Cosby accusers’ lawyer urges women to stand up against injustice

Bill Cosby YOUTUBE SCREENSHOT

The lawyer representing 29 of the alleged victims of Bill Cosby is a self-described “yiddishe maidele from south Philadelphia.”

Gloria Allred (née Bloom) is one of the most prominent civil rights lawyers in the United States, and at 74 still has plenty of fire in the belly for fighting injustice, especially against women.

When she was guest speaker at the annual Women of Action fundraiser for the Israel Cancer Research Fund (ICRF) and Pink Lady Fund on Nov. 22, Allred had just spent seven hours interrogating Cosby under oath about the sexual misconduct accusations.

Due to a protection order, she was not at liberty to reveal what transpired, but Allred did state that she is seeking a second round of questioning with the veteran comedian and actor.

Although Allred is a celebrity herself today, she stressed that her roots were very humble. Her parents had 8th-grade educations, and the family was poor. Allred was married, a mother and divorced by the time she was 20.

She struggled as a single mother (her daughter is Lisa Bloom, a lawyer and frequent TV legal analyst), before becoming a teacher, and later a lawyer, almost 40 years ago.

“I went from being a victim to a survivor to an agent for change,” Allred told the 600 women and men gathered at Congregation Shaar Hashomayim.

Allred praised Canada for being well ahead of the U.S. in enshrining the equality of men and women in its rights charter, which is lacking in the U.S. constitution.

She is working to get Hillary Clinton elected as the first female president, and lauded Canada for having already had, if only briefly, a woman prime minister, Kim Campbell, with whom she has collaborated.

Allred portrayed herself as unintimidated by wealth and power, noting that she took on Donald Trump over the Miss Universe pageant’s refusal in 2012 to allow a transgendered woman—Canadian Jenna Talackova– to enter the pageant’s Canadian round because she was not “a naturally born female.” Allred won. The pageant is one of Trump’s business interests.

 Gloria Allred HOWARD KAY PHOTO
Gloria Allred HOWARD KAY PHOTO

As for the Cosby scandal, Allred disclosed that there are more women than the approximately 50 who have come forward in the past year, who also claim they were victims.

“People ask why didn’t they go to the criminal justice system or file a civil lawsuit back then [when it happened]? The answer is they felt they would not be believed. They were unknown, he was a rich man, respected, loved, a family man. Even today some do not believe these 50 or so women,” said Allred.

Others worried their careers or families would be threatened, she said.

“Fear keeps women down and that only benefits the predators.”

No case may ever be criminally prosecuted because of the statute of limitations on rape, which varies from state to state, she said.

Allred is working with the accusers to change those laws, and has succeeded already in getting Nevada to reduce the limitation from five years to 20.

Many of Allred’s cases are less high-profile, but have levelled the playing field for women in small, but symbolically important ways, she said. These include forcing Saks Fifth Avenue to cease its policy of charging women more for clothing alterations than men.

Her message was that women – all women – must take a stand wherever they see injustice. “Exercise your power to fight for your rights under the law. Ignoring the problem won’t make it go away,” said Allred, recalling that the Holocaust began with Jews being deprived of their civil liberties.

Be prepared to for intimidation, she said. “If you generate a strong reaction it’s probably because you are saying something important…Overcome fear and find your voice.”

The honorees of the event were three accomplished local women: Nathalie Bondil, director and chief curator of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; lawyer and philanthropist Anne-Marie Boucher; and writer Mireille Silcoff.

Silcoff, 42, who suffers from a rare chronic disease of the connective tissue that left her bedridden for a long period, made an eloquent plea for avoiding the over-treatment of illness, and recognition that chronic illness can be managed, without a “hyperactive battle” with the body. Her long recuperation led to an unexpected expansion of her career from journalism into fiction writing.

This was the 10th Women of Action event, Pink Lady Fund chair Danny Lavy announced. The fund was created after his wife Susan was successfully treated for breast cancer.

Allred was the latest of a list of high-profile women who have been guest speakers, among them mental health activist Margaret Trudeau; journalist Barbara Amiel; businesswoman Arlene Dickinson; Colombian politician and former hostage Ingrid Betancourt; and Mariane Pearl, widow of the Wall Street Journal columnist slain by Islamic terrorists.

Women of Action has raised over $3 million for cancer research and treatment at the Jewish General Hospital (JGH), in partnership with scientists in Israel.

This year’s proceeds will go toward a study of 4,500 healthy non-Ashkenazi Jewish women in Israel of the incidence of the BRCA 1 and 2 gene mutations associated with an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer. The goal is to ultimately develop genetic screening for all women regardless of ancestry or family history.

The study will be conducted by Dr. Ephrat Levy-Lahad of Shaare Zedek Medical Centre and Mary-Claire King, the American geneticist who discovered BRCA.