Commencement remarks of Kathleen O'Donnell '77
KATHLEEN M. O'DONNELL: Good morning, President Crutcher, members of the Board of Trustees, honorary degree recipients, alumni of Wheaton College, particularly the Class of 1977, faculty members, friends, and most importantly, this year's graduates.
I am honored to be with you today and I thank you for sharing part of this very important day in your lives with me. I am humbled to receive this award from an institution that has meant so much to me in my life and in my career. I thank you for the opportunity and would like to say a few words.
In thinking about what I was going to say this morning, I actually came up with a David Letterman top-ten list. It was insightful, somewhat comical. But it also sounded like a Hallmark card and the graduates of Wheaton College deserve better than that.
So I am here today to issue you a challenge. Going back to 1973, the women's movement was in full gear on the Wheaton campus. Every Thursday in the spring semester a women's forum was held, where speakers were brought from across the world to talk about the burning issue of the day, equality for all people, equality for women.
The last speaker was Gloria Steinem. She spoke on a beautifully sunny day in the Dimple. She urged all of us to challenge the status quo. And we did. We entered professions that were previously male dominated in record numbers, and it seemed as if our options were just limitless.
Fast forward to October 2003. The Massachusetts Women's Bar Association was celebrating its 25th anniversary. Many spoke eloquently about the achievements of women over the last 25 years. And then Nancy Gertner came to the podium. Nancy Gertner was a United States District Court Judge for the District of Massachusetts.
Prior to being elevated to the bench, she was a fantastic trial lawyer who represented unpopular clients and worked on unpopular issues. She said she had agreed to speak that day, but to not give a congratulatory speech. She had something else in mind. She talked about the options and choices that had been made available to women over the past several decades.
She talked about the fact that some of those options and choices have strings attached to them. And often the choices that women make have long-term implications on their careers. She stated more eloquently than I could, the following regarding the equality and need for equality in the workplace: "I will really be able to choose when the choices are not loaded, when I feel welcome everywhere, when I am supported and not discriminated against, when there is meaningful daycare, when law firms respect child care responsibilities of all its members, when men take family leave and stay home. In other words, when the revolutionary potential of the movement is fulfilled."
In response to that speech, the Equality Commission was created to look at what had been happening in the legal profession over the past 25 years. That group worked with the MIT Workplace Center over a two-year period. The report of that group was issued just this past month. The following statistic was garnered through the work of that group.
Even though for the past 30 years since 1977, women have entered the legal profession at the same or greater rate than men, in 2007, only 13 percent of the equity partners in the major Boston law firms are women. That's an alarming statistic and one that the MIT Workplace Center says is similar for other professions.
Just this week a study came out questioning the lack of leadership among women in the medical profession. Four Boston medical schools--none of them has a woman at its head. Most of the full professors and department heads are yet to be women.
That is the same in other professions, and at this point it is not a pipeline issue. The issue lies elsewhere. The MIT group, and experience has shown, the overt discrimination that many of us faced no longer exists. Women are no longer asked when they go in for interviews whether they plan to have children and get married, and thereby are taking a spot of a man who really could be using the job. That nolonger exists.
Unfortunately, study shows that opaque discrimination still exists because the system under which professionals operated has not changed to reflect the increase of women in the workplace. In other words, the methods by which professionals are evaluated is still the same as it was 30 years ago when that system was in place to evaluate men who never had to take time out to have children, who never had daycare issues. So women may enter the profession, but they are limited in what they can achieve because of the method by which they are evaluated.
We will never have equality until that method is changed. And that is the challenge for your generation, to get rid of the opaque discrimination that still exists. Choices are great, options are wonderful, but equality is what we all must strive for. Your generation must change that. My generation cracked the glass ceiling; you must break through it and eliminate it.
I urge you and hope that when you come back for your 30th reunion, we will all have the equality for which we have been striving for the past 25 years. I wish the graduates of 2007 well. You have been well prepared. Your Wheaton education will take you far. I hope that the best days of your past are the worst days of your future. Good luck.