Pioneer Oregon jurist frets over women’s political gains

Supreme Court Justice Betty Roberts says Sarah Palin 'is a stranger to me'

By Sharon Nesbit

The Gresham Outlook, Sep 12, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (23 Reader comments)

Betty Roberts, Oregon’s first woman supreme court justice, and June Swan, (right) met again in Gresham Monday. They were neighbors in Gresham in 1956.

Sharon Nesbit / Gresham Outlook

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Betty Roberts, Oregon’s first woman Supreme Court justice, came to Gresham on Monday, Sept. 8, to talk with two local book clubs about her memoir.

But the readers crammed into the living room of June Swan, longtime Gresham resident, could not ignore what Roberts quipped was “the elephant in the room.”

Roberts’ role as a leader in Oregon’s feminist movement is recorded in her book, “With Grit and By Grace.” But Robert’s talk led straight to the hottest topic in the nation, Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

Roberts, who saw the Equal Rights Amendment passed in Oregon, though it failed by a vote of three states nationally, pondered what to make of the Alaska governor who is Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s running mate.

“Do we accept it as a new step for women, or have we just regressed?” she asked.

Roberts pioneered law to decriminalize abortion in Oregon while Palin opposes abortion. The next administration will likely make the Supreme Court appointments that could end legal abortion in the U.S.

“This is a new sort of reality,” Roberts said, adding that it brings her back to the 1970s and Phyllis Schafly’s arguments against the Equal Rights Amendment.

“She (Palin) is a stranger to me,” Roberts said, “I just don’t relate.”

Bur Roberts said Palin’s candidacy raises one question all women in all politics share: How can women in political life support a feminine side and still be tough?

Roberts didn’t start out tough. She was a banker’s wife in rural Oregon with four children. A bonafide member of the bridge playing set, she decided in her 30s to go back to school, finish her college education and become a teacher in order to help educate her children. The man who admitted her to Eastern Oregon University (then Eastern Oregon College) remarked that returning to school was “cute.” It was the first of many rebuffs she experienced as she worked her away through politics, into law school and finally to the bench of the state’s top court.

“You learn how to deal with disappointment,” she said.

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