Schenken Suzanne O’Dea. From Suffrage to the Senate: An Encyclopedia of American Women in Politics (2 Volumes)

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health hazards, concerns about the drug’s risk grew. Some medical au-

thorities advised against using it, whereas others argued that it was safe.

The Pill, unpleasant experiences with physicians, and other factors con-

tributed to women’s wanting explanations of medical terms and proce-

dures and more information about their bodies and health care alterna-

tives. Women read medical journals and other medical sources, formed

discussion groups to share their knowledge, and established clinics. The

Boston Women’s Health Clinic published Our Bodies, Ourselves in 1969

and gave new energy to women’s quest to understand and control their

own bodies.

A variety of women’s health issues emerged as visible political issues

in 1986 when the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues (CCWI) chal-

lenged health research priorities and practices and sought remedies for the

exclusion of women and minorities from clinical studies of drugs and other

medical treatments. In 1990, CCWI introduced the Women’s Health Equity

Act, parts of which passed Congress that year and in subsequent years.

The National Breast Cancer Coalition emerged as a powerful lobby

in the early 1990s, dramatically increasing research funding for the dis-

ease. In 1991, the group sought to generate 175,000 letters to Congress

and the president, choosing the number because it represents the number

of women annually diagnosed with breast cancer. They surpassed their

goal, and 600,000 letters supporting breast cancer research went to mem-

bers of Congress and the president. The letters of support helped increase

funding to $145 million for 1992, about $52 million more than in 1991,

or a 55 percent increase. In 1993, the coalition succeeded in increasing the

appropriation by $325 million, an increase of 160 percent over 1992.

See also Abortion; Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues; Dennett, Mary

Coffin Ware; Roe v. Wade; Sanger, Margaret Louise Higgins; Women’s Health

Equity Act

References Bingham, Women on the Hill: Challenging the Culture of Congress

(1997); Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 103rd Congress, 1st Session...1993

(1994); Linden-Ward and Green, American Women in the 1960s: Changing the

Future (1993).

Heckler, Margaret Mary O’Shaughnessy (b. 1931)

Republican Margaret Heckler of Massachusetts served in the U.S. House

of Representatives from 3 January 1967 to 3 January 1983. Heckler was

secretary of health and human services from 1983 to 1985 and ambassa-

dor to Ireland from 1985 to 1989. As a member of Congress, Heckler

worked for federal funding of child day care for low-income families,

sought to protect the pension rights of employed women on maternity

leave, and advocated establishing shelters for victims of domestic violence.

Heckler, Margaret Mary O’Shaughnessy 325

A leading proponent of the Equal Rights Amendment, she cosponsored

the measure to extend the deadline for its ratification. With Congress-

woman Elizabeth Holtzman (D-NY), she founded the Congresswoman’s

Caucus, later known as the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues, in

1977 and served as its cochair for five years. Heckler lost the race for a

ninth term.

President Ronald Reagan appointed her secretary of health and hu-

man services in 1983. In that office, Heckler established new guidelines for

Social Security disability programs, campaigned to increase funding for

research and patient care for people with acquired immunodeficiency

syndrome (AIDS) and Alzheimer’s disease, and supported tax credits for

day care.

Born in Flushing, New York, Heckler studied at the University of Lei-

den in the Netherlands in 1952, earned her bachelor’s degree from Alber-

tus Magnus College in 1953, and received her law degree from Boston

College Law School in 1956. Heckler entered politics as a member of the

Wellesley Town Meeting, serving from 1958 to 1966.

See also Abortion; Cabinets, Women in Presidential; Congress, Women in;

Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues; Equal Rights Amendment;

Holtzman, Elizabeth

References H. W. Wilson, Current Biography Yearbook, 1983 (1983); Office of the

Historian, U.S. House of Representatives, Women in Congress, 1917–1990

(1991).

Height, Dorothy Irene (b. 1912)

President of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) for more

than forty years, Dorothy Height has been an advocate for women’s rights

and African American rights. An adviser to Eleanor Roosevelt and a civil

rights strategist, Height’s leadership extended from the neighborhood to

the international levels.

Born in Richmond, Virginia, Height earned a college scholarship by

winning a national oratorical contest sponsored by the Elks Club. Height

applied to Barnard College, but the school told her that it already had two

African American students and that she would have to wait a term for ad-

mission. Accepted at New York University, she earned her bachelor’s and

master’s degrees there and later studied at the New York School of Social

Work .

