BARNARD PANEL FOCUSES ON WOMEN AND PUBLIC POLICY
From left: Barnard President Judith Shapiro, NY State Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Chai Feldblum '79, Laurie Rubiner '84,
and Marsha Coleman-Adebayo '74 |
“Public policy affected my life directly,” Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo ’74 told a Barnard audience on Wednesday, April 11. Coleman-Adebayo, executive director of the No FEAR Institute and senior policy analyst for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, was one of four experts sharing the dais with President Judith Shapiro at “Making the Rules: A Conversation about Women Shaping Public Policy.” The evening program was co-sponsored by Barnard’s New York City Civic Engagement Program, the Barnard Leadership Initiative, the Alumnae Association, Disability Services, the Barnard Center for Research on Women, and Barnard’s grant-funded Identity, Community and Belonging Project.
Also on the panel were Chai Feldblum ’79, Georgetown University professor of law and Moral Values Project founder, who led the fight for the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act and is now co-director of Workplace Flexibility 2010; Laurie Rubiner ’84, legislative director for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton; and New York State Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins, who defeated longtime incumbent Nick Spano in the 2006 election for the seat representing Westchester County. Guided by President Shapiro’s questions, each panelist spoke of her personal background and of the lessons she has learned in policy battles waged in the political arena.
Coleman-Adebayo said that while she had a secure upbringing in Detroit, she encountered a different world during childhood visits to the segregated South. She and her relatives were barred from swimming in the local pool, and endured endless waits in stores — constantly stepping aside to let white customers go ahead, because no matter how long they’d been waiting, black customers couldn’t pay the cashier once a white customer joined the line.
Coleman-Adebayo further said that the racism she experienced when she went to work for the federal government was the worst she’d ever experienced. As an EPA whistleblower, she suffered unending harassment, and eventually won the landmark discrimination case that inspired the passage of the Notification and Federal Employee Anti-discrimination and Retaliation (No FEAR) Act in 2002. (Read more about Coleman-Adebayo in this 2002 Barnard Alumna in Action profile).
Feldblum recalled her experiences as a member of Bill Clinton’s transition team in the early 1990’s, and told a cautionary tale about being outmaneuvered by U.S. Senator Sam Nunn and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell during the formulation of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy governing gays and lesbians — resulting in ineffectual guidelines that reinforced rather than ended discrimination. Rubiner, who worked for U.S. Senator John Chafee before joining Senator Hillary Clinton’s staff, said the passage of beneficial laws depended on the “bully pulpit” of a supportive White House, and that she had learned the hard way that activists and policymakers need to find common ground with those holding other views. Stewart-Cousins recalled her fight to establish a human rights commission in Westchester County in the face of strong opposition. And she advised students to start locally as political activists and public policy advocates, saying the dynamics are the same at all levels of society and government, and that “you can learn everything” at the community level.
The panelists also had much to say about the attitudes and obstacles women still face in the formulation of public policy, and in careers in the public sector.
“Our lifetimes are very short, and these are long struggles” Coleman-Adebayo said. “Life is a power struggle and as a woman, your leadership is constantly challenged by men.”
Rubiner said that, after tiring of her subordinate role at male-dominated meetings in Washington, she went back to school late in her career and received her law degree at the age of 40. She reminded the audience that the U.S. Senate is still overwhelmingly a white male bastion, and that until the late 1990’s, women were not allowed to wear pants on the Senate floor. Feldblum said that self-confident women tend to be better than self-confident men at hearing others and being good negotiators, but that women often tended to stay in the background and not “take up space.” Stewart-Cousins agreed that women must overcome self-doubt, and said that she’d done so after starting life as “a child of the Amsterdam Projects” — a low-income public-housing development on Manhattan’s west side.
While the panelists differed on the efficacy of mass mobilization in the streets versus negotiation in the halls of power, all encouraged the young audience members to take their place in the battles over public policy.
“Are you optimistic at this point in history?” one student asked. The panelists responded that the current political moment is a window of opportunity that must not be ignored or wasted.
“I’m optimistic if everybody stays awake,” Stewart-Cousins said. |
