For the Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, the only way to protect people's rights is to take responsibility. And the group has had no difficulty doing just that.

In its first 30 years, the section has been responsible for proposing and passing a wide variety of crucial legislation. Its most recent progress and plans for the future were topics of discussion at its 30th Anniversary program, "A Retrospective on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties."

The panel discussion, held at the 1996 ABA Annual Meeting in Orlando, focused most heavily on the rights of immigrants, women, gay men and lesbians, and minorities.

"I say, Bravo,' for this 30 years and there's a hell of a lot more work to be done," said Llewelyn Pritchard, an attorney at Helsell Fetterman LLP in Seattle. "We have taken some controversial stands on issues that we thought were important to the profession and the public."

One of those issues involved gender. Since 1972, six years after the section was founded, the ABA has been active in passing new legislation dealing with women.

"My question is, what were we doing for those six years?" said Estelle Rogers, director of the Pro-Choice Public Education Project in Washington, D.C. "But once it got started on women's issues, it really hit them big."

Rogers said that much time during the first few years was devoted to racial discrimination issues. But, in 1972, the ABA endorsed the Equal Rights Amendment, marking the first policy passed by the association in the realm of gender.

Since that year, the ABA has passed 24 policies in the area of gender discrimination in the same amount of years, averaging one per year.

A number of the policies have involved women in the legal profession. Issues such as discrimination in law schools, discrimination in law firms, hiring practices and advancement practices are some of the matters with which the IR&R Section has dealt. Outside of the legal profession, abortion policies have received an abundance of attention in recent years.

"One of the most controversial policies that didn't seem so at the time was in 1978 when there was a policy passed by the House of Delegates supporting the equity of public funding for abortion services on the state and federal level," Rogers said.

In other words, there should be no discrimination against poor women who wish to obtain an abortion. Lack of funds to pay for the service shouldn't mean that these women are forced to exempt themselves from the opportunity.

"I consider this pretty outstanding since there are a number of other issues that the section is really involved in," Rogers said. "It's almost amazing that we've been able to do what we've been able to do."

One of the other issues that Rogers refers to is the efforts of the ABA to stop racial discrimination. In 1989, the first African-American, Elaine Jones, became a member of the ABA Board of Governors.

"Not only has this section added to the association, it has allowed us to understand issues," said Jones, an attorney and the first African-American woman to graduate from the University of Virginia. "This section always brings the principle to them."

Along with the affirmation of progress and the need for even more improvement in the areas of gender and racial discrimination, the panel, moderated by John Curtin, former president of the ABA, also discussed the developments that have been made in the rights of gay men and lesbians over the past 30 years.

In August of 1987, the association condemned crime and violence, including those based on the prejudice of sexual orientation. Then, in February of 1989, a policy prohibiting termination on the basis of sexual orientation was passed after six attempts by the ABA.

"On every one of these issues, the ABA was not after the fact, following the herd," said Abby Rubenfeld, immediate past-chair of the IR&R Section. Rubenfeld is an attorney in Nashville, Tenn., where her general practice includes an emphasis on family law and sexual orientation-related issues. "The ABA was a leader in all of these issues and adopted a policy at a time when it could make a difference."

Another issue of importance to the ABA involves immigration, which has been a concern of the association since before the birth of the IR&R Section, Pritchard noted.

As early as the 1940s, lawyers were concerned about the discrimination of these new people to the United States. The ABA has always supported legal immigration in order to unite families, foster economic growth and provide cultural diversity.

"It's not a new topic," said Pritchard, who is the grandchild of an immigrant. "But it's a topic that, in the past two decades, has really begun to be a very, very controversial one."

Pritchard, who spoke about issues affecting refugees, newcomers and immigrants, asked the lawyers who made up his audience to look at the issue on a more personal level.

"As you hear some of the rising rhetoric, I hope that you think about it in terms of your original ancestors who came to this country and that you think about the kind of diversity, the kind of excitement, the kind of hard work and effort that your family brought to this nation," Pritchard said.

While issues like immigration and the others discussed by the panel would have certainly made headway in the legal system without the help of the IR&R Section, chances are it would have taken much longer, said Barry Sullivan, dean of the Washington School of Law.

Sullivan discussed what voice the ABA brought to these types of cases before the IR&R Section was developed.

"More often than not, the ABA wasn't heard from at all, which I thought was quite interesting considering how important these cases are," Sullivan said. Not only did the ABA often abstain from promoting such issues, but sometimes it even served as an obstacle, Sullivan said. "In most cases in which the ABA had been heard, it was heard on the side that opposed civil liberties," he said.

Pritchard summed up the program by stating, "I would hope that, during the next 30 years of this section, we would still have the courage that has enabled us to survive through the first three decades," he said.

Andrea Passalacqua is a writer in Orlando, Florida.

As published in Human Rights, Fall 1996, Vol. 23, No. 4, p.5-6.