Honoree Profile: Faith Seidenberg

Faith Seidenberg made legal contributions to numerous cases affecting the wellbeing of women, including Seidenberg v McSorley's Old Ale House in 1971, the first case in the U.S. to successfully attack gender-biased discrimination in places of public accommodation. Phillips v Martin Marietta, also in 1971, dealt with the right of a mother of preschool-age children to be employed under the same terms as a father; and in 1980,U.S. v Newak, a case that stands for the proposition that for the first time in U.S history a member of the Armed Forces cannot be provided with a lawyer who is also representing witnesses against her.

Other of her successes include Kotcher v Rosa and Sullivan (1992), a Title VII case that delineated sexual harassment in the workplace; Cook v Colgate (1992), which held for the first time that a club team should be moved up to varsity status on the basis of gender discrimination (Title XI); and Schuck v Cornell University (1993), which reinstated varsity gymnastics and fencing for women students.

Seidenberg, who was active in the Civil Rights Movement in the South in the 1960s and served as legal counsel for CORE (1963-1966), has published numerous articles relating to women and the law. These include "The Myth of the 'Evil' Female as Embodied in the Law," published in Environmental Law Journal, Northwestern School of Law in 1971; and "Family,Property and Domicile Law in the State of New York," published in Women's Role in Contemporary Society, the report on the NYC Commission on Human Rights (1972).

She served as VP of NOW from 1970 to 1971, belonged to the advisory board of the Women's Rights Law Reporter, and was a member of the board of the Women's Action Alliance and the National Women's Rights Project.

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