Goesaert V. Cleary

Welcome to our first Tipsy Rosies episode! We are celebrating FIFTY EPISODES of The Riveting Rosies Podcast, so pop the bubbly!

Goesaert v. Cleary was a 1948 US Supreme Court case challenging the Public Acts of Michigan 1945, which limited women’s ability to be a licensed bartender.

A few short years after the passing of the 21st Amendment, WWII broke out, which led to the majority of the male American workforce being pulled to the frontlines of the Pacific and European campaigns. This meant that women stepped up to fill the vacancies within the workforce, INCLUDING within the alcohol industries. This led to many women filling the roles of servers, bartenders, mixologists, and owners of liquor joints (for more on amazing Rosies in the brewing industry, check out our earlier episode Beer Witches).

Fast forward, WWII ended, and men were returning to the workforce only to discover women were doing it better. Many states then began to pass laws and acts that went so far as to outright forbid women from holding any role that would essentially grant them working rights.

Bartending unions jumped on this bandwagon and eagerly sought to keep women out of memberships and jobs revolving around the alcohol industry. Within the state of Michigan, women were outright banned from working as licensed bartenders unless related to a bar owner.

Valentine Goesaert was having none of this, however. She was a Dearborn resident whose husband owned a family bar, and upon his death, Valentine and her daughter decided they wanted to continue the family business. Unfortunately, because her husband was no longer alive, the state repealed her bartending license.

Valentine then got together with 24 of her closest gal pals who worked as tavern owners or bartenders, and represented by Anne Davidow (see more on her below), took their case to the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. While the law was upheld by the district court, they then took it up to SCOTUS. In their case, Goesaert stated the law was in violation of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. SCOTUS ruled 6-3 in favor of the Michigan law in order to protect women from “morally corrupt work environments” (nyhistory.org). The Michigan law itself was repealed in 1955, largely due to the persistent activism of the Michigan Barmaids Association, but the damage to social progress had been done

**Now a quick intermission to talk about bar-certified badass Anne Davidow**

Anne Davidow was born in 1898, & upon graduating from the University of Detroit Law School, joining the bar association in 1920. She had also applied to the Detroit College of Law, which was the same school her brother had attended, but was rejected ON THE BASIS OF SEX. Did that stop Anne though? Of course not.

Anne and her brother worked together at their firm, Davidow & Davidow, serving as the counsel for the Reuther brothers and the United Automobile Workers labor union. Anne obviously represented Goesaert in the case, which would eventually become a cornerstone of Congresswoman Martha Griffiths’ argument in the eventual passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. Today, Goesaert v. Cleary is now a part of law school curriculums nationwide.

Later, Anne would serve as president of the Women Lawyers Association of Michigan, keeping her maiden name the entire time she practiced law. She died in 1991.

In her biography, Anne is quoted as saying, “‘I was quite radical in the sense that I couldn’t see any reason a woman couldn’t do anything a man could do.’” (thrillist.com)

*Back to the court case*

Goesaert v. Cleary was eventually overturned by the case Craig v. Boren in 1976, which declared statutory or administrative sex classifications were subject to intermediate scrutiny under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause (Wikipedia). FUN FACT: NOTORIOUS RBG served as an advising attorney for the plaintiff during her time with the American Civil Liberties Union (see previously published Episode 13–Supreme Court Justices). She ALSO presided over a re-enactment of the court case in 2017 at an event sponsored by the Supreme Court Historical Society and the Women’s Bar Association of DC

Today, (at least until the COVID-19 outbreak), 58% of bartenders in the modern hospitality industry are women, & February 24 is celebrated as World Bartender Day.

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