Gila Stopler (Israel)

Gila Stopler graduated magna cum laude from Tel Aviv University, Israel, in 1994. In 1995, she joined the Israeli Bar and began working as substitute legal counsel at the National Counsel for the Defense of the Child. She then became a staff lawyer for the Israeli Union for Environmental Defense, doing primarily environmental litigation. During this time, Gila was accepted to the New Israel Fund Fellowship for Human Rights Lawyers and, in 1997, completed an LL.M. degree in International Legal Studies at the American University in Washington, DC. She then returned to Israel to work for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), one of Israel's premiere public interest organizations. At ACRI, Gila litigated several cases before the Israeli Supreme Court and wrote a position paper on behalf of a coalition of NGO's advocating for the establishment of an Equal Employment Opportunities Commission in Israel, that was distributed to Israeli Parliament members. In the academic year 2000 - 2001 Gila was a Public Service Scholar at NYU School of Law pursuing an LL.M degree in Public Service Law. She graduated first in her class and received the David H. Moses Memorial Prize to the member of the LL.M class with the highest cumulative average. In the Fall 2001 semester Gila began to pursue her JSD degree at the NYU School of Law. The topic of her dissertation is the conflict between women's rights and culture and religion in a liberal state. She has recently published an article in the Columbia Journal of Gender and the Law entitled "Countenancing the Oppression of Women: How Liberals Tolerate Religious and Cultural Practices that Discriminate Against Women."