Shirley Hufstedler

Shirley Ann Mount Hufstedler (August 24, 1925 – March 30, 2016) was an American attorney and judge who served as the first United States Secretary of Education under President Jimmy Carter from November 30, 1979 to January 20, 1981. At the time of her secretarial appointment, she was the highest ranking-woman in the federal judiciary, serving as a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Shirley Hufstedler
Hufstedler in 1980
1st United States Secretary of Education
In office November 30, 1979 – January 20, 1981
President	Jimmy Carter
Preceded by	Patricia Harris (Health, Education, and Welfare)
Succeeded by	Ted Bell
Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
In office September 12, 1968 – November 30, 1979
Appointed by	Lyndon B. Johnson
Preceded by	Seat established
Succeeded by	Robert Boochever
Personal details
Born	Shirley Ann Mount August 24, 1925 Denver, Colorado, U.S.
Died	March 30, 2016 (aged 90) Glendale, California, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Seth Hufstedler
Education	University of New Mexico (BBA) Stanford University (LLB)

Early life and education

Hufstedler was born Shirley Ann Mount on August 24, 1925, in Denver, Colorado. Her mother's side of the family emigrated to the United States from Germany and were pioneers in Missouri.[1] Hufstedler's father worked in construction and during the Great Depression the family had to move frequently so he could find work.[1] As a result, she frequently changed schools and towns starting in the second grade.[1] As a child, she lived in New Mexico, Montana, California, and Wyoming.[1] A friend of her father's and famous war correspondent, Ernie Pyle, became a close friend and mentor of Hufstedler.[1] Hufstedler received a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in 1945 from the University of New Mexico and a Bachelor of Laws in 1949 from Stanford Law School.[2]

Career

Initial attempts to begin her career after graduating proved to be difficult. Her graduating class from law school included only two women, as three of them dropped out, and although she graduated at the top of her class, she was still a woman in a male dominated profession and she struggled to find employment opportunities.[3] She started writing briefs for other lawyers and picked up other similar tasks. Ultimately, she opened up her own office in Los Angeles in 1951.[3] From there, she managed to make her way to the Attorney General's Office. She served as Special Legal Consultant to the Attorney General of California in the complex Colorado River litigation before the United States Supreme Court from 1960 to 1961. In 1961, she was appointed Judge of the Los Angeles County Superior Court, by Governor Pat Brown.[4] a position to which she was elected in 1962 as a Democrat. At the time she was appointed to the Los Angeles County Superior Court, she was the only female in a group of 119 men.[5] In 1966, she was appointed Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeals.[6]

Federal judicial service

Hufstedler was nominated by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 17, 1968, to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, to a new seat authorized by 82 Stat. 184. She was confirmed by the United States Senate on September 12, 1968, and received her commission on September 12, 1968. Her service terminated on December 5, 1979, due to her resignation.[7]

Selected judicial opinions

In 1973, a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided in Lau v. Nichols that the San Francisco Unified School District had not violated the Fourteenth Amendment when it provided inadequate supplemental language support for non-English speakers. Hufstedler was not a member of this panel, but she called for the case to be reheard by the entire Ninth Circuit Court, en banc.[8] Hufstedler wrote, “access to education offered by the public schools is completely foreclosed to these children who cannot comprehend any of it” and that the decision paralleled similar arguments that were determined to be unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education.[9] Subsequently, the United States Supreme Court agreed with Hufstedler and overturned the Ninth Circuit's decision.[10]

Hufstedler authored the majority opinion in Dietemann v. Time, Inc.[11] Under the employment of Life Magazine, reporters would deceive their way into private homes and then record information and interactions between individuals in the home.[12] Hufstedler affirmed the lower court's decision that the actions taken against the occupant were an invasion of privacy.[12] This helped provide clarity on freedom of press and specifically, the limitations that the First Amendment has on protecting the freedom of press.[12]

Hufstedler was in the majority for the 1975 case Warren Jones Co. v. Commissioner. In this case, the majority decided that real estate had a certain fair market value which was determinable. Thus, taxpayers were required to include that fair market value in tax return calculations.[13]

