THE JUSTICE
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TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2009
VERBATIM | Thomas Edison Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
ON THIS DAY...
FUN FACT
In 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev was elected the first executive president of the Soviet Union.
Dogs and cats consume over $11 billion worth of pet food a year.
A Supreme Court justice of Canada speaks about opportunity and equality By IRINA FINKEL JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Normally when Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella of the Supreme Court of Canada is in front of crowds, she is wearing a long black robe and is speaking about constitutional law. However, last Sunday, Abella spoke to an audience at Brandeis while dressed in a business casual white suit about something more basic and accessible than constitutional law—human rights. Abella took the stage at the International Student Lounge to speak as part of Project Gender, Culture, Religion and Law as sponsored by the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute in dedication to Diane Markowicz. She was invited to speak as part of the 2nd Annual Markowicz Memorial Lecture on Gender and Human Rights. Dr. Lisa Fishbayn, director of the Project on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law, wrote to the Justice in an e-mail that “the lecture series honors lawyers, judges, scholars and activists whose work explores the tensions between women’s rights and religious laws.” A 62-year-old Jewish justice on the Canadian Supreme Court, Abella has made a major impact on Canadian law. In her opinion in the 2008 case of Bruker v. Markowitz , she recognized the rights of Jewish wives to sue for damages if their husbands use their power under Jewish law to deny them a divorce. Sylvia Neil, the founder and chair of the HBI’s Project on Gender, Culture, Religion and Law, said that the decision was especially remarkable because of the way Abella was able to “make accommodations for human rights and justice.” Abella began her speech by equating human rights to a Rubik’s Cube. “To solve the [human rights] puzzle all the pieces had to fit together, and to fit all these pieces together requires skill, determination, luck and hard work. … You just keep trying until you get it right,” Abella said. Abella also talked about social justice in regard to women and how she believes the perception of women’s rights has changed over time. “Until the 1960s, nothing had really changed [about the perception of women’s rights]. A woman’s first duty was [in] the home,” Abella said. However, Abella explained that she never felt the scorn of discrimination herself. Going to law school in the late 1960s, she found that becoming a lawyer was a matter of will and not letting anyone tell her she could not achieve her goal. Still, from exposure to her clients in the 1970s, Abella learned that injustice and prejudice did exist for women in the form of legal and employment discrimination. But the people of the 1970s wouldn’t stand for inequality, Abella said. “We went from a majority of mothers in the home to a majority of mothers in the labor force,” she said. The current nine-person Canadian Supreme Court includes four female judges, one of whom is the chief justice. To reassure the audience, Abella poked fun at affirmative action as she said, “The five men on the Canadian Supreme Court—every one of them is there on merit.” Although many women have risen to important positions in business, academics, politics and arts, there are still millions who believe, as Abella put it, “the glass ceiling is just another household object to polish.” Abella pointed out that “most women still earn less than they should, get hired or promoted less than they should, worry about assaults more than they should and get more stress than they should. … They’re out there.” She added that there are still women out there
MAX BREITSTEIN MATZA/the Justice
JUDGEMENT DAY: As part of Project Gender, Culture, Religion and Law, Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella of the Supreme Court of Canada spoke last Sunday.
Human rights
on trial waiting “for human rights to hit them.” In 1990, the United Nations, at the first assessment after the “decade on women,” concluded, “There has even been stagnation in places [concerning women’s rights] where there would’ve been progress.” The decade on women, which spanned from 1976 to 1985, stressed equality, development and peace. Abella equated this to the “wage gaps that remain steadily in place … and the work-family discussion that has captured the world’s interest but not its attention.” Abella concluded with three lessons that people should take away from history. Abella explained that the first lesson is “indifference is injustice’s incubator” and that when people do not care, human rights abuses
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can run rampant. She equated this to the Nuremberg trials after WWII when some of the worst Holocaust offenders were put on trial. As the child of Holocaust survivors, Abella explained that, although she never asked her father if he took any comfort in the conviction of the worst offenders, she knew he would have rather the world have been outraged before the human rights atrocities were committed. The second lesson is, Abella said, “it’s not just what you stand for but what you stand up for.” The third and final lesson came out of a personal story about her father’s experience after the end of World War II. Working as an acclaimed lawyer in the American sector of Germany, he introduced Eleanor Roosevelt before
she spoke to the displaced persons camp when she camped in West Germany. He was grateful for the American legal system. He told Roosevelt that they had nothing to give except these few children. Tearing up, Abella spoke of how children are the future of American justice. She concluded, “Never forget how the world looks to those who are vulnerable. This, above all, is what human rights is about.” In reaction to the lecture, Julia SimonMishel ’09 wrote to the Justice in an e-mail that, “Justice Abella was a truly inspiring speaker who has actually tackled issues of human rights and gender in her work as a Supreme Court justice, and the magnitude of her vision and insistence on progress for women’s rights moved me beyond words.”