Meet the
Collective
Richard Lipsitz, Sr.,
Esq.
Board Member
During 60 years of
representing labor unions and individual workers, Richard Lipsitz has also
been involved in many pro bono appearances involving the First Amendment, in
particular before Senator McCarthy’s Senate Labor Committee hearings
during the 1960s, and also before HUAC during hearings in Buffalo in the
late 1950s and early 1960s -- in fact, Dick even defended our very
playhouse's namesake Manny Fried during his HUAC prosecution.
During the late 1950s and early 1960s, as
attorney for several labor unions, he represented a large number of defense
plant employees at administrative law hearings conducted pursuant to the U.
S. Loyalty and Security Act, to determine their continued eligibility to
continue to be employed at those plants.
He has also represented SUNYAB professors who had refused to sign
anti-communist oaths during the 1960s.
In one such case, he won a landmark United States Supreme Court
decision declaring the New York State Feinberg law, requiring anti-communist
oaths, unconstitutional.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s he
represented conscientious objectors and opponents of the Vietnam war.
Although not a
participant in theatrical activities, his interest in freedom of expression
has motivated him and his wife to enjoy progressive and left wing theatrical
performances involving First Amendment rights and freedom of expression.
Accordingly, four years ago he became a significant financial
supporter of the Subversive Theater Collective, and during the last two
years as a member of its Board of Directors.
He has also served on the Irish Classical Threatre’s Board of
Directors.
During 10
years prior to his stepping down in 2008, he was president of the Buffalo
Coalition for Economic Justice, during which time he was also one of the
principal draftpersons of the City of Buffalo Living Wage Ordinance, and a
pro-bono attorney in various litigation concerning the same.
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