Edie Fraser delivers a spoken tribute to "Bunny," recounting three concrete contributions: organizing federal data collection on women, coordinating communications and coalition work around Title IX, and convening the first conference of women college presidents (ACE). The speech emphasizes Bunny's role as a connector, catalyst, communicator, and persistent advocate for gender equity; Fraser links Bunny's legacy to contemporary movements (e.g., Paradigm for Parity, MeToo) and closes with gratitude.
What a joy that we're together. I'm Edie Fraser, and I knew Bunny very early, it seems, because there were three distinct things she got me to do, she got us all to do things, and we got others to do things. But one, in light of gender equity, was to really put together with Wheel and few the data women across the federal government. Now, it had never been done before. So we spent the weekend, Bunny and I and a few others on the floor of my apartment putting together every department and agency and looking at the data of women, which now is mandatory. But the fact is it was the first time it was ever done, and Bunny made it happen because she pulled us and said we can't move forward unless we know the base of gender equity of where we're going. My second major experience, when we all worked with Title 9 and I had done the Peace Corps, five years in the poverty program and ended up at the old hew. But it was. I had established a communications firm and Bunny said, and you're getting involved in the communications. We all need each other to pass Title 9 and to work on the action. And yes, we did. And the third experience goes back to ACE and college presidents, because I think she was the first to say, we're going to put together a conference, the first time that women college presidents have ever come together. And help me put that together, because we're going to start counting the voices of women college presidents. So there's so many other stories as today we say thank you that we've got to push women at the top in terms of women and politics and policy and all we do to make that action, that really 44,000 women from school boards, et cetera, after Trump was elected, decided and then want that equity. As we've ever gone about it, I think that Bunny is in our hearts every day. If we just say the name Bunny and what that means for equity, it's just extraordinary as we all stand up to push. We're putting together whole effort on business women's groups with Paradigm for parity and equity and getting all the groups to stand up preparatory and equality and the MeToo movement is helping with Bunny in our hearts and minds to know that we're working on that together. So very quickly, as we've been thinking, and I was thinking of the adjectives as you do that really connote Bunny and our consciences. And one of them is those connections that she made us all put together to actions and to drive a commitment, and that included data and change to really the courage of the convictions, the pure courage to stand up, the communications. We couldn't do it unless we all put communications with it to build the coalition and build that strongly together and that constant persistence with it, the catalyst for change that she was, the compassion that she brought along with a smile and the word cause of the cause that we all had to work to. And today, I think we'd add complaints, because I think, as everybody's taught, she put forward complaints so that we could solve them and that we could really make a difference and in a sense of building a really strong community. So there's so many more things that we all say, but I say that we all feel a sense of gratitude for her friendships and for her push along the way. And to know that in these troubling times, we're going to take those adjectives and just make such a difference and say, thank you, Bunny.