Secretary of Education

President Jimmy Carter appointed her to be the first United States Secretary of Education in 1979.[14] As the first Secretary of Education, Hufstedler's agenda has been depicted as being focused on strengthening state and federal interrelationships, as well as educational equity.[15] Her dedication toward educational needs helped set precedent in the importance of its existence, even later preventing President Ronald Reagan's attempts to dismantle it all together after he beat President Carter in 1980.[16]

Later career

Hufstedler was considered to be a candidate for the Supreme Court if a vacancy had occurred under the Jimmy Carter presidency.[17][18] In 1981, Hufstedler returned to private life, teaching and practicing law. She was a partner in the firm Hufstedler & Kaus, now merged into Morrison & Foerster. She taught across the country, including stints at the University of California at Irvine and Santa Cruz, the University of Iowa, the University of Vermont, Stanford Law School, and the University of Oregon.[19]

Personal life

Hufstedler met her husband, Seth Hufstedler, at law school and they married in 1949.[12] They had one child, Dr. Steve Hufstedler, and four grandchildren.[12]

On March 30, 2016, Hufstedler died in Glendale, California, from cerebrovascular disease at the age of 90.[20][21] She is interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale).

Awards and honors

Hufstedler served on boards of trustees, governing boards and visiting committees for numerous foundations, institutions, corporations and universities as follows:

Honorary doctorate degrees

She was the recipient of almost 20 honorary doctoral degrees from American universities. They include:

• The Claremont University Center.[22]
• Columbia University.[22]
• Georgetown University.[22]
• Gonzaga University.[22]
*Hood College.[22]
• Mount Holyoke College.[22]
• University of Michigan.[22]
• University of New Mexico.[22]
• Occidental College.[22]
• University of the Pacific.[22]
• University of Pennsylvania.[22]
• Rutgers University.[22]
*University of Southern California.[22]
• Smith College.[22]
*Syracuse University.[22]
• Tufts University.[22]
• Tulane University.[22]
• University of Wyoming.[22]
*Yale University.[22]

Awards

Her awards includes:

• The Order of the Coif.[22]
• The Marshall-Wythe Medal (College of William and Mary).[22]
• St. Thomas More Medal (Loyola Law School).[22]
• Golden Plate Award American Academy of Achievement.[22][23]
• Woman of the Year Award (Los Angeles Times).[22]
• Woman of the Year Award (Ladies Home Journal).[22]
• University of California at Los Angeles Medal.[22]
• Herbert O. Harley Award (American Judicature Society).[22]
• Earl Warren Medal (University of Judaism).[22]
• Louis D. Brandeis Medal (University of Louisville).[22]
• Shattuck-Price Memorial Award (Los Angeles County Bar Association).[22]
• Stanford Law School Award of Merit.[22]
• American Bar Association's 1995 Gold Medal.[22]
• Margaret Brent Award (ABA Commission on Women in the Legal Profession).[22]
• The Learned Hand Award.[22]
• She the first woman to receive the American Bar Association medal.[19]

Memberships and affiliations

• Hufstedler was the first woman on the Council of the American Law Institute.[19]
• She was on the Board of Directors of Harman International Industries.[22]
• She was the emeritus director of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Salzburg Seminar.[22]
• She was a trustee of the California Institute of Technology.[22]
• She was an active member of the following: American Bar Association, American Law Institute, American Judicature Society, Association of the Bar of the City of New York, Pacific Council, International Association of Women Lawyers, Institute for Judicial Administration, Los Angeles Bar Association, National Association of Women Lawyers, State Bar of California, Town Hall, Federal Bar Association and Women Lawyers Association.[22]

