Let’s start the week with a match-up between two phenomenal women! Lutie Lytle, was the first woman to teach in a chartered law wchool in 1897, and Anita Hill is a law professor and advocate for women and civil rights. Which woman inspires you the most? You can vote by participating in our daily Twitter or Facebook poll, or by casting a vote at the Circulation Desk. Happy voting!
Lutie Lytle-“[I] became impressed with the knowledge of the fact that my own people especially were the victims of legal ignorance. I resolved to fathom its depths and penetrate its mysteries and intricacies in hopes of being a benefit to my people.”
Lutie Lytle was one of six children to John Lytle, an active politician in Topeka, Kansas. Lutie was a good student and her father was able to use some of his political power to get his daughter a position as an assistant enrolling-desk clerk for the Kansas legislature when Lutie was only 16. While she performed her duties well as a clerk, she decided to become a lawyer to be able to help the African American people who were often taken advantage of by others with more experience in the legal and business world. After graduating as the valedictorian of her class, Lutie returned to her university to teach law in 1897 and became the first woman in the United States to teach at a chartered law school. Afterwards, she continued to spend her life fighting for the rights of women and people of color through the law and through political activism.
Anita Hill-“My belief is that in the past 16 years we have come closer to making the resolution of these issues an honest search for the truth, which, after all, is at the core of all legal inquiry.”
Anita Hill is an American attorney and educator who has inspired women to publicly speak out regarding their experiences with sexual harassment in the workplace. Before her outcry many women had experienced what many would now recognize as sexual harassment, but at the time did not know how to handle it. Anita Hill is a highly sought after lecturer, and travels the work speaking on racial and gender issues in the work place. Anita Hill was a professor in civil rights that the Oral Roberts University School of Law, University of Oklahoma School of Law, University of California at Berkeley, and is currently a professor of social policy law and women’s studies at Brandeis University.
Disclaimer: This is a friendly competition that is meant to increase awareness about some amazing women. The match ups were determined by a random outcome generator, and the winner will be determined based solely on the votes submitted by the participants. We are in no way seeking to pit one woman against each other in any inappropriate way, because each woman is inspiring in her own right.
The Reporter 