Well, one of the things that we value so much in Bill Gould is his activist streak. And I think that’s, that’s what keeps him young and keeps him engaged. Because when a big issue comes along, like a teacher’s strike, or a strike in baseball, or a particularly Difficult organizing process like we’re seeing now with situations like at Starbucks and Amazon.
Bill is all over it because he wants to be both analytical. But he also wants to be relevant. And that’s his teaching mission of going out and educating the public, not to pontificate all the time about what his views are, but to help understand these issues. And that’s so important today, because today, labor relations is much, much more of a public event.
than it used to be. It used to be you didn’t comment on negotiations as an outsider because you respected the process. That’s still true, but there’s so much more at stake that we’ve got to educate the public about what’s wrong with labor law, how it needs to be fixed to better protect workers rights to organize, and how to produce high quality labor management relationships.
Bill has a, has a, has an important perspective and a voice to offer on all of those issues. And that’s why you see him quoted a lot and called on by the media and why he takes the initiative to write pieces that will help educate the public. That’s a very, very important public service particularly at this point in history.
What makes Bill Gould so important is impact. And over the years, I’ve had different positions, such as President and General Counsel of MALDEF, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. We consider ourselves the law firm for the Latino community on education, on immigrant rights, on voting rights.
I’ve held some other positions in academia, in public service. I was Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity at HUD during the Obama administration. I ran the only office in the federal government devoted solely to immigrant workplace rights during the Clinton administration, but what it really comes down to is impact.
And that’s where I see Bill Gould having an impact on me and an impact on so many over the last 50 years. I got to know him less as my labor law professor, although that was a very meaningful experience, but as someone who we connected on voting rights. And certainly whether it is my own career involved in voting rights or whether it is the impact that Bill’s teachings and his activities have on many people across, across California and across the country, it’s really all comes down to impact.
And that’s where he rises candidly head and shoulders above many professors I had. I was privileged and pleased to have at Stanford. There are different teaching styles, but what really distinguishes to me Bill Gould, is the impact that he has on students and their careers. He was speaking to students during Black History Month in February of 1982 and it was a small, a small gathering. Clay Carson put it on and he was speaking about the Voting Rights Act. At the time, it was being extended by, by the House and Senate. And I went and got to hear him speak and we talked about the different aspects of it. And later on, he says, as he was preparing to preparing to his presentation, he was looking at the House and Senate debates over the, over the recent extension of the act.
He says, I didn’t know you were an expert on this because I had actually testified. As I had a unique experience as a 1L spending my summer in Washington, D. C. with MALDEF, thanks to hearing a Latino community leader speak at Stanford in the, in the spring of, of, of 81. I had the unique opportunity not only to intern in Washington, D.
C., but because I had served on a Citizen’s Advisory Committee on Elections appointed by Mayor Feinstein. As we were preparing for hearings and looking for election officials to speak about voting rights and the positive benefits of bilingual voting couldn’t find any official official election officials in the southwest.
And I mentioned, well, I’m, I’m on this advisory committee. I ended up testifying in front of the House Judiciary Committee. Which is definitely a unique experience for someone right after their first first year of law school. Ironically, we had a connection and neither one of us realized it even before I went to law school.
In 1979, a young man by the name of Brian Henning, active in the labor movement, was organizing for Ted Kennedy to run against Jimmy Carter. And, and Brian gathered together a group of people from around the state, including Bill Gould and including me to, to put out a full page ad on the Chronicle to say, the time is now Ted Kennedy should run for President against Jimmy Carter.
And it wasn’t until later that I realized that we were both on it. Professor Gould didn’t know we were both on it. He, he did not know my name at the time. So that was a, a connection that we had even prior to the time I entered law school. I got to know the, the, the voting rights act side of him through the, through the lecture that, that he gave for black history month, there are parallels between voting rights and employment, right.
And being as, as we are celebrating the first African American. A member of the faculty. It made sense for him to be knowledgeable and wanting to make sure that students in the Stanford community understood the histories and understood the impact of labor issues as well as in Voting Rights Act and Voting Rights Act.
So it was no surprise that he was the speaker for for voting rights and at that event. I was interested to hear him. It was a different facet, different area of the law than I was experiencing in class. Real connection came during, during the Clinton administration and then subsequently in the Obama administration Bill was head of the NLRB.
And we were both going through confirmation during the during the Clinton years. I was special counsel for immigration related unfair employment practices. The protecting the rights of immigrant workers. So there was a case that that Bill was involved with and helpful just to help me get into the NLRB bureaucracy.
And that was a case in Minnesota. And Senator Wellstone very pro labor, very active as senator at the time he heard me speak and he said, Okay, if you’re here from, if you’re here from the administration, here’s a problem we’re having. It’s with Holiday Inn Express workers. Holiday Inn Express workers, the, the the housekeepers were trying to form a union.
They had a couple of meetings with, with management. They had a third meeting and unbeknownst to them, They The management had called on had called INS on the on the workers. So instead of having a meeting with with management, INS came in, took everybody away. This was a violation of their rights to organize.
It was a singling them out. And they had also lost lost pay. We felt as as as I said, the the special counsel’s office within the Department of Justice. We had been looking for ways to collaborate with other agencies to make sure that that managers and employers did not put one agency against another.
In this case, it would be INS doing their work as compared to what we were trying to accomplish for workers. Within a short period of time, we were able to coordinate NLRB, EEOC, and my office. to make sure that the workers were protected. And finally, ultimately there was a settlement on all, on all aspects.
And then, and then we collectively went to the INS and said your agency can’t be used to thwart our work. And, and, and INS gave them an extended extended voluntary departure, which enabled them to stay, the workers to stay in the country and try to get other means to adjust their status. But it was, it was his I think his ability to help me get through the bureaucracy and, and just to demonstrate that so many issues are linked.
again, voting and employment, access, opportunity. All these things are linked together. And that’s one of the things that I I see about him. I was always looking at looking out for people and using the law, applying the law. And that’s what also That underscores the importance of having faculty members who have that experience in the legal field have that experience in the communities and bringing that into the classroom to inspire students.
Just my tremendous admiration for him to really extend himself like very few others over, over, over the decades that I’ve seen and it’s he is a model for a. An expert in, in, in law to be on a faculty to bring that outside experience and, and, and appreciation of, of people. I, I, when I, when I think of the professors that I’ve worked with in, in other places and other appointees, having that, having that diversity of experience and, and the, and the appreciation of, of, of the, the real personal aspects of law is something that I wanna instill in, in, in others.
​