BERKELEY, Calif., Aug. 24 (UPI) -- Leo Kanowitz, a California law professor who wrote a pioneering book on gender discrimination law, has died at the age of 81.
Kanowitz suffered from diabetes, the Los Angeles Times reported.
His 1969 book, “Women and the Law: The Unfinished Revolution,” was a pioneering work that outlined the ways in which women suffered discrimination.
"What Leo did that was so distinctive was lay the intellectual foundation for being able to look at these issues, not just as women's rights issues but as human rights and civil rights issues," Herma Hill Kay, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, told the Times.
Kanowitz was the author of nine other works. “Equal Rights: The Male Stake” in 1981 argued that all gender-based laws should be repealed, including those that gave women an edge.
Kanowitz, a native of New York, went to law school after a career that included studying comparative literature at the Sorbonne and working as a labor organizer in California. He spent most of his legal career as a teacher at Hastings University of California School of Law, retiring in 1991, the Times said.
