On the recordOctober 25, 2020
every woman in this country owes a debt of gratitude to my friend, Congresswoman Patsy Takemoto Mink. Americans probably know Patsy best for her fiery advocacy to pass title IX into law. This landmark piece of gender equity legislation, which now bears her name, has benefited millions of women and girls across our country. But I would wager that very few people know about how Patsy changed the course of history for women's equality and helped to enshrine the right of women to control our own bodies in the Supreme Court. Let me tell you a story. In 1970, the same year that Hawaii became the first State in the country to decriminalize abortion, Patsy did something no one had done before. She made women's rights a key issue in a Supreme Court nomination when she testified against the nomination of Judge G. Harrold Carswell. In her testimony, Patsy brought up Judge Carswell's decision in the case of Ida Phillips, a woman denied a factory job because she had preschool-aged children. Of course, no such rule applied to fathers. Judge Carswell, along with 10 of his colleagues on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, had refused to hear Ms. Phillips' case. Patsy told the Senate Judiciary Committee: ``Judge Carswell demonstrated a total lack of understanding of the concept of equality. . . .…
