Legal Commentary

With Grit and By Grace

By TChris

Retired Oregon Supreme Court Justice Betty Roberts recounts a career filled with obstacles and achievement in her memoir, “With Grit and By Grace.” Karen McCowan reviews the book.

“I stacked up in my mind the many times a man had told me, ‘You can’t,’ ” she writes. “Just in the previous seven years: I’d been told by a male registrar that I couldn’t major in physical education; by my husband that I couldn’t teach; by a male minister that I should never have gone to college; and by a male academic adviser that I should be happy being a housewife. Twice I’d been forced to shift jobs to another school district — once to be able to teach rather than be a dean according to a superintendent’s decree. Once I’d been fired when I ran for public office, just because another male superintendent had disliked the idea.”

But Roberts, then 39, refused to be defeated.

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It’s a compelling look at the events that produced the gritti­ness in young Betty Lucille Cantrell: A father crippled by a chemical in his bootleg whiskey; a mother who took in laundry to try — not always successfully — to feed her family. An early affinity for the Democratic Party came after a New Deal library job allowed her mother to finally earn a decent living. ...

Even after her election to the Legislature, Roberts continued to face obstacles her male counterparts did not. She had to fight for the right to continue to use her last name — the one known to her constituents — after she divorced Frank Roberts and married Keith Skelton.

She was frozen out by her male counterparts on the appellate court during opinion conferences, with the chief judge, Herbert Schwab, skipping over her as he called on the others. A male judge groped her breast when she attended her first judicial conference.

Roberts' legislative accomplishments include passage of a bill to legalize abortion. She became the first woman appointed to the Oregon Supreme Court in 1982. After a life of struggle, Roberts achieved her final success by being regarded as an equal.

Roberts enjoyed acceptance and “professional collegiality” with her male fellow justices.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on September 18, 2008 (boomark / email).