Skip to content
Orange County Public Library (opens the library’s website in a new tab)

Local figure

Miriam Slifkin

Miriam Slifkin moved to Chapel Hill in 1955 and worked as a scientist in UNC's botany department. In 1973 she led the drive to found what became the Orange County Rape Crisis Center, campaigned to open the Morehead Scholarship to women and brought the EEOC to Chapel Hill to look into UNC's wages, hiring and admissions.

Source: Hudson Funeral Home and Cremation Services: Miriam Slifkin obituary (2020)

2 works about Miriam Slifkin are indexed here, as are 2 works by Slifkin.

Search these 2 works Research sources View indexed works ↓

Life and Orange County connections

Storylines this person is part of, in date order. Each opens its own page, with its events date by date.

StorylineWomen's complaints and affirmative action at UNC, 1970–19941970–1994 · 67 events · From 1970 UNC women challenged the University's limits on admitting women and its treatment of women employees, through Female Liberation's demands, a federal complaint by the Women's Equity Action League and later complaints by NOW and the Association of Women Students. The Faculty Council's 1973 report found gaps between men and women in hiring, pay and promotion. UNC's first affirmative action plan took effect in July 1973 but was rejected by HEW, and a revised plan followed in 1974; by that fall women made up 17.6 percent of the faculty. A federal agency upheld NOW's complaint in 1976, a religion professor lost her discrimination suit in 1978, and in 1981 Gillian Cell became UNC's first full-time affirmative action officer. In 1980 the Faculty Council's women's committee found no women hired as full professors since 1974, and in 1984 it reported that women in tenure-track posts had barely grown in a decade. Cell left the post in 1983 and in 1985 became dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. The University adopted a maternity leave policy in 1985, and in 1989 the women's committee reported that women held only 9 percent of full professorships. In 1990 and 1991 women in University housing maintenance and the School of Dentistry filed harassment grievances, and in 1992 the women's committee reported that all four full professorships awarded in 1990-91 went to men. In 1993 a state judge found sexual harassment in a Physical Plant grievance and the EEOC found sex discrimination in a tenure denial, and in 1994 the Faculty Council set goals for hiring women.

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 16 dated events in the chronology →

