Amy J. Gittler Papers

Collection

Identifier: RG 30-171

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

Consists of published papers concerning the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling of July 6, 1983 that employer pension plans that paid different amounts to men and women violated federal civil rights laws. Amy J. Gittler of the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest successfully argued the case on behalf of plaintiff Nathalie Norris. The legal documents include Gittler’s brief (booklet), a copy of the Opinion of the Supreme Court, and a transcript of the Proceedings before the Supreme Court. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor cast the deciding vote.

Additional materials include a news release by the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest with a letter by Nathalie Norris; an article on Gittler’s successful Supreme Court case in the Oberlin Alumni Magazine; a letter to the editor criticizing the article and Gittler’s response, also in the Oberlin Alumni Magazine; and a restricted student file for Gittler.

Dates

Creation: 1972-1984, undated
Creation: Majority of material found in 1982-1984
Other: Date acquired: 1984 June 11

Creator

Gittler, Amy J. (Gittler, Amy Jo) (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

The Gittler student file is restricted, as noted on the Inventory.

Biographical Sketch

Amy Jo Gittler was born on July 1, 1951, in Yonkers, New York, to Harvey Gittler (1922-2011), later a plant manager at Oberlin College, and Adele Miriam Watkin (1923-1978), an editor at the Elyria Chronicle. She attended Simmons College from 1969 to 1971, and transferred to Oberlin College in February of that year. In the summer of 1971 she studied Roman-Dutch comparative law in a course in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, sponsored by Syracuse University College of Law.

While at Oberlin Gittler was a member of the Community Board, the Committee for the Status of Women, and the Student Coordinating Council, and served as a news broadcaster for WOBC, the college radio station. She also served as a counselor in a camp run by the Associated Cardiac Group for Children with Heart-Related Problems, and a camp operated by the Lorain County Association for Retarded Children. Gittler graduated in May of 1972 as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. That June she was appointed the first woman admissions officer at Oberlin College from a field of 100 candidates.

Amy Gittler left Oberlin to continue her studies at Northwestern University, where she earned a Doctor of Jurisprudence in 1977. That year she joined the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest. In 1949, she married Michael Wayne Sillyman (b. 1947). In 1982 Gittler was appointed Executive Director of the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest, where her practice concentrated in the areas of employment discrimination and the rights of persons with mental and physical disabilities. In 1983, Gittler argued and prevailed before the United States Supreme Court in Arizona Governing Committee v. Norris, a case that held it is unlawful for an employer to pay lower monthly benefits to women than men upon retirement.

In 1991 Gittler was elected to the Oberlin College Board of Trustees by alumni for a six-year term. At the time she was a partner in Brown & Bain, P.A., in Phoenix, Arizona. In 2006 she was named one of the top 500 litigators in the country by Law Dragon. In 2014 she was a Shareholder in the Phoenix office of Jackson Lewis P.C. Gittler managed the Phoenix office from its opening in 2007 to 2012. She has received numerous awards, including the Legislative Service Award, the Human Dignity Award, and the Arizona State University College of Law Distinguished Achievement Award. Her published works include articles in the DePaul Law Review and the American Journal of Psychiatry, and “ADA and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973” in the Arizona Employment Law Handbook (1995).

Sources Consulted

Jackson Lewis website, accessed 5/28/2014.

Student references file, Amy J. Gittler Papers (RG 30/171).

Note written by Anne Cuyler Salsich.

Extent

0.20 Linear Feet

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Method of Acquisition

The papers, with the exception of the magazine articles and the student file, were received from Amy J. Gittler in 1984. The student file was received from the Office of Career Services in 1999.