Today we pay homage to the incredible Cecile Richards who passed on Monday after an 18-month struggle with glioblastoma. Cecile fought to the end, for her own life, but really for all of our lives. Cecile never could accept or tolerate the human rights abuses faced by women, girls, and all folks facing inequity. Through her many roles, from community organizer, to president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, to the creation of the storytelling project, Abortion in America, she led with unending grace, wit, and brilliance. And as she fought on through a heartbreaking diagnosis, she exemplified the best of us.
In 2018, CUNY SPH awarded Cecile an honorary doctorate and, in the words of Distinguished Scholar Lyndon Haviland, CUNY SPH Foundation president, “Cecile represents everything our students strive to be: impactful, resilient, strategic, and kind. We will miss her but will be sure that she is remembered through our curriculum, research, and advocacy.”
Eighteen months ago, when I decided to join CUNY SPH and help build a new sexual and reproductive justice hub centered around an endowed professorship of sexual and reproductive justice named after pioneering reproductive rights activist Byllye Avery, Cecile reveled in the notion of a robust response from one of our nation’s most important public universities. She was thrilled that CUNY SPH would be a leader at this troubling time for our country and she encouraged me to proceed.
We will miss Cecile profoundly, but we will honor her every day, doing in her words “everything we could” to protect the rights of women and girls and everyone facing vast injustice.
