Will Maslow (September 27, 1907 – February 23, 2007) 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.
Early life and education
Born in Kyiv, Russian Empire, Maslow came to the United States with his parents Raeesa and Saul Maslow (family name Masliankin) in 1911. He graduated from Boys High School (Brooklyn), where his best friend was his cousin Abraham Maslow, who later became a pioneer in humanistic psychology. A Boys High physics teacher introduced the cousins to Upton Sinclair's books, which promoted concern for the disadvantaged and a belief that managing the labor/capital relationship equitably would be critical to the success of American democracy. The teenaged cousins embraced democratic socialist ideals, such as those espoused by Eugene Debs, Norman Thomas, and the Nation magazine. Will Maslow remained a supporter of Norman Thomas's Socialist Party until early in 1934 when he joined Paul Blanshard, a former active Socialist who had turned “independent progressive,” to work in Mayor La Guardia's Republican-Fusion administration (see below).
Maslow won a New York State Regents Scholarship for academic excellence to Cornell University. At Cornell, he helped revive and became president of the Cornell Liberal Club. According to Cornell historian Morris Bishop: "The Cornell Liberal Club was organized by a group of students and faculty in 1929. It opposed the condemnation of Sacco and Vanzetti, the brutal treatment of striking miners, the ban on working foreign students, and compulsory military training at Cornell." In 1928, Maslow competed for an editorial position at The Cornell Daily Sun and was named a senior associate editor responsible for editorials. He elected to take his senior year in Cornell Law School, where he completed the first-year curriculum. Maslow graduated Cornell with an A.B. degree in 1929.
Following Cornell graduation, Maslow enrolled in Columbia University Law School, where he completed his law degree in 1931. During Maslow's two years at Columbia, "Legal Realism," which would influence Maslow's later writings, had become an established approach to law taught by many Columbia law professors. No longer on scholarship, during law school Maslow worked part-time as a reporter for The New York Times.
Early career
After graduation he was employed by Arthur Garfield Hays on special assignment to work on the highly contested will case of the last known heir of the Wendel real estate fortune, Ella Wendel. The settlement on behalf of Hays's claimants earned the firm $1.3 million.
In 1934 Maslow joined the New York City Department of Investigation and Accounts in the administration of the recently elected mayor, Fiorello La Guardia. The agency was headed by commissioner Paul Blanshard, who had been a key figure in the City Affairs Committee, formed by concerned citizens to rid New York City of municipal corruption. Blanshard's new municipal agency was tasked by La Guardia to continue the work of rooting out corruption. Hired as an examiner and soon promoted to associate counsel, Maslow was assigned a large and diverse set of high-profile cases ranging from defiant "tin box" racketeers, electric and gas utility corruption, consumer fraud protection, and stalemated labor-management conflicts.
National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Maslow joined NLRB as a trial attorney in New York City soon after the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to affirm the NLRB's constitutionality. The NLRB had been created by the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, also known as the "Wagner Act," to enforce the right of workers to create their own unions and collectively bargain with employers. In 1941, Maslow was promoted to administrative law judge, an NLRB staff position responsible for docketing, presiding over, and deciding unfair labor practice cases.