In 1937 Height joined the Young Women’s Christian Association’s

(YWCA) staff at its Harlem branch and NCNW, two associations that

worked together to enhance her effectiveness as a civil rights advocate. A

leader in both organizations, she became a member of the YWCA’s na-

tional board in 1944. Height led the YWCA’s campaign to integrate pub-

326 Height, Dorothy Irene

lic swimming pools in the early 1960s, helped develop and was director of

the YWCA’s Center for Racial Justice, and directed a voter registration

drive sponsored by the YWCA and a New York City radio station. She

worked to bring black and white women together in several Alabama

communities, hoping that talking to each other might help them work to-

gether. Height retired from the YWCA in 1977.

Elected NCNW president in 1957, she gained tax-exempt status for

the organization, a change that helped it attract large foundation grants.

Also under her leadership, NCNW established the Mary McLeod Bethune

Museum and Archives for Black Women’s History and led the campaign

to erect the Bethune statue in Washington, D.C., the first memorial to an

African American in that city. Height organized Black Family Reunion

celebrations to affirm the importance of strengthening black families and

expanded NCNW programs to include child care centers in urban and ru-

ral areas, housing initiatives, health care, and career education for girls.

She retired from the NCNW presidency in 1997.

Height has testified before congressional committees in a wide range

of areas, including the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, the war on

poverty, the Economic Opportunity Act Amendments of 1967, housing

legislation, Social Security and welfare proposals, extension of the ratifi-

cation deadline for the Equal Rights Amendment, teen pregnancy, and

racism in National Football League field management, recruitment, and

hiring practices. National president of Delta Sigma Theta sorority from

Height, Dorothy Irene 327

Dorothy Height

(center), president of

the National Council

of Negro Women,

talked with Susan

Taylor, editor of

Essence magazine,

and poet Maya

Angelou at a national

teleconference, 1997

(Associated Press AP)

1947 to 1956, Height was a founder of the National Women’s Political

Caucus in 1971.

See also Bethune, Mary Jane McLeod; Delta Sigma Theta Sorority; Equal Rights

Amendment; National Council of Negro Women; National Women’s Political

Caucus; YWCA of the USA

References Hardy, American Women Civil Rights Activists (1993); Hine, ed.,

Black Women in America (1993); New York Times, 13 August 1979;

www.ncnw.com.

Herman, Alexis Margaret (b. 1947)

Alexis Herman became secretary of labor in 1997, the first African Amer-

ican to hold the position and the highest-ranking African American

woman in President Bill Clinton’s cabinet. She began her public service

career as director of the Women’s Bureau in 1977, making her the senior

black woman in the Labor Department. She was also the youngest direc-

tor in the bureau’s history. Herman focused her efforts on eliminating dis-

crimination based on gender, age, and race. She believed that the prob-

lems facing women included limited marketable job skills, the availability

of child care, and rigid work schedules. After Ronald Reagan’s election, she

left government service and in 1981 started her own consulting firm to

help businesses comply with affirmative action training programs.

She worked in Jesse Jackson’s 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns,

coordinating his activities at each Democratic National Convention

(DNC). DNC chairman Ron Brown appointed her his chief of staff in

1989 and then deputy party chairwoman, a position she held until 1991.

As chief executive officer of the 1992 DNC Committee, Herman’s man-

agement of the convention contributed to Bill Clinton’s increased popu-

larity immediately after he received the party’s presidential nomination.

Following Clinton’s election in 1992, Herman became deputy direc-

tor of the Clinton-Gore Presidential Transition Office. Appointed assis-

tant to the president, director of the Public Liaison Office, she provided a

link between the White House and the public and worked with several

special interest groups. Herman’s ability to work with disparate groups

and to bring them together on issues contributed to her selection as sec-

retary of labor in 1997. Her priorities include increasing the number of

job-retraining programs, welfare-to-work programs involving businesses,

and company-based child day care centers as well as implementing pen-

sion reform and new initiatives in job safety.

