Isabelle Katz Pinzler

"It's probably the longest relationship I've ever had," Isabelle Katz Pinzler says of her involvement with the ACLU Women's Rights Project, "though my second marriage comes close."

Pinzler's extended relationship with WRP women's rights litigation began toward nearthe end of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's tenure as Director, when she acted as director of the WRPin 1978 and continued through 1994. When the staff attorney position at the ACLU was offered to Pinzlerher, "it was like a dream come true." Pinzler felt she had not been able to pay sufficient attention to sex discrimination at her previous post as deputy director of the National Employment Law Project, and she was eager to focus on women's rights. Planning to stay for about five years, she wound up staying fifteen.

Pinzler recalls She remembersbeing somewhat a bitintimidated by Ginsburg at the outset. "We'd work and work on a brief and hand it into Ginsburg labeled as a ‘rough draft,'" because they had learned that even the most thoroughly edited briefs would come back as "a sea of red," she recalls.

Pinzler took the helm of WRP in the 1980s, which she describes 'as a time for a "consolidation of gains" in the women's rights movement. "It wasn't as dramatic or headline-making as when Ruth was there," she acknowledges. Still, the period was an important time to enforce recently earned rights. "It was a lot of hard work with less glory," Pinzler concludes.

One of the most important cases that she worked on at WRP after post-Ginsburg's departure , Pinzler opines,was Rostker v. Goldberg, a case that she co-counseled in the Supreme Court. The issue was whether requiring only men to register for selective service violated the constitutional guarantee of equal protection. WRP lost the case, and the Supreme Court upheld Congress' prerogative to classify on the basis of gender in selective service registration. Nevertheless, Pinzler believes that time and history have reduced the loss. In today's all-volunteer army, the military can no longer afford to overlook women's contributions. She also sees it as a triumph that most people now honor "our men and women in uniform," rather than "our boys."

Of her own work, Pinzler considers Sharif v. New York State Education Department to be her greatest victory while at WRP. In that ecase WRP challenged a New York scholarship program that granted scholarships purely on the basis of students' SAT scores. WRP succeed in showing that this method of distributing scholarships discriminated against girls, because SAT tests tended to underpredict girls' college academic performance, while overpredicting boys' performance. As a result of the case, college admissions officers and scholarship providers knew that they could not rely exclusively on SAT scores in judging students.

The longest-running case of the 1980's was Knox-Schillinger v. TWA, which was passed down from previous years. "Kathleen Peratis left it on my doorstep like a foundling," Pinzler recalls. The suit challenged TWA's practice of firing female flight attendants upon learning of their pregnancies. To prove that impending motherhood was not an indicator of incompetence, "we made damn sure the lawyer who appeared in it was pregnant," she declares. The case dragged on for years and was passed on to whoever was pregnant at the time, because the office always seemed to have someone expecting. Pinzler herself gave birth while employed at WRPACLU and brought her newborn with her to the office.

In 1994, Pinzler left WRP and became Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division of the Unites States Department of Justice. Despite her enthusiasm for the ACLU, She is proud of her work under the Clinton administration, which was focused on "mending, not ending affirmative action." After the Department of Justice, Pinzler taught employment law, sex discrimination, and family law as an adjunct professor at the New York School of Law. Pinzler is disappointed loathe to find that "most attorneys these days think of the 70's and 80's as ancient history." She emphasizes a need for an informed historical perspective, noting that one of Ginsburg's favorite sayingsquotes was citedthat those with no knowledge of history, are who would be condemned to repeat it.

Pinzler believes an ongoing challenge for women's equality is the belief that women have primary responsibility for children and must bear the lion's share of childcare obligations. The lack of paid family leave Without decent leave policies and affordable childcare combined with these expectations , this bind keepsprevents too many mothers from advancing in work outside the home. And And the next frontier, according to Pinzler, is for women to break into traditionally male jobs at all levels. She also emphasizes that an international focus in domestic litigation is increasingly important in advancing women's rights. "We need a broader perspective," she explains.

She recalls thinking about the future of WRP when she was Director and admits that there were times when she was unsure that the Project would survive. It was harder to raise money without Ginsburg's fame and credibility attached to WRP. Yet today WRP forges on stronger than ever, led by Lenora Lapidus, who was once a WRP intern under Pinzler. "So that's a little continuity for you," Pinzler points out.

In the continuing work for women's rights, Pinzler feels that an international focus is increasingly important. "We need a broader perspective," she explains, expressing a concern about reproductive rights and the status of women in other nations. Hopefully, we can expand the legacy that Pinzler and others have left even further; it is clear that the example they have set has already paved the way for us.