It’s not too early to get your tickets for GLAD’s 20th annual Spirit of Justice Award Dinner, to be held Friday, Oct. 25, at Boston Marriott Copley Place.
The occasion brings together over 1,000 LGBTQ community members and allies to unite in resistance, look toward a future of true justice, and support GLAD’s life-changing mission. It’s a fabulous night of celebration and inspiration, dinner and dancing.
This year’s Spirit of Justice Award will go to civil rights legal pioneer Chai R. Feldblum.
Notes GLAD:
Feldblum is the first openly gay commissioner on the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Nominated by President Obama in the fall of 2009, Feldblum served on the EEOC from April 2010 until January of this year. She is also a former Georgetown University law professor, an author and an advocate who has dedicated her distinguished career to advancing and defending the rights of LGBTQ people and people living with HIV.
“Chai combines a brilliant legal mind with a heart and soul dedicated to advancing civil rights,” said Janson Wu, Executive Director of GLAD. “Her work has created the foundation for so many protections that LGBTQ people and those living with HIV count on today. GLAD is thrilled to recognize Chai with the 2019 Spirit of Justice Award.”
It’s gratifying and humbling to be honored by an organization whose values are so closely aligned with mine,” said Feldblum. “We need the legal community to defend the values of equality and freedom, and we need cultural support for those values as well. I have admired GLAD for years as it has operated on both of these fronts.”
Feldblum’s work at the EEOC was critical to fortifying the legal understanding that discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation is discrimination “because of sex,” and that LGBTQ workers are therefore protected under existing federal sex discrimination law. Her achievements while at the EEOC also included expanding employment opportunities for people with disabilities and developing methods for preventing workplace harassment.
At the AIDS Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, Feldblum helped draft and negotiate the ground-breaking federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which became law in 1990, as well as the ADA Amendments Act of 2008. Feldblum was an instrumental partner with GLAD on the landmark 1998 Supreme Court case Bragdon v. Abbott case which established non-discrimination protections for people living with HIV under the ADA.
In her current role, as partner and Director of Workplace Culture Consulting at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, Feldblum helps companies and organizations create safe, respectful, and inclusive workplaces that prevent harassment on all bases, including sexual orientation and gender identity.
For tickets and more information, go to glad.org/events.
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