Born in Mobile, Alabama, Herman attended Heart of Mary Roman

Catholic High School, a school for African Americans. During her sopho-

more year, she confronted a diocesan official and asked him to explain the

reasons her school did not have the same annual religious pageant that

328 Herman, Alexis Margaret

was held at the white schools in the diocese. The school suspended her for

the question but readmitted her after parents of other African American

students protested. Herman earned her bachelor’s degree from Xavier

University in 1969 and did graduate work at the University of South Al-

abama from 1970 to 1972. After graduating from college, Herman re-

turned to Mobile and helped desegregate the city’s parochial schools.

See also Affirmative Action; Cabinets, Women in Presidential; Women’s Bureau

References H. W. Wilson, Current Biography Yearbook, 1998 (1998); New York

Times, 31 August 1994, 21 December 1996.

Hernandez, Aileen Clarke (b. 1926)

The first woman appointed to the Equal Employment Opportunity Com-

mission (EEOC), African American Aileen Hernandez was a founder and

the second president of the National Organization for Women (NOW)

and a founder of the National Women’s Political Caucus. Hernandez be-

gan her civil rights activism in the mid-1940s, picketing the National The-

ater, Lisner Auditorium, and a restaurant chain to protest segregation.

From 1951 to 1961, she worked for the International Ladies’ Garment

Workers Union (ILGWU) as an organizational assistant, assistant educa-

tional director, and director of public relations and education. She was as-

sistant chief of the California Fair Employment Practices Commission

from 1962 to 1965.

In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson appointed Hernandez to the

EEOC, created the year before as part of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act

of 1964 to enforce prohibitions against employment discrimination on

Hernandez, Aileen Clarke 329

Secretary of Labor

Alexis Herman was

the first African

American to hold the

position, 1997

(Associated Press AP)

the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex. She played a piv-

otal role in changing airline companies’ policy of firing stewardesses when

they married, but she privately acknowledged that the EEOC was weak

and that women needed an organization comparable to the National As-

sociation for the Advancement of Colored People. She explained: “Behind

the scenes, I was actively involved in getting women’s organizations

protesting some of the things that were not happening at the commission.”

After eighteen months, Hernandez left the commission out of frustration

with the poor progress made in enforcing laws against discrimination.

A founding member of NOW, Hernandez served as executive vice

president of the organization from 1966 to 1970 and as president from 1970

to 1971. She was elected executive vice president, effective after the date of

her resignation from the EEOC. She saw the repeal of abortion laws, free

day care centers, equal employment opportunities, and passage of the Equal

Rights Amendment (ERA) as the organization’s priorities. In 1970 and

1971, Hernandez appeared before congressional committees in support of

the ERA and in 1973 offered testimony on women’s economic problems.

Hernandez said that NOW had an “embarrassingly elitist and mid-

dle-class image,” one that she hoped to change by addressing problems

confronting low-income women and women in menial jobs. After leaving

the presidency, she created the Minority Women’s Task Force in 1972 and

organized a minority women’s survey. The survey highlighted the sense of

isolation felt by minority women that she had articulated.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Hernandez earned her bachelor’s de-

gree in political science and sociology from Howard University in 1947

and graduated from the ILGWU labor college in 1951. She also attended

the University of Oslo in Norway, New York University, the University of

California at Los Angeles, and the University of Southern California, re-

ceiving her master’s degree from Los Angeles State College in 1959.

See also Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VII; Equal Employment Opportunity

Commission; Equal Rights Amendment; National Organization for Women;

National Women’s Political Caucus

References H. W. Wilson, Current Biography Yearbook, 1971 (1971); Hardy,

American Women Civil Rights Activists (1993); New York Times, 2 May 1970.

Hicks, (Anna) Louise Day (b. 1923)

Democrat Louise Hicks of Massachusetts served in the U.S. House of Rep-

resentatives from 3 January 1971 to 3 January 1973. Hicks started her po-

litical career as a member of the Boston School Committee in 1961, where

she opposed busing to integrate public schools. From 1963 until a court-

ordered plan went into effect in 1974, Hicks led Boston’s antibusing sup-

porters, insisting that she favored neighborhood schools. An unsuccessful

330 Hicks, (Anna) Louise Day

candidate for mayor of Boston in 1967, she was later elected to the Boston

City Council, serving from 1969 to 1971. As a member of Congress, Hicks

continued her opposition to school busing. She supported voluntary

school prayer and tax credits for students attending private schools and

worked for proposals to allow direct federal aid to low-income students

and to allow tax credits to parents of students attending nonpublic

schools. When her district was redrawn after reapportionment, she lost

her attempt for a second term.

