Swanson, Jane E.

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Women and the Law Seventh National Conference

University of Baltimore School of Law

University of Baltimore Law ForumVolume 6Number 4 April, 1976 Article 34-1976Women and the Law Seventh National ConferenceJane E. SwansonFollow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/lfPart of the Law CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@University of Baltimore School of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion inUniversity of Baltimore Law Forum by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@University of Baltimore School of Law. For more information,please contact snolan@ubalt.edu.Recommended CitationSwanson, Jane E. (1976) "Women and the Law Seventh National Conference," University of Baltimore Law Forum: Vol. 6: No. 4, Article3.Available at: http://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/lf/vol6/iss4/3Women and the Law Women and the Law Seventh National Conference I by Jane E. Swanson The seventh National Conference on Women and the Law, the third in which the University of Baltimore women have participated, was held in Philadelphia, March, 12-14, 1976. Billed as, "A forum for the examination of women's current status in the American legal, political, and economic system ... an opportunity for law students, lawyers and other feminists to share expertise on substan-tive legal issues and to develop strategies for litigation and political action," the conference lived up to its promise. The SBNESBA and THE FORUM contrib-uted support to permit seventeen women law students to attend. The nearby loca-tion permitted carpooling and minimal travel expense, in contrast to the two years preceeding when this conference was held in Texas and in California. Rep-resenting the University of Baltimore's Women's Law Cauc'Us were Judith Bil-lage, Laurie Bortz, Linda Boyd, Virginia Cam ella, Marianne Davis, Jana Guy, Meg Holland, Kathy Howard, Shelly Mintz, Harriet Neusbaum, Natalie Rees, Joanne Robertson, Susan Scholdt, Janet Stilwell, Anita Stuppler, Sally Swann, and Jane Swanson. This year's conference was hosted by Temple University; registration and workshops on Friday and Saturday were located on the Temple campus and headquartered in the Law Center. Saturday evening the conference [TIJ THE FORUM moved to the Bellevue Stratford Hotel, where most of the attendees were regis-tered, and the evening's events and Sunday workshops were held in the hotel. The Saturday night festivities began with a banquet, followed by the keynote address by Eleanor Holmes Norton, Chairperson of the New York Commis-sion on Human Rights, Executive Assis-tant to the Mayor, and Assistant Profes-sor of Law at New York University. Ms. Norton is familiar to this assembly, hav-ing delivered the keynote speech at the Fifth National Conference of Women and the Law in 1974. The highlight of Saturday night was the one-woman show put on by Ivy Bottini. She calls her show "The Many Faces of Woman," a form of "visual consciousness raising." Her handmade jewelry, printed sweat-shirts, and other artifacts, all stamped with her "WOMEN POWER" logo sold like the proverbial hotcakes on Sunday. Ms. Bottini has a long history in feminism and was a founding member of the first N.O.W. chapter, as well as having held both New York and national offices in the organization. Two years ago Anita Stuppler and Jane Swanson reported having felt somewhat frantic and frustrated by the array of some nineteen workshop topics and having only seven time slots in which to cover them. That was a simple thing, compared to what confronted the attendees of this year's conference, of-fering as it did eight sessions and seventy topics. These included three on various aspects of the E.RA and nine on Title VII litigation and strategy. All of the workshops of major general interest were scheduled at least twice during the three days. Even so, there was such a feast available that it was virtually impos-sible for anyone to do more than nibble at the edges. We will describe some of the workshops attended by our representa-tives, but cannot begin to do justice to a conference of this scope. The good news about all this, however, is that all work-shops and speeches are available on cassettes from a women's firm who taped the entire conference. Obtaining some or all of these may provide a near-term project for our Women's Law Caucus. They would proVide a valuable refer-ence library and a source of practical know-how for future projects. • The Equal Rights Amendment by Janet Stilwell Workshops on the Federal Equal Rights Amendment at the 7th National conference of Women and the Law con-centrated on three general areas: the status of ratification, political and educa-tional action, and rescission. Thirty-four! of the reqUired thirty-eight states have already ratified the ERA and organized campaigns are being de-veloped in the remaining sixteen states. Deadline for approval by at least three-fourths of the states was set at March 22, 1979 when the amendment was first in-troduced. Two states2 have attempted to rescind their original ratification and sev-eral other state legislatures (including Maryland) have discussed such action either formally or informally. Ratification of the ERA is not anticipated in 1976, al-though action is still pending in Arizona, 

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Women and the Law Seventh National Conference

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