In Memoriam: Mary Cynthia Dunlap (1948-2003)

Editor's Note: The official program did not include the following tribute to Mary Dunlap who died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 54 in 2003.

In the late 1960s, Mary Cynthia Dunlap attended Boalt Law School, where she came under the tutelage of the reknowned Professor Herma Hill Kay, met her future law partners Nancy Davis and Wendy Williams, and helped form the Boalt Hall Women's Association, turning the school's women's restroom into an office.

After graduating from law school in the early 1970s, the three feminists founded Equal Rights Advocates, a law firm devoted to gender equality and women's rights. Mary spent years litigating cases involving sex and sexual orientation discrimination, including maternity, the right of a female professor to tenure and of women to become firefighters in San Francisco.

In 1996 she became head of the Office of Citizen's Complaints, San Francisco's police watchdog agency, until her death on January 17, 2003.

For a comprehensive and moving portrait of Mary's life and work, see "Commentary: A Tribute to the life of Mary C. Dunlap" in 19 Berkeley Women's L.J. 12 (2004). The Tribute includes recollections by Professors Herma Kay, Wendy Williams, and others as well as Mary's own poetry.

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