Untitled Document

Remarks at Year-End Ceremonies for
Eagleton Fellows and Raimondo Fellows

Chief Justice Deborah T. Poritz
May 5, 2003

I have been asked to share my thoughts with you today about careers in public service and, also, about my experiences in public life. On the first subject, I am warning you, I ride a hobbyhorse. (There is a Henry James short story about a little boy who would not stop riding his rocking horse--he was obsessed--and I am too.) So here goes. We need well-trained, thoughtful people in public life; we need an ethic of service. You need the rewards that come from serving the public and the joy that comes from trying to make a difference and, occasionally, finding that you have--that someone's life is a little better because of you, that a law you sponsored in the state senate will save lives on our highways, or that a permit you reviewed at the Department of Environmental Protection will ensure a cleaner discharge from a new sewage plant, or that a program you designed will help non-English speaking persons understand our court system.

We need one another, for the best of reasons.

If all this sounds somewhat idealistic, it is--and that is okey. One of my other hobbyhorses is about the level of public discourse today. A little idealism injected into the world of politics will not hurt. Or, to put it simply, we need to focus on issues that matter, perhaps a melding of the idealism that should underlie your goal of public service, and the pragmatism that allows you to achieve that goal, one step at a time if that is what it takes.

You have been studying about political institutions, political processes and political practitioners and how they operate, so you have learned about the way that world works. I can only repeat my theme: that you should, must, use what you have learned to enter that world, and that you should use your skills for good purposes.

On the second subject I was asked to discuss, my experiences in public life, I was interested to learn two things about you as a group; first, that many of you are studying the law, and, second, that many of you are women, both characteristics I share. So if I speak briefly about being a woman lawyer in state government, those of you who are not studying the law, or are of the male persuasion, bear with me. The tales I tell have also to do with you, because the issues they raise are issues for all of us, especially our future policymakers.

After graduation from law school, I worked as a deputy attorney general in the Department of Law and Public Safety. I was the first female attorney in the environmental section. Now there are many.

When I attended my first staff meeting and the lawyers talked about the "Girls," I was not sure who they were talking about. They meant the secretaries, (when I became attorney general I asked the state troopers I knew not to call female troopers "Girls.") One attorney insisted on calling me "Mom.," and others asked me for band-aids and aspirin because women were expected to have such things.

When I went to meetings of the Delaware River Basin Commission as New Jersey's lawyer, I found myself at an exclusive all-male club in Philadelphia where the only women were the waitresses in the dining room.

I was the only woman at those meetings for many months until a woman lawyer from New York state showed up. We met in the ladies' room and, talking to each other in the mirror as we stood there together, she said to me--"this is the beginning of the old-girls network, you know."
I remember, also, how much my section chief enjoyed assigning two discrimination cases to me within a few months of my arrival. Two women were charging the state agency they worked for with discrimination in salaries and promotions and, one was alleging sexual harassment by her supervisor. My supervisor thought it made a lot of sense "strategically" to send the one woman attorney in his section in to represent the agency. He was probably right. When I tried to find out what one of the cases was all about, one of the men I talked to said, "sure I called her a broad. That's what she is, isn't she?"

But the other case was not so simple. A marine policewoman, who, like me was the only woman in her unit, also had alleged discrimination by her supervisor and her cohort. Yet, on investigation, I learned that her "brother" officers were resentful of what they perceived to be attempts on her part to avoid "heavy work" assignments, It turned out that both sides misunderstood the interactions between them.

My recollection is that the cases settled. That result, however, is not why I have mentioned them to you. There was, and is, discrimination against women in the workplace and, since those early cases I have seen other more egregious examples affecting construction workers and secretaries, police officers and lawyers.

But, I also know that when I arrived as the first woman in the environmental section the
problems that arose largely came about because it was a new situation for everyone and people were not quite sure how to react. The lawyer who jokingly called me "Mom" became my friend, as did the other men in the attorney general's office. And I did not just handle discrimination cases brought by women against the state-- handled major environmental litigation because I made a commitment to the job and the men and women I worked with and they responded.

Today, we have overcome many of those stereotypes about women. Yet, unfortunately, there are still battles to be fought. As you have no doubt learned here at Eagleton, and at the legislature, we do not yet have women or minorities in public positions in proportion to their numbers. Indeed, it is only recently that our seven-person court has had three women justices and one African-American justice.

As our future policymakers, you must grapple with the values of a diverse society. Whether you are a man or a woman, you will deal with issues that matter to all of us, men and women, and you will learn from one another about what it means to be whatever it is you are.

I urge you to use that knowledge wisely, for the benefit of all of us.

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