Independent Women’s Law Center (IWLC) isn’t as big as the legal powerhouses of the Left. New Director May Mailman is the right woman to change that.
Independent Women’s Forum is pleased to announce that May Mailman, the new director of Independent Women’s Law Center (IWLC), is the latest entry in our popular series of Champion Women profiles.
IWLC was founded by Jennifer Braceras, who is IWF's Vice President for Legal Affairs, a former member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and an expert on Title IX and nondiscrimination. Mailman was appointed Director earlier this year. IWLC is an answer to the Left’s lavishly-funded legal advocacy machine.
“There’s a huge imbalance right now between the legal challenges coming from the left versus the right and this affects private organization behavior, it affects government behavior, it affects individual behavior,” Mailman says. “We have heard from organizations that they adopt certain policies because they’re scared of getting sued by the Left. So, they’re going to allow men in women’s sports because they fear a lawsuit from a male who wants into women’s sports and will not be let in. And the imbalance is real.”
May made headlines when she stepped in and helped six women who objected to a man, who identifies as a woman, joining their historically all-women Kappa Kappa Gamma Sorority. “This is a tough case for a lot of reasons, beyond the definition of a woman and too many people forgetting what that is,” says Mailman. “It is very important that the arguments be made in a powerful fashion that other people can use.”
May grew up in the Midwest and went to the University of Kansas and Harvard Law School, where she eventually became President of the Federalist Society. After clerking for a federal district judge in Denver, Mailman served as a legal advisor to President Donald J. Trump, where her portfolio included health care, immigration, and social issues. At the end of the Trump administration, May had several enticing job offers. Then January 6 happened. “Literally as people were storming the Capitol,” May says, “I called my first-choice employer, who was the Ohio Attorney General, and I said, ‘yes, I’ll take that job now,’ because I anticipated that a lot of my colleagues were completely un-hirable for a very long time following January 6, even though working in the White House is very different from storming the Capitol.”
Coincidentally, a White House colleague knew a suitor in Cleveland, Ohio, she might like—the only problem was his last name was Mailman, which could deliver all sorts of mirth. May thought, ah well, it was just a date, she wasn’t going to marry him, she’d give him a tour of the White House and that would be it. He flew from Cleveland to Washington for a blind date with May. Three months later, May and David Mailman were engaged. David was a professional baseball player for five years and then graduated from the University of South Carolina and Rice Business School. He has worked for Goldman Sachs and is in the corporate development business in Cleveland. The Mailmans have one child and another imminently on the way.
We know you will enjoy meeting May and watching her transform the legal advocacy landscape over the coming years.