  1. The Orange County Morehead committee refuses to consider Chapel Hill High's nomination of a girl Chapel Hill High School principal William Strickland and a faculty committee nominated their top senior, a young woman, for an undergraduate Morehead Award, which the Daily Tar Heel called the first female nomination in the school's history and possibly the foundation's. George Coxhead, chairman of the Orange County selection committee, said she was ineligible under the foundation's rules and would not be interviewed; the local NOW chapter said it would study a lawsuit, and HEW's Atlanta office said it might look into the foundation. People: Miriam Slifkin Place: Chapel Hill High School, Chapel Hill · Also named: William Strickland, George CoxheadSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, October 26, 1973, p. 1
  2. The local NOW chapter files a federal sex discrimination complaint against UNC The Chapel Hill chapter of the National Organization for Women filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of all women faculty, staff and employed students, charging the University with discrimination in salaries, assignments and promotions and with nepotism and harassment, backed by ten signed affidavits and figures from the spring report on the role and status of women at UNC. Chapter president Miriam Slifkin said it followed dissatisfaction with affirmative action officer Douglass Hunt's progress. People: Miriam Slifkin, Douglass Hunt, N. Ferebee Taylor Place: University, Chapel HillSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, November 16, 1973, p. 1
  3. A federal investigator comes to UNC to look into women's charges of job discrimination An Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigator, Joe Gannon, arrived for a week on campus to look into the class action complaint the local National Organization for Women chapter filed the previous November and individual complaints by women University employees, according to chapter president Miriam Slifkin. She said one complaint challenged the University's anti-nepotism rule; the commission would neither confirm nor deny the investigation. People: Miriam Slifkin Place: UNC, Chapel Hill · Also named: Joe GannonSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, April 24, 1974, p. 1
  4. Orange County Rape Crisis Center is founded The organization established local support and advocacy for survivors of sexual violence. Then called the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Rape Crisis Center, a volunteer group sponsored by the National Organization for Women, it was already giving programs on rape by late August 1974 and planned to open its 24-hour crisis line on September 16. People: Miriam Slifkin Place: CountywideSearch the index · OCRCC — About; founding paragraph · Also: The Daily Tar Heel, August 29, 1974, p. 7; The Daily Tar Heel, September 16, 1986, p. 4; The Daily Tar Heel, December 6, 1989, p. 3; The Daily Tar Heel, January 29, 1991, p. 2; The Daily Tar Heel, November 15, 1991, p. 2; The Daily Tar Heel, April 20, 1994, p. 3; The Daily Tar Heel, September 14, 1994, p. 3
  5. NOW and Lollipop Power take a study of sex bias in textbooks to the Chapel Hill schools Members of the National Organization for Women and the feminist press Lollipop Power, led by Miriam Slifkin, presented the superintendent of schools with the findings of a NOW task force that had searched the textbooks used in Chapel Hill schools for sexual bias. By NOW's account a workshop for guidance counselors on biased textbooks followed several months later. People: Miriam Slifkin Place: Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Chapel Hill schoolsSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, September 19, 1975, p. 2
  6. The Association of Women Students and Chapel Hill NOW charge UNC with sex discrimination in residency rules The campus Association of Women Students and the Chapel Hill chapter of the National Organization for Women sent the federal Department of Health, Education and Welfare a complaint under Title IX charging the University with discriminating against women students in its tuition residency rules, which presumed a wife's domicile followed her husband's so that a North Carolina woman who married an out-of-state man lost in-state tuition. A University spokesman said UNC was following state law. People: Miriam Slifkin Place: University, Chapel HillSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, December 6, 1974, p. 1
  7. Chapel Hill NOW sets up a task force on credit discrimination against women At its business meeting the Chapel Hill chapter of the National Organization for Women formed a task force to look into local businesses' credit practices toward women, ahead of a federal ban on sex discrimination in credit taking effect October 28. Chapter president Ruth Meyer said NOW was also working with lawyers on three discrimination complaints against UNC, over residency for married women students, a faculty promotion and clerical pay. People: Miriam Slifkin Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Ruth MeyerSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, September 19, 1975, p. 2
  8. The Association of Women Students forms a commission on the status of Orange County women The UNC Association of Women Students set up a commission, modeled on groups in Greensboro and Winston-Salem, to gather figures on employment, education, day care, family life and women in government in Orange County, enlisting about 25 students and community leaders. Helpers included county commissioners' chairperson Flo Garrett, Miriam Slifkin, a founder of the local NOW chapter, and state Rep. Trish Hunt, and the group planned to ask the county commissioners for money and support. People: Miriam Slifkin Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Flo Garrett, Trish HuntSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, October 24, 1975, p. 2
  9. Federal EEOC upholds the women's sex discrimination charge against UNC In a letter dated September 22, the district office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission upheld the 1973 charge that the Chapel Hill chapter of the National Organization for Women filed for University Women for Affirmative Action, finding discrimination against women faculty and against women staff exempt from the State Personnel Act in hiring, promotion and salaries. It found that men's average faculty salaries in 1975 exceeded women's by $5,000 to $7,000, rejected the charges concerning women under the State Personnel Act, and called for a conciliation meeting; the University denied the findings. People: Miriam Slifkin, Douglass Hunt Place: University, Chapel HillSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, October 19, 1976, p. 1
  10. A women's speakout in Hillsborough prepares for the state women's year convention About 30 people attended an International Women's Year speakout in Hillsborough, led by Miriam K. Slifkin of Chapel Hill, one of the small meetings across the state that drew up issues for North Carolina's June 1977 IWY convention. Organizers wrote to churches, newspapers and organizations in four counties to draw women who would not usually take part. People: Miriam Slifkin Place: HillsboroughSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, September 14, 1977, p. 1
  11. About 200 people rally for the Equal Rights Amendment in the Pit About 200 people attended a rally for the Equal Rights Amendment in the Pit on the second day of the Association for Women Students' week-long 1978 Women's Festival. Miriam Slifkin, former president of the Chapel Hill chapter of the National Organization for Women, gave the keynote, and student speakers took up the amendment's legal and economic effects. People: Miriam Slifkin Place: The Pit, University of North Carolina, Chapel HillSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, January 24, 1978, p. 1
  12. A federal inquiry into sex and wage discrimination at UNC passes to the EEOC The Labor Department's Greensboro wage and hour office, which had been investigating alleged wage and sex discrimination at UNC since 1975, mainly in health affairs, turned its case file over to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which entered negotiations with the University. Miriam Slifkin, state president of the National Organization for Women, said she had asked for a class action covering all women employees, but the inquiry covered only faculty and exempt staff. People: Miriam Slifkin Place: University, Chapel HillSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, August 2, 1979, p. 1
Show all 16 dated events
  1. The Orange County Women's Center is established An anonymous $30,000 gift in March 1979 created a fund for an Orange County Women's Center, meant to give office space to the rape crisis center, the Women's Health Counseling Service and the Orange-Durham Coalition for Battered Women, along with classes and counseling. After a steering committee planned it from March, the center was incorporated on October 19, 1979. By April 1980 it was open at 307 North Columbia Street, and it later merged with the Family Violence Prevention Center of Orange County to form Compass Center. People: Miriam Slifkin Place: Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Orange County Women's Center, 307 North Columbia StreetSearch the index · Daily Tar Heel: Women's Center established (December 3, 1979) · Also: The Daily Tar Heel, December 4, 1987, p. 5
  2. Miriam Slifkin is inducted into the Order of the Golden Fleece UNC's Order of the Golden Fleece inducted Miriam Slifkin in 1980 for her service and leadership in the university community. Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · Hudson Funeral Home and Cremation Services: Miriam Slifkin obituary (2020)
  3. Local advocates campaign for a woman as UNC athletic director After Athletic Director Bill Cobey resigned, Miriam Slifkin, president of the state chapter of the National Organization for Women, organized a push in January 1980 to have a woman named to the post, charging that women's athletics had been neglected, a charge two women athletes disputed. By February 4 a group of local residents had publicly backed two women applicants, Joanne Fortunato of Northwestern and Barbara Kelly of Virginia, with support from Rep. Trish Hunt and Joan Scott, chair of the faculty committee on the status of women. People: Miriam Slifkin Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Trish Hunt, Joan Scott, Bill CobeySearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, February 5, 1980, p. 1
  4. Sen. Howard Lee introduces a bill to let Orange County enforce a civil rights ordinance In April 1993 Sen. Howard Lee introduced Senate Bill 807, drafted with the Orange County Human Relations Commission, to give the county commissioners power to enforce an anti-discrimination ordinance. The bill drew criticism for reaching threatening speech, and the commission asked the Chapel Hill Town Council for support on April 26. People: Howard N. Lee, Miriam Slifkin Place: Orange CountySearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, April 26, 1993, p. 1

