11-22-1994 Women of Achievement and Herstory

    Women and minorities, something to be thankful for this Thursday:

    Bill Clinton has nominated many more women and minorities in TWO

years than Bush and Reagan did in all their TWELVE years combined.

    Is this another promise that Clinton broke when he said he was

going to make government more like American?  Or who has been

whispering untruths in your ear - and why?  

    Clinton nominated 58% minorities and women, Bush 13% and Reagan

8% in the first two years of their administrations.

    Actually it would have been more if Senator Orin (The Mormon)

Hatch wasn't such an obstructionist, especially when it comes to women

judges.  He will now became the chair of the Judiciary Committee so

look for lots more anti-woman maneuvering.  He held up Rosemary

Barkett's nomination for a long time ... and about 14 nominees are

waiting to clear the Hatch roadblock...with justice for all?

    Clinton's nominees have also been of greater quality than Bush and

Reagan.  The American Bar Association ranked a full 63% of Clinton

judiciary nominees "well qualified, while Bush's ABA well qualified went

to only 52% and Reagan 53%.  Carter had 57%.

    Clinton nominees are 69% male and 31% female as opposed to 90%

male and 10% female for Bush, and hang onto your hats ladies, Reagan

95% male and 5% female.  

    In the ethnic/race breakdown, Clinton has nominated 26% or 1/4

LESS white (69%) as opposed to 95% for Bush and 97% for Reagan

(Carter 82%).  Twenty-two percent of Clinton's judiciary nominations

have been black and 8% hispanic as opposed to 2.5% for Bush and 1%

for Reagan in both divisions.  Clinton's nominations run a little OVER

the minority population percentages in the general U.S. population.

    The source of these figures is the U.S. Department of Justice.

Anniversaries -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

B. 11-22-1819, George Eliot, (Mary Ann Evans) influential English

novelist of the Victorian age who opened the way to realism.  Author of

_Middlemarch_.

B. 11-22-1883, Ruby Claudia Davy, the first Australian woman to receive

the degree of Ph.D. in Music, pianist, conductor, and composer.

B. 11-22-1889, Dorothy Tuckerman Draper, won the largest decorating

contract ever awarded a woman before the feminist movement of the

1970's, New York's Hampshire House.

B. 11-22-1898, Sarah Gibson Blanding, first woman president of Vassar,

1946-64.

B. 11-22-1924, Geraldine Page, actor, won a long-deserved Academy

Award for her performance in _A Trip to Bountiful_ (1985.)

B. 11-22-1943, Billie Jean Moffitt King, American tennis champion.

Event 11-22-1963, Federal Judge Sarah Tilghman Hughes swears in

Lyndon Banes Johnson as President of the United States following the

assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Event 11-22-1971, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Reed v Reed that it

was unconstitutional to give preference to men as executors of estates. 

Argued by Ruth Bader Ginsburg who herself would become a Supreme

Court judge 22 years later, the decision marked the first time a high

court decision overturned a law based on sex.

Quote du jour -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 

    "When you have enthusiasm for a great cause you know you have

discovered eternal youth.  I have been fighting for this cause half my

life, and yet I am as enthusiastic as when I started."

    -- Mrs. Wolstenholme-Elmy, VERY elderly and frail in 1906,

reaffirming her devotion to woman's suffrage in Britain when faced with

prison and police violence when she allied herself with the Pankhursts.

    (C) 1994 Irene Stuber, PO Box 6185, Hot Springs National Park, AR

71902, irenestuber@delphi.com. Distribute verbatim copies freely with

copyright notice for non-profit use.