Page 8 - NYLS Magazine • 2014 • Vol. 33, No. 2

Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi Delivers the
Shainwald Public Interest Lecture By Thomas Adcock
Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi greets a group of NYLS students before her speech.
Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, cheerfully outspoken as leader of the Democratic caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives, delivered the 2014 Sidney Shainwald Public Interest Lecture at New York Law School on September 16, 2014.
Representatives here,” said Ms. Shainwald.
She then introduced Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney of New York, who in turn introduced fellow Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi as “a trailblazer, ceiling breaker, and history-maker” who “actually got things done.”
Pelosi presented a conversational address, in which she responded to questions from James F. Simon, NYLS Dean Emeritus and Martin Professor of Law Emeritus. She was quick to excoriate what she considers obstructionist Republicans of Congress—especially in the chamber run by Speaker Boehner. The House majority is “anti-government, anti-science, and anti-Barack Obama,” she said. “What they’ve said to the President is, ‘Anything
you want, we’re not interested; nothing is the agenda, never is the timetable.’”
She added, with a laugh, “Pardon me for that partisan word.”
Pelosi touched on how she briefly considered the fame-free option of entering a Catholic convent as a young novitiate. As a nun, she said, “You could pray all the time, and do good deeds. But I just thought I might check out the world. The church is very important to me, [though] I may be less important to them as I speak out.”
Pelosi is ardently liberal on issues such as marriage equality, immigrant rights, and reproductive rights.
“I was taught to [honor] the dignity of every person,” she said. “Part of that dignity is
the free will to take responsibility for your own life. Whatever my thoughts are, what business is it of mine to insist on that for someone else?”
“This is the time of year when Christ said to the Apostles, ‘Love one another.’ This is love: letting other versions exist. I attribute this
to my upbringing in Baltimore,” said Pelosi. There, she said, three cultural pillars made her what she is: her Italian American family, the Catholic Church, and the Democratic
In a wide-ranging talk, she commented
on legislative stalemate, marriage equality, immigration policy, the recovering economy, feminism, and what to do about the barbaric Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Dubbed “Grandma with a gavel” by a Washington Post columnist, the Californian became the first woman Speaker of the House in 2007, when her party controlled that body. In 2011, Republicans won majority status, and Congressman John Boehner of Ohio became Speaker.
Dean Anthony W. Crowell welcomed the audience assembled in the Events Center, observing, “The Shainwald Lecture is
one of the premier events held at the Law School. This series provides a unique forum for thoughtful and intellectual discussion featuring the most prominent leaders in public and judicial service.” He
then introduced Sybil Shainwald ’76 as “a groundbreaking legal pioneer, a visionary who has made fighting for women’s health her unrelenting mission for the last three decades.”
Ms. Shainwald, a New York Law School Trustee and women’s health lawyer, established the Public Interest Lecture in 2004 in honor of her late husband, Sidney Shainwald, an advocate for social justice who worked for Consumers Union from 1937 to 1982. Past speakers have included U.S. Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Stephen Breyer; then- Senator, now Secretary of State John Kerry; then-Senator, now Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel; and the late Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy.
“I am so honored and so pleased to have the first woman Speaker of the House of
6 NEw York Law SCHooL magazINE • 2014 • VOL. 33, NO. 2