THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT

Judith A. Winston

“I’ve had quite a full, rewarding life as a lawyer and as a woman.”

Attorney. Educator. Consultant on federal education and civil rights law and policy issues and developments. General Counsel and Undersecretary, U.S. Department of Education, Executive Director of the President’s Initiative on Race, Clinton Administration. Executive Assistant and Legal Counsel to EEOC Chair Eleanor Holmes Norton; Special Assistant to the Director of the Office for Civil Rights in the former U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare; Deputy Director for Public Policy at the Women’s Legal Defense Fund (now named the National Partnership for Women and Families); Deputy Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; and Assistant General Counsel for Educational Equity at the U.S. Department of Education. Special Committee on Gender and Race Bias, DC Circuit Task Force. Led the Obama-Biden Transition Team in the U.S. Department of Education.

Interviewed by Judy Waxman, July 9, 2020

Photo 1. Howard University, Washington, DC 1966. Photo 2. Judith, her husband Michael Winston and daughters, Lisa and Cynthia, attending Judith’s graduation from Georgetown University Law Center in 1977. Photo 3. Debating the constitutionality of the affirmative action programs at University of Michigan. 2002.