October 27, 2022 — Thank you Flora [Wolf]. I still remember first meeting Ned [Wolf] at the Bar Association’s reception for the new chancellor in January 1969 and he inviting me to assist pro bono on what became the Law Center’s first case, attacking concentrating public housing in one section of the city. It was exactly the kind of public interest case I wanted to spend time on, and although Ned did the bulk of the work, it was the beginning of a friendship which changed my life’s work.
Accepting this award is a chance for me to think about that work and about the organization which the Law Center has become. It is 16 years since Tom Gilhool and I gave up our joint leadership roles. Listening to Brenda’s recitation of the work it is are doing makes clear that it is a place of great vitality, carrying on the passion of Thaddeus Stevens, willing to engage in fights that matter, that will improve lives and will advance social justice for so many, making this country a fairer and better place.
I know that my longevity—politely called perseverance in the program—has increased the odds of my being an awardee, and I am fortunate to be in that position. But I do feel proud that I had a role in the development of an organization that has advancing equality and social justice as its mission. No one person is responsible for its survival from the 1960s into the third decade of this century, but like the proverbial child brought up by a village, we have been supported by a vast network of persons. Indeed, if I have one lesson to preach, it is that lawyers interested in social justice cannot treat their cases as a contest of the best-reasoned law review article, but we must build up networks of support in various venues throughout society in order to create the conditions where courts will find our arguments acceptable. And, by the way, those networks are useful for raising money to pay our salaries too.
Lawyers interested in social justice cannot treat their cases as a contest of the best-reasoned law review article, but we must build up networks of support in various venues throughout society in order to create the conditions where courts will find our arguments acceptable.
Tonight I am in the impossible position of wanting to talk about those wonderful people in this wide support system that I have had the pleasure of working with—who gave the juice which lit up my days—and who are as responsible as I for the successes for which I am being honored. Some are here with us tonight, some are no longer alive, yet all are so present in my thoughts. But I only have a very limited time, so I am tempted, à la James Joyce, to just have a run on sentence with 90 to 100 names—Tom Gilhool Bob Sayre Frank Laski Judy Gran Prather Randle Jerry Balter Barbara Ransom Lisa Rau Eli Cohen Steve Gold—but I can’t, for I will omit someone deserving and the names need a story. So suffice it to say this network has included our truly extraordinary lawyers, our other highly dedicated staffers, and many board members who gave enormous amounts of time and who also courageously voted to pursue cases which challenged popular institutions, their potential clients and even the Law Center’s own funders.
It also includes leaders of our organizational clients like the ARC, Children First and the NAACP, Education Voters and many others, our pro bono partners who allow us to claim credit for so much of their work, law school professors, allies in the other legal service firms, policy advocates, and even public officials who are willing to advance our clients’ needs. And of course those clients, who have had to deal with the indignities of the poverty some were born into, the bureaucrats who abused or ignored them, the supervisors who denigrated them, and the lawyers who tried to manage them. They have chosen not to give up but to assert their claim to justice and the dignity that confers. They constantly inspired us. The people in all these groups deserve more than these poor anonymous thanks I am able to bestow.
But if I cannot speak the names of everyone, I need to at least acknowledge the indispensable support of my family who are here: my wonderful wife Tasha Stonorov, and our children Allegra, Erik and Daphne. Their own commitment to the goals of the Law Center encouraged me to continue to find the time and energy needed to persevere. Most importantly, it was Tasha’s passion in her Philadelphia classrooms for inspiring 2nd graders to develop a love of learning and confidence in themselves–which I would hear about nightly—which is the source of my understanding of what is at stake for our students and how we cannot afford to fail more generations of them. Thank you Tasha.
And I would be totally derelict not to celebrate the contributions of the other leaders of the Law Center. Ned Wolf, with his whole family support system including Flora, over eight years did the hard work of establishing the framework and setting high quality standards. Unfairness takes many forms, and in Ned’s case remarkable perseverance sadly was not the same thing as longevity. Tom Gilhool, who was my closest friend, was co-director for 30 years except for when he was Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Education, and he was absolutely indispensable in creating so many major initiatives of the Law Center. Gillian, his wife, was a force in her own right, read many of our drafts and provided a vital steadying hand.
Tom and I selfishly could never entirely give up over-seeing the legal work. Jenny Clarke had the disciple to do that, providing the exceptional leadership you honored last year. She also had the self-confidence to allow a former leader to stay on the premises. Thank you Jenny. And you heard earlier the accomplishments under the current leadership team of our Executive Director Brenda Marrero and our Legal Director Mimi McKenzie. I can assure our current staff have no less of the skills and deep commitment that marked their distinguished predecessors.
We shared the belief that the success of our efforts is measured by the changes we bring to our clients’ lives, to real people, not to a paper constitution or even the abstraction of the Declaration.
I think it fair to say that our network shared similar values and goals. First and foremost is the belief that it is long past time for our country to turn into a reality its founding premise, the self-evident truth that all men are created equal, endowed with rights—rights which unfortunately are proven to be alienable on a daily basis. I was born into a country of haves and have nots, not just economically, but in their treatment by officials of all ranks. If Abraham Lincoln is correct that a house divided cannot stand, it is in everyone’s interest that the Declaration’s premise of equality as the foundation of our nation become reality for all, and not just for wealthy white male heterosexual Virginian planters.
Secondly, we shared the belief that the success of our efforts is measured by the changes we bring to our clients’ lives, to real people, not to a paper constitution or even the abstraction of the Declaration. There is so much we can point to on that score, from the closing of institutions like Pennhurst—where people with disabilities were segregated away from the rest of us—and the development of an alternative system of community-based services for thousands of people; the successful fight to protect the Black community in the City of Chester from becoming an infectious waste dumping ground; or the tripling of children provided free medical services from 300,000 to 900,000 in Pennsylvania and significant increases in other states too. All were the result of complex, hard fought, drawn out litigation (Pennhurst was argued in the US Supreme Court 3 times) and these are but a small part of the work accomplished and lives touched.
All of us know that today there are severe challenges to maintaining, much less increasing equality in our civic life. Looking around this room, seeing how many are persevering in this struggle, I have faith we will prevail.
And they are real lives. I still meet some former Pennhurst residents in the City, now doing their own advocacy, and they remind me what it means to them to be able—every day—to set their own schedules and control their own lives.
All of us know that today there are severe challenges to maintaining, much less increasing equality in our civic life. Looking around this room, seeing how many are persevering in this struggle, I have faith we will prevail.
I am pleased to accept an honor in the name of Thaddeus Stevens for the work we have done together to make the equality he fought for more of a living reality for so many persons denied access to the bountifulness of this country. These achievements being honored are way more than I could have imagined when I embarked on this journey.
When I left the firm I was practicing in to join the Law Center, a senior partner said he expected I would be back in a few years. It is 46 years later. I am still here. And because of all of you and this amazing network of supporting friends that I have been living with, I can say I would have it no other way, “je ne regrets rien.”
