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Celebrating Women Who Pioneered
Litigation at the League
Blog / Last Updated: ttlay 2,2023
In March 2023, LWV staff met with four women attorneys – Trudy Levy, Katherine
Mazzaf.erri, Cynthia Hill, and Maureen Thornton Syracuse – who pioneered the
League’s litigation work between the 1970s and 1990s. The goal was to learn about
their experiences iitigating alongside Leagues during those critical decades.
About the League’s Litigation Department
The litigation department of the League of Women Voters Education Fund was
established in 1973.
By 1,975, the Ford Foundation funded a substantial litigation grant for the League
of Women Voters Education Fund (LWVEF) as part of Ford’s ground-breaking
initiative to launch the first public interest law firms. The grant supported
iitigation conducted by the litigation department and efforts to encourage Leagues
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to consider litigation as an advocacy tool. These were the early days of public
interest law, and the League focused on equal access and rights.
Expanding Women’s Opportunities in the Workplace
Katherine Mazzaferri and Trudy Levy pioneered landmark litigation to open
up opportunities for women nationwide in nontraditional jobs, most notably in the
construction trades.
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With Joan Graff of Equal Rights Advocates, they served as lead counsel in the case
of.AdvocatesforWomenv. Marshall.Mazzaferri noted: “The challenge that the LWVEF
initially sought to address was the reality that despite Title VII and Executive Order
11.246, as amended, which required affirmative action by federai contractors,
women were excluded from construction jobs and/or harassed and discriminated
against after they were hired.” This case was groundbreaking in its long-lasting,
nationwide impact. In furtherance of the litigation, the LWVEF pushed for
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regulations to establish goals and timetables for federal contractors and federally
funded apprenticeship programs.
Following this successful litigation, Maureen Thornton Syracuse and Cynthia Hill
partnered with Equal Rights Advocates to monitor compliance with its regulations,
In 1980, the two organizations filed an administrative petition to prohibit
maximum age limits in apprenticeship programs, which were barriers to women’s
access to training in skills to succeed in those jobs.
During the seventies, Levy and Mazzaferri also worked as local counsel with the
Women’s Rights Project (WRP) on an initiative co-founded by then-attorney and
law professor Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Owens v. Brown. This was a seminal case
brought by lead counsel Jill Laurie Goodman, Susan Deller Ross, and Marjorie M.
Smith centering on the question of enlisted women serving on Navy vessels.
The decision, authored by Judge John Sirica, struck down a federal statute
prohibiting women from serving on Navy vessels. Judge Sirica found that the law
the Navy was using to limit the assignments of women violated the equai
protection guarantee in the 14th Amendment. At that time, 25,000 women were
serving in the Navy.
Supporting the Right to Vote
Moving into the eighties, the litigation department also focused on voting rights,
affirmative action, and employment discrimination.
Hill and Syracuse worked with the LWVUS and state and local Leagues in
monitoring, filing comments to the Justice Department, and providing testimony
to Congress on enforcement of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). According to Hill, “These
efforts wetre especially crucial in the early to mid-1980s due to the 1,982 extension
of the VRA, reapportionment, and redistricting after the 1980 census, and
proposed revisions by the Department of Justice to VRA Section 5 procedures to
cover new bailout procedures.” The Leagues and other organizations achieved
meaningfui changes to the proposed procedures.
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Unfortunately, the United States Supreme Court 2Ol3 decision in Shelby Countyv.
Holder invalidated the VRA’s Section 4(blcoverage provisions, effectively gutting
enforcement of Section 5. In light of this hit to voting equity, it is important to
remember the League’s past experiences in protecting voting rights and use them
as inspiration for the present.
Litigation staff aiso worked with state and locai Leagues through the 1970s and
1980s, conducting regional workshops on working with lawyers and distributing
educational materials. One of the major LWVEF publications funded by the Ford
grant, Going to Court in the Public Interest, outiined the need for organizations to
engage in iitigation to make a change. It was shared widely with local and state
Leagues and the public.
In some cases, both LWVEF and state Leagues filed briefs.InGalbraithv. Celeste,tn
the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas, the Ohio League and the LWVEF
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litigation department filed amicus briefs arguing that election officials had an
affirmative duty to facilitate voter registration. The ACLU of Ohio Foundation
joined the Ohio League, while the LWVEF brief included LWVUS and other national
organizations to support the state amici.
LWV Litigation Now
In recent years, LWVEF and state Leagues have engaged in hundreds of cases
dealing with voting rights, voter registration, health care, climate change, and gun
safety. The League of Women Voters of the United States has just created a Legal
eentet where you can find national, state, and local litigation.
Recent cases include
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LWVNC v. Rttcho. which challenged North Caroiina’s 201,6 redistricting plan
as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander and a violation of the First and
Fourteenth Amendments;
Moore v. Harper, in which the LWVUS and Leagues from all 50 states and the
District of Columbia filed an amicus brief before the Supreme Court. Moore v.
Harper concerns the so-called “independent state legislature theory” (ISLT),
which, if adopted, would have far-reaching implications for the future of
American democracy; and
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. the 2022 Supreme Court
decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthoodv. Casey and
ended the federal constitutional right to abortion.
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As we move forward in the courts, it is gratifying to look back at the early days of
League iitigation and hear from the women who worked to establish the League’s
litigation work that still exists today.