Drucilla Stender Ramey is Chair of the Board of Directors for Equal Rights Advocates. Dru serves as a Special Counsel to the Section.
September 30, 2021 MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
Drucilla Stender Ramey
Where are you from? How have your experiences here, or throughout your upbringing, influenced your passions and aspirations today?
While originally from the East Coast, I have spent most of my adult life in the Bay Area. I come from a very progressive, compassionate family, with both my Southern Baptist high-level gov’t official father and Jewish medical school professor/national feminist speaker mother both insisting that to whom much is given, much is required. They are clearly the reason I became a civil rights lawyer and leader, including as head of the San Francisco Bar Association, the National Association of Women Judges, and as a law school Dean, and while chairing the ACLU-NC, the S.F. Women’s Commission, and Equal Rights Advocates, among others — not to say my ABA work, especially on CRSJ.
What drives you?
I have always been driven by a quest for equality in our tragically inequitable country, as well as, always, my love for my family and friends.
What is one thing most people do not know about you that you feel they should?
One thing that most people do not know about me that they don’t really need to know, but since you asked, would be that I read dozens of murder mysteries a month.
When you look back, what is it that you want your advocacy and professional career to stand for?
I’ve always wanted my career to stand for a commitment to social justice, and to leveling the playing field for women, people of color, people with disabilities, the LGBTQ community, and other marginalized groups.
What do you feel is the greatest challenge facing this issue today?
Our greatest challenge is staggering inequality, largely owing to structural racial, gender and other forms of discrimination, and gaping and growing patterns of economic inequality.
In what corners do you find the greatest support in propelling these issues you work on? In other words, who are your most frequent allies?
My most frequent allies have been those who are equally determined to work on issues of social justice. In short, fiercely committed and determined people — civil rights fighters as well as those who work within groups like CRSJ, and courageous , unrelenting grassroots (and sometime union) organizers and leaders.
What CRSJ project(s) are you working on? Or, what have you undertaken in CRSJ that you found the most rewarding to have worked on? Are there any upcoming events or projects you want us all to know about?
I have enjoyed working on many CRSJ programs and projects aimed at increasing equality in our profession and nation. I look forward to working on the educational projects being undertaken by our Chair, but especially on our efforts to ensure that the ABA aggressively and publicly lead the profession in support of our long-standing, critically important policies supporting abortion rights and affirmative action.