Nancy Hogshead-Makar, the Olympic 100m freestyle champion of 1984, a legal advocate for girls and women in sports via her agency Champion Women, is the recipient of the Miriam M. Netter ’72 Stoneman Award.
Albany Law School and the Kate Stoneman Honorary Committee have announced that Hogshead-Makar, the winner of three golds and a silver at a home Olympic Games in 1984 who went on to become a civil rights lawyer and Chief Executive Officer of Champion Women, a nonprofit providing legal advocacy for girls and women in sports, will deliver the keynote address at the 26th Anniversary Kate Stoneman Day on March 19, 2020.
Kate Stoneman Day is Albany Law School’s annual celebration of women in law. As the keynote speaker, Hogshead-Makar will receive the prestigious Miriam M. Netter ’72 Stoneman Award, which is presented in honor of Kate Stoneman, the first woman admitted to practice law in New York State and the first woman to graduate from Albany Law School, Class of 1898.
Albany Law School President and Dean Alicia Ouellette said:
“Nancy Hogshead-Makar is a champion in every sense of the word—a renowned attorney, a tireless advocate for equal rights, and an Olympic gold medalist. She exemplifies the trailblazing spirit of Kate Stoneman and is an inspired choice to headline our next Kate Stoneman Day.”
Hogshead-Makar recently led a multi-year effort to protect athletes from sexual abuse in club and Olympic sports, which culminated when a new federal law, the Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and SafeSport Authorization Act, was signed in February 2018.
In its statement, Albany Law School noted that Hogshead-Makar has testified in Congress numerous times on gender equity in athletics. She often serves as an expert witness in Title IX cases and has written amicus briefs representing athletic organizations in precedent-setting litigation. She is also a regular media commentator.
Her book, co-authored with Andrew Zimbalist, Equal Pay: Title IX and Social Change, and her lead authorship of a paper entitled Pregnant and Parenting Student-Athletes: resources and Model Policies, published by the NCAA, are among works that highlight her advocacy.
Albany Law School noted: “Through her work, Hogshead-Makar has helped shape policy for girls and women. She has served on the NCAA Task Force on Gender Equity, and on the boards of Equality League, the Association of Title IX Administrators, the Aspen Institute’s Sport and Society, the One Love Foundation, and the World Olympians Association. Sports Illustrated listed her as one of the most influential people in the history of Title IX in 2007.”
Carrie Steinseifer and Nancy Hogshead at the 1984 Olympics – Photo Courtesy – Swimming World Magazine
Hogshead-Makar, who claimed silver in the 200m butterfly at the 1978 World Championships but was denied what might have been her first Olympic experience by the U.S. boycott of Moscow 1980, is a member of the Duke University Athletics Hall of Fame. At Los Angeles 1984, Hogshead-Makar became an Olympic swimming pioneer with USA teammate with Carrie Steinseifer when the two stopped the clock at the same time, their gold each marking the first time a solo title went to two winners in the pool in Games history.
During her time at Duke, she was raped. In the course of her advocacy, Hogshead-Makar has talked openly about the crime against her, the power of sport for healing trauma, and the work Champion Women undertakes to address Sexual Abuse in sport.
After the 1984 Olympics, she graduated with honors from Duke and earned her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1997. Hogshead-Makar went on to practice law at Holland & Knight LLP in the litigation and public law departments. From 2003 to 2012, she was the Co-Chair of American Bar Association Committee on the Rights of Women. From 2001 to 2013, Hogshead-Makar was a tenured professor on the faculty at Florida Coastal School of Law in Jacksonville, where she taught first-year torts and sports law courses, including Gender Equity in Athletics.
Additional Stoneman Awards, given annually to individuals who have demonstrated a commitment to seeking change and expanding opportunities for women within the legal profession, will be announced at a later date.
Past Stoneman Award honorees include U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, New York State Solicitor General Barbara Underwood, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the Honorable Constance Baker Motley, former New York Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye -who delivered the inaugural keynote in 1994 – and other leaders in the private sector, public service, and academia.
Kate Stoneman Day is free and open to the public.
More information of the work of Champion Women:
What a shock to read that Nancy Hogshead was raped when student! Not only I saw her to swim (and sometimes to win) in many occasions at World championships and Olympic Games but had a chance to be near her at the closure ceremony of the Atlanta Olympics and could speak with this enthusiastic, energetic and sweet person. I have also read a very good book by her about sport and allergies. I think she is a magnificent person.