Honoree Profile: Sylvia Roberts

Sylvia Roberts, the first woman to practice law in her parish of Lafayette, LA, joined NOW in 1966 and was immediately assigned to represent Lorena Weeks in her case against Southern Bell.

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, race and sex discrimination were illegal. Weeks had sued Southern Bell for refusing her a higher-paying job as a switchman because "Women don't have the strength to lift heavy objects." The case had been lost by another lawyer in Weeks's home state of Georgia, but under appeal by Roberts, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed that decision in 1969. Thereafter, employers could not refuse to consider a woman for any kind of job unless "all or substantially all women" could be proved to be unable to do it.

As NOW's first Southern Regional Director, Roberts traveled the South organizing NOW chapters, at the same time representing women in employment discrimination cases. She later was named president of the LDEF. Active in the American Bar Association, Roberts achieved the first resolutions under federal and state law condemning discrimination against women and in 1980 with Marilyn Hall Patel (now U.S. District Judge), started the first Judicial Education Project to present material to judges on sex discrimination as part of their training. This spread across many areas of the country and raised the consciousness of judges as never before.

In 1973 she represented Dr. Sharon Johnson against the University of Pittsburgh Medical School, and got the first injunction preventing Dr. Johnson from being fired when she was denied tenure for reasons having nothing to do with her qualifications.

Roberts represented the plaintiff in Michelli v Michelli, the first case to define the phrase "history of family violence" under the Post Separation Family Violence Relief Act. Proving more than six incidents, Roberts was able to deny Mr. Michelli joint custody and he was required to attend counseling. At the successful conclusion of that case, she and the plaintiff formed VOICES, a nonprofit organization whose efforts are aimed at preventing abuse through educational programs with young people.

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