Perseverance in Profile
CLAUDIA CENTER: CHAMPION FOR DISABILITY RIGHTS BY TOM CALARCO
Claudia Center grew up in a “pretty ordinary,” liberal New England family. Raised in the Unitarian Church, she was taught that she had a duty to make the world a better place. But she had a problem: she was “typically unhappy” and professional help was out of the question.
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“My mom said, ‘You don’t need treatment, we don’t do this in our family,’” she says.
“Law school can be a frightening and bitter experience for
a semester abroad studying in Kenya and graduating from Wesleyan College in Middletown, Conn., Center’s dreams led her to California, where she enrolled at Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. But her dreams did not materialize immediately. Te pressure of law school added to her depression. She didn’t realize then that depression is a disability that requires accommodation.
A DIVERSITY & THE BAR® JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013
someone with a psychiatric condition,” she says. “At times, I couldn’t seem to connect with my professors or peers. My words didn’t seem to be heard or understood. I hid in the women’s lounge, drinking coffee and more coffee, and had sleepless nights and dream-like spells of disorientation.” She began getting professional help, but kept her
treatment a secret. During a summer law firm job in Washington, D.C., she remembers sneaking away for coun- seling sessions with her psychiatrist. Little did she know that she had entered a field in which depression is common. A study done at Johns Hopkins University found that of 28 occupations, law had the highest incidence of depression. “I was fighting to hide my emotional symptoms within a
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hostile, male-dominated legal environment that demanded that I never let a partner see me cry,” she says. “But the more I tried to fit into some professional lawyer mold, the crazier I became.” Somehow, Center got through it with the help of
medication and a Boalt law professor, Reva Siegel, for whom she worked as a research assistant and who, she says, “saved my butt.” “She’s a very inspirational person,” Center says. “She
seemed to think I was smart and she was very encouraging.” Another experience at that time that helped her come to
terms with her depression was attending a conference where disability rights pioneer Ed Roberts was a speaker. Roberts was the quadriplegic who launched the disability rights movement at Berkeley during the early 1960s.
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