Long-time civil rights advocate Ruth L. Pulda died June 9 after a five-year battle with cancer. An intern and later board member of what was then the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union from 1985 to 1993, “She mentored a whole other generation of law students. She had a passion and commitment to social justice that never wavered during her entire legal career,” said Martha Stone, legal director of the CCLU during her term on the board.
Her friends described her as a fighter in every aspect of her life, yet she was especially concerned with ensuring social justice for others. Known as a champion of workers’ and women’s rights, Ruth played a particularly important role working with the ACLU and the Coalition for Choice against the Avon Surgical Center, which at the time did not provide adequate health care coverage for women. She also helped draft a law protecting access to abortion clinics, ensuring that women’s rights were respected.
Ruth Pulda held positions on countless legislative task forces, organizations, and state commissions, receiving numerous awards for her tireless commitment to public service. She was for a time legal counsel to the Connecticut Women’s Education and Legal Fund (CWEALF), which honored her with its 2006 One Woman Making a Difference Award.
Her other work included time as both chair and secretary of the State Permanent Commission on the Status of Women, as an adjunct professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law, where she was both co-founder and a teacher at the law school’s Women’s Rights Clinic, and as a partner since 1986 in the firm Livingston, Adler, Pulda, Meiklejohn and Kelly.
“She was a very loyal friend, very giving, compassionate, and an unending well of friendship,” said Stone. She leaves behind her husband, two sons, and a long list of family and friends whose lives she so positively affected.
Hartford Courant Obituary
