to manipulate the Court into ruling on this explosive issue before the election, and he deliberately delayed consideration of the petition. 5. In the end, he relented on timing, but the Court did rewrite the questions presented more to its liking without explicitly invoking Roe 6. In the course of oral argument, the Justices confronted Kitty, because she was not addressing their questions she was addressing her question.. 7. Do you intend to address them, they asked. 8. Kitty boldly responded, no, asserting that the only issue before the Court was whether Roe was still the legal standard for constitutionally protected abortion rights. 9. That had been the petitioners question from the start and Kitty would not be led astray. 10. A proud moment, indeed. 11. Bulldog is good, right? 5

6 CONCLUSION 1. Edith Spivak was a true pioneer for women in our profession. 2. But she never travelled alone. 3. She broke the path, then held out her hand to pull up the women coming after her. 4. Just as importantly, Edith didn t limit hers concerns to women lawyers. She worked to break down barriers that limited any women s opportunities. 5. Kitty Kolbert carries on that tradition: widening the path of justice herself and reaching out to others to help them become the next leaders extending the path closer to a more just world for us all. 6. Kitty knows better than most one can t stop the work because we can never take our rights and freedoms for granted. Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome the 2011 Edith Spivack Awardee --- a Bulldog named Kitty ---- Kathryn Kolbert 6

Dawn Laguens, Executive Vice President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America

Dawn Laguens, Executive Vice President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America Good morning, thank you all for joining us and thanks to my co-presenters, a very exciting day to announce this new round