Born in South Boston, Louise Hicks graduated from Wheelock

Teachers’ College in 1938 and taught elementary school for two years. She

completed her bachelor of science degree in education in 1955 at Boston

University and earned her law degree from Boston University School of

Law in 1958.

See also Congress, Women in

References Schoenebaum, ed., Political Profiles: The Nixon/Ford Years (1979).

Hill, Anita Faye (b. 1956)

Law professor Anita Hill became a national figure in October 1991 when

she accused U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexually

harassing her when he was her boss. Her televised testimony before the

U.S. Senate’s Judiciary Committee brought sexual harassment to the na-

tion’s attention in unprecedented ways. In addition, the image of the com-

mittee of white men questioning an African American woman about the

experience outraged many women across the nation, motivating some of

them to become candidates for public office and resulting in record num-

bers of women serving in Congress following the 1992 elections.

Hill’s accusations stemmed from the years she had been Thomas’s as-

sistant, beginning in 1981, when he was assistant secretary for civil rights

in the U.S. Department of Education. Three months after they began

working together, Thomas suggested a social relationship, but Hill de-

clined because she did not want to mix her personal and professional lives

and she was not attracted to him. Thomas then began scheduling lunch

meetings with Hill and turned the topic to his sexual interests, topics that

Hill explained she did not want to discuss. Eventually, Hill had fewer per-

sonal conversations with Thomas, and his objectionable behavior stopped.

By 1982, Hill was concerned that the Department of Education would

be abolished and that her job would end. When Thomas was appointed

head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), he of-

fered Hill a position as his assistant, and she accepted it. Hill’s responsibil-

ities included reviewing the commission’s position on sexual harassment in

the workplace as part of its antidiscrimination enforcement mandate. In

Hill, Anita Faye 331

the process, Hill realized that the EEOC had pursued cases involving be-

havior similar to what she had endured. She did not discuss the matter

with Thomas because it embarrassed her. She did not file a charge against

him, believing that the outcome was uncertain. (The U.S. Supreme Court

did not decide that sexual harassment was sex discrimination until 1986.)

Later in 1982, Thomas resumed making comments containing sexual in-

nuendo to Hill.

When Hill received a job offer to teach at Oral Roberts University, it

appealed to her because it offered her an escape from Thomas. In 1986, Hill

accepted a teaching position at the University of Oklahoma College of Law.

When President George Bush nominated Thomas to the U.S.

Supreme Court in 1991, one of Senator Howard Metzenbaum’s aides re-

ceived a tip that Thomas had sexually harassed Hill when she had worked

for him in the 1980s. In response to an inquiry and because she had been

told that her response would be confidential, Hill prepared a statement

that was part of a report sent to Senate Judiciary Committee members.

During the Judiciary Committee’s hearings on Thomas’s nomina-

tion, Hill’s allegations were not considered. The committee voted seven to

seven on Thomas’s nomination and sent its report with no recommenda-

tion to the Senate. During Senate debate, Hill’s name and other material

were leaked to Newsday and to National Public Radio. On 6 October 1991,

when both news agencies made the information public, some observers

believed that President Bush would withdraw Thomas’s name after learn-

ing of the sexual harassment allegations Hill had made. Instead, Thomas’s

confirmation procedure continued.

332 Hill, Anita Faye

Anita Hill, whose

sexual harassment

allegations against

Clarence Thomas

nearly derailed his

appointment to the

U.S. Supreme Court,

discussed the Lewin-

sky scandal while at

the University of

Southern California,

1998 (Associated

Press AP)

On Tuesday, 8 October 1991, three Democratic senators used their

one-minute speeches to challenge and protest Thomas’s pending confir-

mation. Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder (D-CO) organized a group of

seven Democratic women members of the House to go to the Senate to

explain to senators their concerns regarding Thomas’s potential confir-

mation and their belief that the charges against him were serious. Televi-

sion cameras and newspaper photographers recorded the women’s march

on the Senate and sent the image across the nation. Their action, along

with public pressure, led to the Senate’s reopening of Thomas’s hearings.

