Spring 2011
Prof. Waldrep
First essay assignment.
This will be a short, five-page paper. By now you should have finished reading Nancy MacLean, Freedom is Not Enough. For this assignment, you need to read four court decisions (all from the same case), which you can find on Lexis through our library’s website:
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, Civ. A. 16590, 346 F.Supp. 675 (July 12, 1972).
Sandra Drew v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, Civil No. 16496, 5 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. 779 (July 13, 1972).
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, No. 72-2834, 475 F.2d. 579 (March 27, 1973).
Sandra J. Drew v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, No. 72-3003, 480 F.2d 69 (June 4, 1973).
If you have problems using Lexis, see me immediately.
I have also collected some documents from the files created for these cases. For example, we would like to hear from Sandra Drew herself about this case. (By the way, if Sandra Drew or anyone who knows Sandra Drew finds this page, please contact me: cwaldrep@sfsu.edu.) So, I am including Sandra Drew's first, second, and third complaints against Liberty Mutual. She also made a deposition. In addition, there was a "conciliation letter." The EEOC prepared a memo on a motion to dismiss. Hopefully, these documents will shed further light on this case beyond what you find in the decisions cited above.
I also passed out a packet of materials in class: the 1972 law that allows the EEOC to file lawsuits and two oral history interviews. If you did not get this packet, see me immediately. For your finished paper you will need to use, and cite, all the available documents.
Your first task, obviously, is simply to figure out what happened from your reading of these primary sources. Your paper should reflect your best understanding of what happened and how this case fits with Nancy MacLean’s findings. Note especially Reading Guide Part 2, questions 1 and 2. The key thing, though, is to write a paper using all the documents I have given you that reacts to MacLean's thesis that the EEOC experienced a dtramatic shift in its thinking about gender equality.
When writing this five page paper please remember: it must be typed with numbered pages, double-spaced. Use footnotes to cite sources. The first paragraph is your introduction. In the introduction state the importance of your topic, review what MacLean said, and then state your thesis. The rest of the paper will prove your thesis correct. Your grade will largely depend on your having correctly cited sources, a clear thesis, and a paper that supports your thesis statement.
The second, longer paper, will expand on this first paper. The main difference is that for the second paper you are to use information you gather from Ray Terry on May 3. So, you need about five pages of information from him to write the second paper.
You need to formulate questions (type and turn in) for Ray Terry, one of the EEOC lawyers who represented Sandra Drew. He will be visiting our class on May 3. This is a rare opportunity to actually question a “player” from the topic you are studying. You can get a behind the scenes look at how this case unfolded and incorporate that information into your second paper, which will be a revised version of this paper. I’ve asked Mr. Terry not to lecture to you but to be prepared to answer your questions. So, what you get out of this opportunity depends on what you ask.