Isadore "Shad" Polier was an American lawyer and civic leader who fought racial and religious discrimination in employment, education, and law enforcement.
16 Facts About Shad Polier
1.
2.
On March 18,1906, Isadore Polier was born to a Jewish family in Aiken, South Carolina.
3.
Shad Polier began to champion civil rights causes in response to lynchings in the South, starting in his hometown.
4.
In 1931, Shad Polier prepared legal briefs on behalf of the Scottsboro Boys.
5.
Shad Polier met his future wife, Justine Polier, through IJA in 1932 where they both contributed to fighting against discrimination.
6.
In 1934, Shad Polier appeared before a congressional committee to recommend legislative language that would clarify the right to strike.
7.
Shad Polier began his service on the National Labor Relations Board as a trial counselor that same year.
8.
Shad Polier authored a "Race Discrimination Amendment" to New York City's appropriations budget in 1942, which prohibited public funding for private childcare agencies that participated in racial discrimination.
9.
Shad Polier prepared necessary paperwork to incorporate the Center as well as for tax exemptions pro bono.
10.
Shad Polier served as the attorney for his mother-in-law's Jewish adoption agency.
11.
Shad Polier advocated for the first statewide Fair Education Practices Law to end racial and religious discrimination in admissions to colleges and universities, which passed into law in 1947.
12.
The original case was dismissed, but the American Jewish Congress, of which Shad Polier was the vice president, continued to fight for fair housing laws.
13.
Shad Polier fought against religious discrimination by representing would-be Jewish parents in civil suits to fight for the parents' rights to adopt children whose mothers were baptized as Catholics, as well as fighting against religious matching of probationers to officers.
14.
Shad Polier helped on the Brown vs Board of Education case by writing amicus briefs to support student rights to obtain equal education.
15.
Shad Polier served on the boards of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany and of the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture.
16.
Shad Polier died on June 30,1976, at his home in New York City.