Profile -- Week 2 Vilma S. Martinez Vilma S. Martinez was born October 17, 1943 in San Antonio, Texas. During her childhood, much of Texas was openly segregated. “We weren’t allowed to go into some of the parks,” Ms. Martinez recalls. “When we went to the movies, we had to sit in the back of the theater.” At the age of 15, she had the opportunity to work as a volunteer in the firm of a local Hispanic lawyer, Alonso Perales. “I was very much impressed with the way he was able to help people as a lawyer,” says Ms. Martinez. The experience led her to focus her sights on becoming a lawyer. “Many people at school tried to discourage me,” she explains, “but I was very stubborn.” After graduating from high school, Ms. Martinez enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin, earning a B.A. degree in 1964. She went on to Columbia University School of Law, receiving her L.L.B. degree in 1967. Ms. Martinez began her career as a staff attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in 1967. “I joined the staff at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund when Title VII was new and I worked on Title VII cases throughout the South and an early Northern school desegregation case in Denver, Colorado,” says Ms. Martinez. In 1970, she became Equal Employment Opportunity Counsel for the New York State Division of Human Rights in New York City and in 1971, she joined the firm of Cahill, Gordon & Reindel in New York as a litigation associate. Ms. Martinez was one of the first two women elected to the Board of Directors for the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (MALDEF). In 1973, she was selected president and general counsel. She served in that capacity from 1973-1982. During her tenure at MALDEF, Ms. Martinez worked on a number of issues. She is proud of MALDEF’s major victory in Plyer v. Doe which guaranteed undocumented children the right to a public school education. She was also instrumental in MALDEF’s effort to expand the Voting Rights Act to Mexican-Americans in 1975. They had not been included when the legislation was passed in 1965. Since 1982, Ms. Martinez has been a partner at the Los Angeles law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson, where she specializes in federal and state court litigation, including defense of wrongful termination and employment litigation and other commercial litigation. In 1994, she was hired by the Los Angeles Unified School District to challenge that portion of Proposition 187 which denied a public school education to California’s undocumented migrants. While her suit filed in the state courts successfully won a restraining order, a similar case was filed soon afterwards in the federal courts by MALDEF and other civil rights groups. The federal class action suit, Gregorio v. Wilson, ultimately resulted in nearly all provisions of Proposition 187 being declared unconstitutional in 1998. Ms. Martinez is currently a board member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association and several major corporations, including Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc., Shell Oil Company, and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation. She served on the President's Advisory Committee on Trade Policy & Negotiations from 1994 to 1996 and was Chair of the University of California Board of Regents from 1984-1986, a board she served on from 1976 to 1990. She has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the U.S. Hispanic-Mexican Government International Commission, the Presidential Advisory Board on Ambassadorial Appointments, and the California Federal Judicial Selection Committee. Ms. Martinez has been awarded the American Bar Association’s Margaret Brent Award, the Medal for Excellence from Columbia Law School, the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Texas, the Lex Award from the Mexican-American Bar Association, and the Jefferson Award from the American Institute for Public Service. Ms. Martinez suggests that those considering a legal career today “persevere and work hard on their grades and on improving to the maximum extent possible their test-taking ability.” Admission to law schools today is very much influenced by grades and scores on the Law School Admissions Test, she points out, “so it’s important to do the very best you can.” Reflecting on the challenges she faced and overcame, she has one other piece of advice for young people: “Don’t give up on your dream.” Next Week: (Week 3) Which distinguished Latino professor of law and civil rights advocate received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in August 2000? National Hispanic Heritage Month 2000 | Links