By Sarah Weddington

"We Stand Taller Because We Stand on the Shoulders of Others"

I am grateful for the opportunity to share the experience of this Commencement exercise with you, and to gather with your college administrators and faculty members, your family members and your friends to honor you and your accomplishments.

When your president, Lisa Marsh Ryerson, called to invite me, I couldn’t help but respond to her argument in your favor. I’ve long admired the quality of Wells College, which was first brought to my attention by your former president, Sissy Farenthold. In President Ryerson’s words, Wells College is "an institution whose mission is to educate and empower women." Visiting with her by phone made me think I would enjoy meeting and getting to know her, a leader in the field of women’s education.

Then she used the clinching argument: She said I was the choice of the senior class. My response was an instant "yes" to the invitation. Why? Because you are so important to the future of issues I care about deeply. There is no place I could be today that contains a greater possibility of having an impact on the future. Why? Because of your status as graduates from a women’s college and because of the accomplishments symbolized by your graduation.

Those of us who gather to honor you are in awe of your talents and your knowledge. While I teach leadership and law to students at the University of Texas at Austin, I also learn from them. For example, they take pity on my kindergarten level of computer knowledge and are gradually coaxing me to enter the high-tech age.

I remember a story about a dean at a fine Ivy League school who seemed very upset one morning at work. A colleague asked what was the matter, and the dean replied that he hadn’t slept well. "I had the most frightening nightmare last night. I dreamed that I was required to pass the freshman examination for admission." If I had to take the senior exams you recently completed, I’m sure I would be quaking.

The topic for my brief remarks is: "We Stand Taller Because We Stand on the Shoulders of Others." Contained in those words is my appreciation of women of prior decades who fought to expand opportunities for us. I feel that I and others of my generation truly stand taller because we stand on their shoulders. I have dedicated my time and talents to making still broader the ability of women to define themselves and to creating a world with expanding choices and opportunities for them. And as I look to their future, I am thinking of your shoulders. Will others stand taller because they stand on your shoulders? What will be your legacy to those who follow you?

I was delighted to be able to come to this area yesterday and take advantage of an offer by Assistant Professor of Political Science Nan DiBello to take me to Seneca Falls and other local monuments to the work of an earlier era of women. As you know, in 1848 - over 150 years ago - a women’s rights convention met not far from here. The sponsors endured ridicule, marital strife, and a lockout; but they persevered and gathered to discuss the rights of women. The result of their efforts was a resolution demanding that women be allowed to vote. Today we can.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton headed that Seneca Falls Convention, calling on America to fulfill its promise of equal citizenship for all. A few short years later, Susan B. Anthony joined the movement. One of the actions I was involved in, as Assistant to President Jimmy Carter, was placing her image on the U.S. one dollar coin.

These two women worked in partnership for 50 years to bring about a change in the nation’s laws limiting women’s participation in civic life. Stanton raised seven children at the same time she wrote brilliant speeches that Anthony fearlessly delivered coast-to-coast. Together they laid the groundwork and developed the ideas which were the cornerstone of the women’s rights movement for generations.

Since then, millions of American women from all walks of life have planned, organized, lectured, written, marched, strategized, petitioned, lobbied Congress and state legislatures, canvassed voters, staged parades, run for office, debated-issues, argued court cases, and broken new ground in every field imaginable. Our world was irrevocably changed as a result of their commitment.

The vision and courage of the Seneca Falls Convention organizers and others who have followed have inspired succeeding generations of American women to challenge obstacles to a just and fair society. During my visit to Seneca Falls with Professor DiBello, I saw truly historic places. In contrast, I was introduced at another college as being "historic." It’s true that my work is studied in history, social studies, government, and other classes; but I still can’t see myself as "historic." However, I have been involved in a historically important period and events.

Long ago I heard Indira Gandhi’s words: "I have felt like a bird born in too small a cage." I was growing up in a time when I was often told, ‘Women don’t…. Women can’t…. Women shouldn’t…." I saw - I felt - barriers for women, and I wanted to change them.

