Will Maslow was an American lawyer and civil rights leader who fought for full equality in a free society for Jews, blacks, and other minorities at positions he held in government and as an executive of the American Jewish Congress

American Jewish Congress

The American Jewish Congress describes itself as an association of Jewish Americans organized to defend Jewish interests at home and abroad through public policy advocacy, using diplomacy, legislation, and the courts....

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History

Born in Kiev, Ukraine, Maslow came to the United States with his parents Raeesa and Saul Maslow (family name Masliankin) in 1911, and was raised primarily in Brooklyn, N.Y. After graduating from Boys High School Brooklyn, he won a state scholarship to Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

, where he wrote for and edited the student paper, The Daily Sun, organized the Liberal Club, and in 1929, graduated with an A.B. degree. His cousin Abraham Maslow

Abraham Maslow

Abraham Harold Maslow was an American professor of psychology at Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, New School for Social Research and Columbia University who created Maslow's hierarchy of needs...

, who had attended Boys High School with him, was a fellow student at Cornell.

Maslow received a law degree from Columbia University Law School in 1931. From 1931 to 1934, he was associated with the law practice of Arthur Garfield Hays--who was the general counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union

American Civil Liberties Union

The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...

, and he worked part-time as a reporter for The New York Times. He then became an associate counsel in the New York City Department of Investigation, under commissioner Paul Blanshard in Mayor La Guardia's administration. In 1937 he joined the National Labor Relations Board as a Trial Attorney in New York City and, in 1941, as an Administrative Law Judge based in Washington, D.C. In 1943 he was named Director of Field Operations for the President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice (FEPC), the agency responsible for investigating and resolving employment discrimination in wartime and government procurement contracts, and he served in that position until 1945.

In August 1945, Maslow returned to New York to become General Counsel of the American Jewish Congress

American Jewish Congress

The American Jewish Congress describes itself as an association of Jewish Americans organized to defend Jewish interests at home and abroad through public policy advocacy, using diplomacy, legislation, and the courts....

, and Director of the American Jewish Congress's newly established Commission on Law and Social Action. He was Executive Director of AJCongress from 1960 until 1972. He continued to serve as general counsel of the agency until he retired in 1984. In retirement, he continued writing briefs and papers as a volunteer through the late 1990s.

Under his counsel and leadership, AJCongress was often in the courts challenging discrimination and advocating civil rights.
Maslow created the AJCongress’ Commission on Law and Social Action and with it, filed a discrimination suit against Columbia University, demanding that it change its discriminatory admissions quotas. He also filed a suite against Stuyvesant Town Housing Co. because of its racial policies against black tenants.

In 1947, he fought for strict adherence to the Ives-Quinn Law which forbade discrimination in employment, charging that job agencies were disregarding this law en masse, 88% in fact
He negotiated with Gertz, a department store in Jamaica, Queens

Jamaica, Queens

Jamaica is a neighborhood in the borough of Queens in New York City, New York, United States. It was settled under Dutch rule in 1656 in New Netherland as Rustdorp. Under British rule, the Village of Jamaica became the center of the "Town of Jamaica"...

, to hire blacks for the first time. "The negroes' fight against discrimination in employment, housing, education is part of the struggle for Jews for equality of opportunity in those fields. "

Maslow helped organize Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1968 civil rights march on Washington, D.C. and the Little Rock school discrimination case in the 1950s.