Gloria Steinem

By in Political Leaders

By: Michaela Wiberg, Wagner College ’16 “Law and justice are not always the same. When they aren’t, destroying the law may be the first step toward changing it.” – Gloria Steinem In the 1970s Gloria Steinem was a household name. At the time she was a journalist and women’s rights activist but she would become one of the most influential voices in the battle for gender equality. Gloria Steinem was one of the first women to question the expectations placed on women by society and the inherent misogyny ingrained into the culture of the time. She saw injustices and refused to stand for them. She founded the first feminist magazine and fought for women’s rights. Her writing and work for equality are world renowned. Gloria Steinem was instrumental in the success of the women’s rights movement in the 1960s and 70s, particularly because of her outspoken protest of sexist laws and...

Herman Badillo

By in Leadership, Political Leaders

By: Amanda Perez, Wagner College ‘16 “Herman Badillo is a true leader who doesn’t flinch from expressing difficult truths. His own amazing story provides inspiration and the moral authority that allows him to advocate hard choices for American Hispanics. He has provided an important blueprint for incorporating the nation’s largest ethnic community into the mainstream of this great nation,” says Linda Chavez, a former Reagan White House official and author of Out of the Barrio: and Towards a New Politics of Hispanic Assimilation.(1) Controversial Views: Herman Badillo’s book, One Nation, One Standard: An Ex-Liberal on How Hispanics Cam Succeed Just Like Other Immigrant Groups, is “a memoir of Herman Badillo’s early life and political career intertwined with his reflections on increasing upward mobility of Hispanics in the United States.”(2) He states in his book, “Hispanics,...

Abraham Lincoln

By in Leadership, Military Leaders, Political Leaders

Abraham Lincoln — Caralayah Brown “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery, will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new – North as well as South.” — June 16, 1858. Republican State Convention. Acceptance speech when chosen as candidate for U.S. Senate. This speech was a perfect example of Lincoln’s political outlook: if the country was divided on such a major issue as slavery, they...