Recently, I participated in a symposium at Albany Law School, at which they gave me the daunting task of synthesizing the defining moments in my life. I shared with its audience memories that caused me to work for change.

Growing up, I played basketball. But like everyone in rural Texas, and most other states, girls played half-court basketball. We were allowed two dribbles; a third was considered "traveling," a technical violation. Half of our basketball team would be on one end of the court and the other half on the other end. I played guard position; after two dribbles, I had to pass the ball to a teammate, who, after two dribbles, would have to pass it to another. That would continue until we could get the ball to our teammates waiting at half-court who played the forward position and could try to score points. I was one of the players asking, "Why can’t we just keep running?" And coaches or adults would say, "Oh no, all that bounding and running and rebounding, why you might hurt your innards!" Those limitations kept women from getting college athletic scholarships. It took Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 to end those limitations. Now we know that women can run full court - and participate in a women’s professional basketball association besides.

Women high school students who became pregnant were forced to drop out of school. There were no alternate programs for them to continue their education, as there often are today. For the young man who caused the pregnancy there were no education consequences. Later, pregnant students who were in honor societies were often forced out, but that was not true for a young father.

While getting my English and speech secondary education degree in college, students in an education class were told that women teachers in public schools would have to quit teaching if pregnant or else they could be fired. Women were not allowed to be pregnant in the classroom. The question posed in class was whether one had an ethical duty to tell the principal as soon as she knew she was pregnant, or whether one could wait until the principal figured it out. I saw no reason that women couldn’t teach and be pregnant at the same time. Around 1973, the law in Texas was changed so that public school teachers could not be fired for being pregnant. Still later, national laws were passed to prohibit larger employers from firing women on the basis of pregnancy.

If a woman applied for graduate school, she was often told that her application would not be approved because she would probably get pregnant and drop out, so her place should instead go to someone who would actually use the degree. My case was slightly different. During my practice teaching, I tried to make eighth graders love Beowulf. Since then, I have discovered that I love teaching college students, but eighth grade was not the right place for me. Searching for a direction my senior year, I went to the dean of my college, McMurry College (now University), a small Methodist-affiliated liberal arts institution in Abilene, Texas. I told him I wanted to go to law school. He replied that it was not a good idea. I explained that I had very good grades and asked why he said that. His reply was, "No woman from here has ever gone to law school. It would be too tough." I think you can surmise the exact moment that I decided I would go to law school.

When I graduated from the University of Texas School of Law in 1967, I could not get a job with a law firm. Getting a job in a top-notch legal setting was not an option for me upon graduation. As an aside, I’ve read that neither of our two current female Supreme Court Justices, Sandra Day O’Connor or Ruth Bader Ginsburg, had a job with a law firm upon graduation, despite the fact that O’Connor was number three in her class at Stanford. (Current Chief Justice William Rehnquist was number one in that class.) It was a time that denied women a variety of professional opportunities because of prejudices. Although at the time I worked very hard in the interview process to land an offer, I now look back and am glad I failed to get an offer from a firm. If I had gone to work for a firm, I would not have had the time nor the opportunity to do Roe v. Wade.

It was a time when a woman’s salary was not counted if a couple applied for a mortgage. The supposition was that the woman would soon get pregnant and her income would be lost. It was a time when credit was generally not available to a woman without her father’s or her husband’s signature. After law school graduation and getting a job with one of my law professors as his research and drafting assistant, I applied for a credit card. The gentleman across the desk explained that I would have to get my husband’s signature on the application. I explained in my best new-lawyerly way that I was the lawyer and the income earner in the family, that he was back from military service and I would be putting him through law school, and that I hoped someday he would produce an income; but at that moment the income was produced by me. The man across the desk explained that he really didn’t care what I thought; I had to get my husband’s signature in order to receive a credit card.

