THE FIREBRAND1 and THE NOTORIOUS RBG2 How the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray, Esq. the first African American female priest in the Episcopal Church, who was also a brilliant legal theorist and lawyer, influenced the Hon. Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her ground-breaking work of challenging legal discrimination on the basis of sex 3– to the benefit of all women. Once in a century, two women who have shaken the foundations of our view of society, cross paths in a manner that significantly advances the movement for equity and justice. The Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray, Esq. and the Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg are those two. Born 23 years apart, and facing many challenges and rejections by a society not ready for their gifts and abilities, one woman (Murray) ended up setting a course that would clear a path and open space for the other (Ginsburg) to break new ground and create opportunity for all of us. Pauli Murray (1910-1985), full of ambition, drive and determination, experienced the sting of race discrimination and sex discrimination as she was rejected by several institutions of higher learning – Columbia University, University of North Carolina, Harvard Law School and Cornell Univeersity (faculty positioin). In each case, she fought back and she spoke out, but did not wallow in defeat. Instead, she went on to build an impressive record of firsts and onlies. In each case she chose a different path, excelled in her pursuits, and continued to advance, always breaking new ground. By the end of her life, she had a BA from Hunter College, a JD from 1 Pauli Murray was given the nickname “firebrand” by her friend, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The two are featured in the book by Patricia Bell-Scott: “The Firebrand and the First Lady” (Alfred Knopf, New York, 2016). 2 The nickname “Notorious RBG” was coined for Justice Ginsburg in their New York Times bestseller of the same name about her life and accomplishments, by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik (Harper Collins, 2015). When asked if it bothered her that her nickname came from the late rapper Notorious BIG, Justice Ginsburg quipped: “no, we have a lot in common, we’re both from Brooklyn.” 3 “On the Basis of Sex” is the name of a 2018 movie on the life and civil rights work of Justice Ginsburg. 1 Howard Law School (only woman in her class; graduated first in her class), a LLM from UC Berkeley (became California’s first African American deputy attorney general), a JSD from Yale University (first African American JSD at Yale), a MDiv from General Theological Seminary, and was ordained a priest (the first African American woman priest in the Episcopal Church). Along the way, she published a book of poetry, became an advocate for others, including an innocent death row inmate, was first to refuse to sit at the back of a bus (Virginia 1940), led early sit-ins to desegregate lunch counters (1945), helped form the National Organization for Women (NOW), published works on race discrimination and sex discrimination, developed new legal theories, was the first to found departments of African American Studies and Women’s Studies at Brandeis University, and wrote two autobiographies4. She also developed a 20-year plus friendship, with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, leaving an impressive exchange of letters, a reflection of their warm relationship that only ended on the First Lady’s death in 1962. Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-2020) would be the first to admit the influence that Pauli Murray had on her efforts to bring an end to sex discrimination, by challenging laws particularly written and designed to limit the rights of women. Ginsburg, too, was a woman of focus and ambition who excelled in her studies despite facing discrimination on the basis of sex at almost every turn. After graduating with a BA, as the highest ranking female in her Cornell University class, she enrolled at Harvard Law School. At the outset, the Dean invited all 9 women (in a class with 500 men) to dinner and had each of them stand and justify why she should be at the law school, occupying a place that could have gone to a male. After two years, Ginsburg and her 4 “Proud Shoes” gives great historical context for her family from slavery forward. Pauli Murray, (first pub. 1956; Beacon Press, 1999). “Songs in a Weary Throat: Memoir of an American Pilgrimage” by Pauli Murray (first pub. 1987 posthumously, Liveright, 2018). 2 husband decided to relocate to New York, and Ginsburg requested to transfer to Columbia and still receive a Harvard Law degree as several males had done before. It was denied. She could transfer but she would not get a Harvard Law degree. After completing her third year at Columbia Law, and graduating jointly first in her class, no law firm would hire Ginsburg, because she was a woman. Again, she was experiencing discrimination on the basis of sex. Ginsburg would not accept defeat but went on to create her own record of firsts and onlies. She served as a briefing clerk for the federal court in New York, worked on international law at Columbia, learned Swedish and traveled to Sweden where she co-wrote a book on Swedish civil procedure; she taught at Rutgers Law School where she founded the Women’s Rights Law Reporter (the first of its kind), and during that time began her systematic effort to destroy the discriminatory laws that denied basic rights to women. She returned to Columbia Law where she became their first female tenured professor, and co-authored the first ever case book on sex discrimination. She co-founded the Women’s Rights Project. Ginsburg co-wrote (with the ACLU) the brief in the Supreme Court case, Reed v. Reed, which struck down Idaho’s law preferring the male parent to handle a deceased child’s estate. Ginsburg relied heavily on Murray’s sociological theories to win Civil Rights cases, and credited Murray as an honorary co-author on the Reed brief. Because of the Reed v. Reed case, hundreds of discriminatory laws have been changed. It was Murray who first argued to extend the Fourteenth Amendment against race discrimination to address sex discrimination. While at Howard Law School, Murray developed the concept of “Jane Crow” laws (a take off on Jim Crow), and first gave a speech on this theory in 1964. In 1965, she co-wrote and published an article on the Jane Crow theory. 3 After her success in the very important Reed case, Ginsburg commented about the sex discrimination legal theories by referring to Murray and her legal counterpart, Dorothy Kenyon: “We owed them so much, for they kept the idea – and the hope alive. We’re standing on their shoulders. We’re saying the same things they said, but now at last society is ready to listen.” Pauli Murray was a self-described pilgrim and imp. She was a trooper, a crusader, a tireless advocate who could not abide any injustice, a brilliant mind, a legal scholar, a labor organizer, a teacher, a poet, an author, a priest and a ground breaker. When asked in 1950 to write a pamphlet summarizing the racially discriminatory laws throughout the South, Murray wrote a 776 page, critically acclaimed book, “States Laws on Race and Color”, citing laws and other information from 48 states. In 1954, when Thurgood Marshall briefed and successfully argued the case of Brown v. Board of Education, he relied heavily on this book, calling it the “Bible” of the Civil Rights Movement. Today, it is described on Amazon as “[a] remarkable, hard-to-find resource ... an exhaustive compilation of state laws and local ordinances in effect in 1950 ....” Marshall also relied heavily on Murray’s use of sociological theories to make his winning legal arguments in Brown. In 1971, when Ginsburg and her husband were preparing to argue the history-making case of Moritz v. Commissioner (1971) in the federal 10th Circuit Court, Murray was one of the mock trial judges – the only female. Interestingly, in that seminal case that extended the care giver tax deduction to both sexes, the plaintiff was a male. Without question, the Hon. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a brilliant lawyer, law professor, and only the second female justice to serve on the United States Supreme Court, made great strides and progress in ending legal discrimination against women. But we can never forget the unsung 4 hero, the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray, Esq. who has never been given her due as the one who laid the foundation upon which Justice Ginsburg built. We must give due credit to Pauli Murray. And Justice Ginsburg would be the first to say so. 5.