Mary Maxine Reed, 93; Won Landmark Ruling Against Gender Bias

Mary Maxine Reed, who won a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case in 1971 that voided any law that establishes an arbitrary preference for men over women, died of undisclosed causes Sept. 26 near Boise, Idaho. She was believed to be 93.

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that an Idaho law that automatically gave Reed’s former husband preference over her as administrator of their dead son’s estate, solely because he was a man, violated the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.

The court called the Idaho law “the very kind of arbitrary legislative choice forbidden by the Equal Protection Clause.”

The Nebraska-born Reed married her husband, Cecil, in 1931. After they were divorced in 1958, Reed earned a living ironing, baking and taking care of disabled people in her home in Boise.

Their 16-year-old son, Richard, shot himself in 1967. When Reed applied to administer their son’s small estate, she learned that, according to Idaho law, when two people are equally qualified to be administrators, preference must be given to a man. Angered that “women could be stepped on like that,” Reed went to court.