“Some Leaders are Born Women!” Nationally-known lawyer, professor and women’s rights advocate to speak at Transylvania Tuesday, January 17, at 7:30 p.m.; free and open to the public
LEXINGTON, Ky.—Sarah Weddington, nationally known for her work on issues affecting women through her roles as an attorney, legislator, presidential assistant and professor, will speak at Transylvania on Tuesday, January 17, at 7:30 p.m. in the Mitchell Fine Arts Center’s Carrick Theater. Her talk, “Some Leaders are Born Women!” is free and open to the public. In 1973, Weddington successfully argued the winning side of the landmark Roe v. Wade case before the U.S. Supreme Court. A long-time advocate for women, she was the first woman elected from Austin to be a member of the 150-member Texas House of Representatives, where she served three terms before going to Washington, DC, as general counsel of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1977, the first woman to ever hold that position. From 1978 to 1981, she served as an assistant to President Jimmy Carter and led White House efforts to extend the time for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), assisted in the selection of women for federal judiciary appointments, co-chaired the U.S. Delegation to the United Nations Mid-Decade Conference on Women in Copenhagen and implemented other programs to assist the equal treatment of women in the military. She later became the first female director of the Texas Office of State-Federal Relations in Washington, DC. Weddington currently practices law in Austin, and is an adjunct professor at The University of Texas in Austin, where she helped shape a new generation of