Gu Women’s Law Caucus Will Honor U.S. Magistrate
If you’ve never heard of Myra Colby Bradwell, you’re not alone.
But on Friday the Women’s Law Caucus of the Gonzaga University School of Law will honor Judge Cynthia Inbrogno in Bradley’s name. And that very act not only will recognize the accomplishments of a prominent jurist, but it also will acknowledge the legacy of a long-dead woman who deserves to be remembered by more than just lawyers.
Inbrogno, a GU School of Law alum, will be presented with the Myra Bradwell Award in a 4:30 p.m. public ceremony at the school’s law library. A magistrate judge of the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Washington, Inbrogno is known as the first woman to be appointed as a federal magistrate judge in the Pacific Northwest.
As for Bradwell, she was a woman who managed to pass - with high honors, no less - the Illinois bar examination in 1869. It’s hardly surprising that she do so, since she had studied law with her husband, a judge in Cook County, Ill., and had already founded her own legal newspaper.
Yet when she applied for admission to the state bar, she was turned down. Ruling on the ensuing lawsuit, the Illinois State Supreme Court noted that Bradwell suffered from the “disability imposed by (her) married condition.”
In other words, because she was a woman.
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the lower ruling in 1873.
Bradwell eventually was admitted to the Illinois bar, though it wasn’t until 1890. But she kept busy writing a series of articles over the years that influenced the way that law was practiced in the Land of Lincoln - and elsewhere.
Peter Pan redux: It’s no longer funny, if indeed it ever really was, to see how ridiculously most of maledom is portrayed in the media.
Single men are pigs, married men are either boors or wimps, fathers are either dictators or pushovers, and sons - well, sons are all potential rapists, don’t you know.
Such stereotypes are beyond irritating. But then what can we expect? There are men, after all, who seem to be doing all they can to live down to such characterizations. They seem to revel in being walking, talking cliches.
Case in point: Actor Tony Curtis, age 70 years and counting.
“Can you imagine me with a woman old enough to be my wife?” Curtis recently asked an interviewer. “My girlfriend is 25 years old - perfect.”
A Wilde time: Finally, it was Oscar Wilde who said, “I will predict, accurately, all human behavior except that which governs the human heart. Man is constant in his infidelity and woman puts him to shame because she is, by nature, fickle.”
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