Credit on that basis was unacceptable. Instead, I ran for the Texas legislature and won, passed an Equal Credit Bill, and went back and got a credit card based on my signature alone. Another change while I served in the Texas House from 1973 to 1977 was that laws regarding rape were strengthened. While I worked in the White House for President Jimmy Carter, I participated in making funding available for the first domestic violence shelter, in expanding opportunities for women in the military, in appointing women to a number of high-level positions (including the appointment of Ruth Bader-Ginsburg to the federal district bench), and so much more.

The case of Roe is rooted in a time when women often felt bound in too small a world by laws, by stereotypes, and by societal concepts. A key issue of that time revolved around making birth control available. Some states, like Connecticut, had made the use of birth control a criminal offense. The 1965 U.S. Supreme Court decision Griswold v. Connecticut ended state-enforced prohibition of the use of contraception and affirmed a constitutional right of privacy. Later in a Massachusetts case, Eisenstadt v. Baird, the U.S. Supreme Court held that both married and unmarried people have a right of access to contraception.

When we began Roe, there was no legal prohibition against birth control use in Texas. However, it was often unavailable for other reasons. For example, the University of Texas Health Center, as I remember, had a policy that no woman could have access to contraception there unless she certified she was within six weeks of marriage. I assume the thought was that she needed to start taking contraceptive pills, if that was the contraceptive method she chose, several weeks before her wedding night in order to be protected against pregnancy. There were a number of efforts at that time to tell women about how to prevent pregnancy and how to find and use various contraceptive methods.

Beginning Roe, we never considered our work to be "for abortion." Rather, we were struggling for the right of women to make decisions relating to pregnancy. To us, those decisions should not be made by strangers or the government.

Today, 30 years after I filed that case, I think of myself as "emeritus." That designation represents a change in my level of involvement. A professor emeritus, for example, continues to have an office and to follow with devotion his or her areas of expertise, but the main action shifts to other players. Lest I give the wrong impression, let me clarify that it would be inaccurate to say that I will never again speak on the topic. I will continue to be a participant in related events; I care too much to do otherwise. However, my role will be one of support for others who are taking the leading legal and advocacy responsibilities.

That and other issues are among those you inherit. Women in my generation have paved the way for your generation to enjoy many opportunities previously denied to women. I earnestly wish my generation of women had been able to solve critical community issues, or at least key issues for women, but such victories have eluded us.

• Of the 1.3 billion people living in poverty worldwide, 70% are women. On average, women worldwide earn 30% to 40% less than men.
• Developing nations invest less in health care and education for their daughters because they will earn less than sons. Poor health care affects women abroad and at home.
• Women’s health has been neglected due to a history of researchers using only male subjects. Because they have not found a way to compensate for women’s more variable body chemistry, researchers have been wary of studying the effects of drugs on women. But scientists have recently acknowledged that drugs do affect women and men differently. Therefore, studies must also include female subjects. More research on disease processes that primarily affect women, like breast cancer, has only recently been emphasized.
• Women have entered the workforce in unprecedented numbers in the last two decades. Yet women often have two jobs, combining career and caretaker responsibilities. As a nation we have not effectively addressed the problem of a shortage of quality childcare.
• Access to reproductive choices is under constant, high-pressured attack.

But I will also be looking at your shoulders. Will they be shoulders that lift future generations of women to stand taller still? Will they be part of a continuation of women who have worked for the betterment of others? Will you someday be called "historic"? I believe you will, and that is why I traveled from Texas to join you today. I ask your help to preserve the victories of the past. I ask your courage in continuing ongoing battles. And I ask your faithfulness to your dreams created through your years at Wells.

Wells graduates of the Class of 1999, I salute you for your accomplishments. I thank you for the invitation to participate, and I commend to you the care and the creation of our future. May future generations say of you: "We stand taller because we stand on their shoulders."

Delivered Saturday, May 22, 1999