People named in the same events

People named in the same dated entries as Miriam Slifkin, those sharing the most entries first. Each line links one of the shared entries in the chronology, where its source is cited. A shared entry shows these people in the same event, not how well they knew each other.

Indexed works

Works about or by Miriam Slifkin. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it. Background reading appears below.

By Miriam Slifkin

Oral history interview with Miriam Slifkin, March 24, 1995: interview G-0175, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Slifkin, Miriam · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Miriam Slifkin started the Rape Crisis Center in Orange County and was active in feminist organizing there. Interviewed by Lynne Degitz in March 1995, she describes the center's work on violence against women and her role in NOW (National Organization for Women), and she is frank about friction between NOW and other parts of the local movement. About an hour and fifty minutes, part of the Southern Oral History Program; electronic edition from the UNC library, 2006, through Documenting the American South.

NC Cardinal UNC

Miriam Slifkin papers,

Slifkin, Miriam · 1961

Papers of Miriam Slifkin, the Chapel Hill women's rights activist who founded and led North Carolina's chapter of the National Organization for Women and founded the Orange County Rape Crisis Center. Much of the 7.5 linear feet, about 5,000 items dating from 1961, is the NOW chapter's working files: letters, newsletters, speeches, budgets, fund raising and material on sex discrimination. A Rubenstein Library collection at Duke.

Duke

Places in this person’s story

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first.

All places and the county map →

Research sources

Sources and research tools for this person. For ready-made searches of other catalogs, see Search further. Research guide: Trace a family through historical records.

Background

Records of the time

Collections and databases

Local help

Search further

Search other catalogs and collections for this name. Results may include other people with the same name and have not been reviewed by the Friends.

Books about Miriam Slifkin

Books by Miriam Slifkin

Find copies at other libraries

Photographs, papers, and newspapers

Historical records and collections

These searches use Miriam Slifkin’s name without birth or death dates, so results may include namesakes. Links open in a new tab.

Found a book OCPL doesn’t own? You can often borrow it through interlibrary loan at OCPL.

More to discover

Keep Reading Local

The Friends connect people with new library materials, local writers and publishers, and resources documenting Orange County.

Browse New Arrivals → Meet Local Authors → Explore Local Publishers →
Two mice reading back to back against a leaf, with the hand-lettered words Friends of the Orange County Public Library
Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026