Background
She was born Faith Lenore April in Manhattan on October 21, 1923.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
Faith Seidenberg
Edit ProfileEducation
She attended Calhoun School in New York and then Syracuse University. She later attended Syracuse Law School, graduating in 1954 as one of only two women in the class.
Career
In her senior year at Syracuse she became engaged to Robert Seidenberg, and they wed in 1944. She started her career in Syracuse as a public defender. There she represented the rights of minors to have legal representation when appearing in court.
She spent two summers in Mississippi and Louisiana, following which she became an attorney for the Congress of Racial Equality (Congress of Racial Equality).
Seidenberg also worked on issues of women"s rights. She was at one point a national vice president for the National Organization for Women.
In 1992 she took on a Title IX case involving the female ice hockey team at Colgate University. This was the first case to convert a university"s women"s athletic club to a varsity team under the Title IX law and was considered a landmark case for the law.
She was on the Executive Board of the American Civil Liberties Union, where she established the Women's Legal Defense Fund of the American Civil Liberties Union. She is best known, though, for her landmark legal case against McSorley"s Old Ale House.
In 1969 she and Karen DeCrow entered the all-male establishment, and were refused service. They sued for discrimination. The case decision made the front page of The New York Times on June 26, 1970.
The suit, Seidenberg v.
McSorleys" Old Ale House (1970, United States District Court, South Doctorate New York) established that, as a public place, the ale house could not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. Her papers covering the time that she served as vice president of the National Organization for Women, are held at the Harvard Library.
Her husband, Robert Seidenberg, was a psychiatrist. He served as president of the Greater Syracuse chapter of National Organization for Women. He died in 2010.
They had three daughters.
Achievements
Views
In 1963 she was invited by attorney William Kunstler to become one of a group of volunteer lawyers defending civil rights workers on the voter registration drive in the southern United States. She also defended Bruce Dancis, a draft-card burner at Cornell University, during the time of the Vietnam War.