• At some point, Hufstedler had also previously served on the following: Board of Trustees of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, the Institute for Judicial Administration, Natural Resources Defense Council, Council of the American Law Institute, and the governing boards of the United States Military Academy, Institute for Civil Justice, Harvard Law School, Stanford Law School, the University of Pennsylvania Law School, the University of Southern California Law Center, the Institute for Court Management, the Constitutional Rights Foundation, the Advisory Council for Appellate Justice, American Judicature Society, Center for National Policy and Occidental College.[22]
• She guest lectured in ten foreign countries: England, France, Bulgaria, Israel, Jordan, Iran, India, Nepal, Malaysia, and Sweden.[22]
• She was a delegate to the Nuclear Arms Control with Erwin Griswald from the Lawyers Alliance. At such time, she was also involved in negotiations with the Soviet Union, which lasted for almost a decade.[22]

See also

• List of female United States Cabinet Secretaries
• Presidency of Jimmy Carter
• Jimmy Carter Supreme Court candidates

References

1. "Oral History of Shirley M. Hufstedler" (PDF).
2. Roberts, Sam (31 March 2016). "Shirley Hufstedler, Judge and Cabinet's First Education Secretary, Dies at 90". New York Times. Retrieved 31 July 2017.
3. School, Stanford Law. "Judge Hufstedler: A Lifetime of Achievement | Stanford Law School". Stanford Law School. Retrieved 2018-03-07.
4. School, Stanford Law. "Remembrance: Shirley Hufstedler, LLB '49 | Stanford Law School". Stanford Law School. Retrieved 2018-04-04.
5. "Video Interview Transcript: Justice Shirley Hufstedler" (PDF).
6. Sobel, Robert (1990). Biographical Directory of the United States Executive Branch, 1774-1989. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 186. ISBN 978-0-313-26593-8.
7. Shirley Ann Mount Hufstedler at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.
8. Lau v. Nichols, 483 F. 2d 791 (9th Cir. 1973)
9. Lau v. Nichols at 805.
10. Lau v. Nichols, 414 U.S. 563 (1974)
11. Dietemann v. Time, Inc., 449 F. 2d 245 (9th Cir. 1971)
12. "Ninth Circuit Recalls Shirley M. Hufstedler". www.ca9.uscourts.gov. Retrieved 2018-03-07.
13. Warren Jones Company v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 524 F. 2d 788 (9th Cir. 1975)
14. Vile, John R. (2003). Great American Judges: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 558. ISBN 978-1-57607-989-8.
15. Stallings, D. T. (2002). "A Brief History of the U.S. Department of Education, 1979-2002". The Phi Delta Kappan. 83 (9): 677–683. doi:10.1177/003172170208300910. JSTOR 20440227. S2CID 143710532.
16. Raffel, Jeffrey A. (1998). Historical Dictionary of School Segregation and Desegregation: The American Experience. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 79. ISBN 9780313295027. ronald reagan on dismantling hufstedler department of education.
17. Newman, Roger K. (2009). The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law. Yale University Press. p. 277. ISBN 978-0-300-11300-6.
18. Biskupic, Joan (2005). Sandra Day O'Connor: How the First Woman on the Supreme Court Became Its Most Influential Justice. Ecco Press. p. 71. ISBN 978-0-06-059018-5.
19. Wharton, Joseph (1995). "ABA Honors Shirley Hufstedler: Former federal judge is first woman to be awarded ABA Medal". ABA Journal. 81 (8): 111. JSTOR 27837260.
20. Bloomberg Shirley Hufstedler, first US Education Secretary dies at 90
21. "Shirley Hufstedler, Pioneering Judge and First Cabinet-Level Education Secretary, Is Dead at 90". The New York Times.com. March 31, 2016. Retrieved April 1, 2016.
22. "SHIRLEY MOUNT HUFSTEDLER BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH" (PDF).
23. "Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement.

Sources

• Connell, Christopher (May 4, 1980). "Education chief background rich". Tuscaloosa News. AP.

External links

• Shirley Ann Mount Hufstedler at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.
• Oral History of Shirley M. Hufstedler, series of interviews with Hufstedler conducted from 2005 to 2008, sponsored by the American Bar Association
• "While Husband Seth Marks Her Absent, Shirley Hufstedler Attends to Birth of D.O.E", People article published April 28, 1980
• Shirley Hufstedler at Find a Grave
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Appearances on C-SPAN (alt)