THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT

Susan Deller Ross

“I want to expose my students to realizing that there are women around the world still suffering.”

Attorney, professor, author, strong advocate for women and minorities around the globe. Peace Corps volunteer in Ivory Coast, 1965-1967. Susan Deller Ross and Janice Goodman founded the first women and the law committee at NYU Law School, 1968. Founded the National Women and the Law Conference, 1970. Susan and her partners formed the first feminist law firm, Bellamy, Blank, Goodman, Kelly, Ross & Stanley, 1972. Co-Chair of the Campaign to End Discrimination against Pregnant Workers, 1976 -1978. Clinical Director of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project. Special Counsel for Sex Discrimination Litigation at the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Clinical Director of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project. Started and served as Director of the Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellowship Program, 1983-1998, and its Leadership and Advocacy for Women in Africa Program, 1993-1998. Co-Chair of the Special Committee on Gender for the D.C. Circuit Task Force on Gender, Race, and Ethnic Bias, 1992-1995. Director of the International Women’s Human Rights Clinic, which she founded in 1998 at Georgetown University Law Center.

Interviewed by Judy Waxman, August 2021

Photo 1. With Ruth Bader Ginsburg at The Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellowship Program, founded in 1983.  Photo 2. Professor Susan Deller Ross opens the panel on the Rights of the Girl at the 2018 Dash Conference (Photo credit, Amanda Strayer).