Ruth Whitehead Whaley

Who is Ruth Whitehead Whaley?

Ruth Whitehead Whaley was in 1925 the first African American woman to be admitted to practice law in New York. She was also the first African American woman to enroll at Fordham University School of Law, where she graduated in 1924. Her husband encouraged her to study law despite the difficulties of racism. In 1933, Whaley became the first African American woman admitted to practice in North Carolina, her home state. She maintained a private law practice in New York City until 1944, when she was appointed to be Secretary of the New York City Board of Estimate.

In 1949, Whaley penned an essay entitled "Women Lawyers Must Balk Both Color and Sex Bias," in which she described the "penalty" of women, and especially minority women, lawyers who must outperform their male colleagues lest "the overlooked errors of a male colleague become the colossal blunders of the woman." Since the legal profession had been for centuries a "male precinct," it was easy to single out the mistakes of a woman lawyer.

On June 8, 2000, the Family Academy, then an alternative public school in Manhattan that is now P.S. 241, named their auditorium after Whaley, The Black Law Students Association at Fordham Law also named their annual Ruth Whitehead Whaley Award and award dinner in her honor.