From Friday, 11 October 1991, to Sunday, 13 October 1991, the Sen-

ate hearings on Hill’s allegations of Thomas’s sexual harassment captured

both the media’s and the public’s attention. Throughout the hearings, the

committee focused its questions on Hill’s integrity, her recollections, and

her veracity rather than on Thomas’s behavior or the general issue of sex-

ual harassment. Even though three other women had been identified as tar-

gets of sexual harassment by Thomas, the committee refused to call them

or an expert on sexual harassment as witnesses. The committee members’

seeming intent to discredit Hill outraged women across the country, who

viewed the committee’s questions as unwarranted attacks on Hill.

In unprecedented ways, however, the nation focused on the question

of sexual harassment, what constituted it, and what the consequences of it

should be. In the months following the hearing, the number of formal

sexual harassment complaints filed with the EEOC increased more than

50 percent. Women’s political organizations gained new members and re-

ceived increased financial support following the hearings. Several women

ran for and won political office, among them Carol Moseley-Braun, who

became the first African American woman to serve in the U.S. Senate, and

Cynthia McKinney, for whom Hill provided “a moral context” for her de-

cision to run for the U.S. House of Representatives.

Hill returned to teaching at the University of Oklahoma College of

Law, but she experienced a great deal of backlash from other professors

and even from the Oklahoma legislature, which tried to revoke her posi-

tion. She was a visiting professor at the University of California at Berke-

ley and eventually moved on to Brandeis University.

Born near Morris, Oklahoma, Anita Hill earned her bachelor of science

degree from Oklahoma State University in 1977 and her law degree from

Yale Law School in 1980. She was in private practice from 1980 to 1981.

See also Congress, Women in; Equal Employment Opportunity Commission;

McKinney, Cynthia Ann; Moseley-Braun, Carol; Schroeder, Patricia Nell Scott;

Sexual Harassment

References Boxer, Strangers in the Senate (1994); Hill, Speaking Truth to Power

(1997).

Hill, Anita Faye 333

Hills, Carla Helen Anderson (b. 1934)

Carla Hills served as U.S. secretary of housing and urban development from

March 1975 to January 1977 and as special trade representative from 1989 to

1993. Hills began her public service career in 1974 as assistant attorney gen-

eral in charge of the civil division of the Department of Justice, the highest-

ranking woman in the department. President Gerald Ford appointed her

secretary of housing and urban development in 1975, making her the third

woman to hold a cabinet-level position. A fiscal conservative, she focused on

rehabilitating existing housing for low- and moderate-income families

rather than on new construction. Hills generally opposed public housing,

characterized it as wasteful and expensive, and supported rent subsidies in-

stead. Hills served until 1977 and then went into a private law practice.

Hills returned to public life in 1989 when President George Bush ap-

pointed her U.S. trade representative. As President Bush’s principal ad-

viser on international trade policy and the nation’s chief trade negotiator,

she helped negotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Gen-

eral Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and agreements with Japanese com-

panies to open their markets to U.S. imports. During negotiations to limit

European governments’ assistance to farmers, the talks came to a stale-

mate and Hills threatened to impose prohibitive tariffs on French wines

and other products. Instead of the international trade war that observers

predicted, Hills negotiated an agreement acceptable to both the European

Community and the United States.

Born in Los Angeles, California, Hills studied at St. Hilda’s College in

Oxford, England, in 1954 and earned her bachelor’s degree from Stanford

University in 1955 and her law degree from Yale University in 1958.

See also Cabinets, Women in Presidential

References H. W. Wilson, Current Biography Yearbook, 1993 (1993); New York

Times, 14 February 1975, 7 December 1988, 18 December 1992; Schoenebaum,

ed., Political Profiles: The Nixon/Ford Years (1979).

Hishon v. King and Spalding (1984)

Elizabeth Hishon worked for King and Spalding, a large law firm that had

more than fifty partners and about fifty associate attorneys. The firm had

never had a woman partner in 1980, when Hishon filed her lawsuit ac-

cusing the firm of sex discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil

Rights Act of 1964. When she had been recruited in 1972 by the law firm,

she had been led to believe that, after five or six years, advancement to

partner was a matter of course for associates whose work was satisfactory.

After working for the firm for twelve years as an associate, she had not

been invited to become a partner, prompting the lawsuit. The district

334 Hills, Carla Helen Anderson