Roxanne Conlin
Board Of Advisor
Roxanne Conlin graduated from law school in 1966 and gave her first speech on women’s legal rights to a church group in 1968. “I was condemned!” It hardly stopped her.
She managed the campaign of Willie Glanton for the Iowa
Legislature and “both of us were stunned when she won and
became the first African-American state representative.” In 1969,
Conlin became the first part-time Assistant Attorney General for
Iowa, a position from which she had to resign in 1976 because of
her “activist advocacy” for women’s reproductive freedom. While
in this position, she was put in charge of the new Civil Rights
division. In 1970, she tried the first case under the Iowa Civil
Rights Act (Ironworkers v. Hart), and numerous other cases. She
had gender distinctions eliminated under the Iowa Code. Perhaps
her most stunning achievement was the Iowa Rape Shield Law in
1972 which protected women in a rape case from being questioned
on prior sexual conduct and which became a model for similar
legislation around the country. She attended the first convention of
NWPC in Houston, advising on its bylaws. In 1972 she was
appointed to the first Iowa Commission on the Status of Women,
and supported Shirley Chisholm for President, chairing the Iowa
effort. Conlin “used parliamentary procedure to bring the IOWA
DEMOCRATIC convention to a halt, with eventual passage of a
platform including ERA and reproductive freedom. Delegates
committed to Chisholm were elected to the 1972 National
Democratic Convention from Iowa. Also in 1972, Conlin tried the
first sex discrimination case in Iowa (Huebner v. American
Republic Insurance Company). In 1975, she ran for president of
NWPC. From 1976 – 1977, she was a consultant to the U.S.
Department of State on International Women’s Year, editing and
writing booklets on homemaker’s rights for all 50 states and the
District of Columbia. She was appointed U.S. Attorney for the
Southern District of Iowa by President Carter in 1977 and
confirmed by the Senate, the second woman in history to hold this
position. She founded the Advocacy Institute within the
Department of Justice to train government lawyers on trial skills;
served as president of the Federal Executive Board, the consortium of 71 Federal agencies; and served on the U.S. Attorneys Advisory
Committee. In 1981, she resigned to seek the Democratic
nomination for Governor of Iowa. In 1982, she won a three-way
primary, but narrowly lost the election for governor. From 1986 –
1988 she chaired NOW’s LDEF, and in 1988 became the first
woman officer of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America,
and wrote and secured passage of a resolution requiring women
and minorities to be included in all educational programs and on
all committees. She created a minority caucus with representation
on the Board of Governors and also added women’s caucus
members to the Board. In 1992 – 1993, she was elected the first
woman president of ATLA, which is an organization of 60,000
members nationally and internationally. From 1994 – 1997, she
was the first woman to chair the Roscoe Pound Institute,
established in 1956 by trial lawyers to honor and build upon the
work of Roscoe Pound, former Dean of the Harvard Law School
In addition to her law degree, Conlin earned an M.B.A. in 1978.
She has four children.
Roxanne on why she joined Love For Red Board – I met Maanya at a social event and was instantly captivated by her personally and by her absolute commitment to this cause and this organization. Like many people, I was stunned to learn that Period Poverty was a part of the lives of many Iowa women. I want to do what I can to help solve that problem