| Keynote Speaker: Bonnie Campbell
2004 International Women's Day Event
Bonnie J. Campbell served with distinction for four years as Iowa
Attorney General and then joined the Clinton Administration as one
of its key officials on crime and gender-equity issues. Selected
by Clinton in 1995 to head the Justice Department’s newly created
Violence Against Women Office, Campbell emerged as a national leader
for her work to bring victim-rights reform to the country’s
criminal justice system. Campbell’s effectiveness led Time
magazine in 1997 to name her one of the 25 most influential people
in America. Praising her for bringing “rock-solid credibility”
to her job, Time called Campbell the “force behind a grass-roots
shift in the way Americans view the victims--and perhaps more important,
the perpetrators--of crimes against women.” As director of
the Justice Department’s Violence Against Women Office, Campbell
oversaw a $1.6 billion program to provide resources to communities
for training judges, prosecutors, and police and to provide services
and shelter to victims.
In 1996, Campbell was chosen to serve on the President’s Interagency
Council on Women, chaired by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.
She also headed the Justice Department’s Working Group on Trafficking
and was instrumental in the creation of a U.S. treaty with Italy
on ending trafficking in women and girls. She subsequently was appointed
by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to represent the United
States in international negotiations on the creation of an International
Criminal Court. She was a member of the U.S. Delegation to the United
Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in
1995 and has been a leading spokesperson on international human
rights issues ever since.
Campbell was elected Attorney General of Iowa in 1990 and served
through 1994. She is the only woman to have held that office in
her state. She strengthened Iowa’s domestic violence laws,
increased funding for victim compensation programs and shelters,
and wrote what became a model statute on anti-stalking for states
around the country.
Campbell’s legal practice focuses on providing crisis management
counseling to businesses confronted with highly visible legal matters
as they attempt to deal with the public, the media, and an array
of government agencies. She also offers risk management services
for employers seeking to minimize liability for employment discrimination
claims. This includes reviewing company policies, assessing the
adequacy of company training on employment discrimination matters,
and advising businesses generally on compliance with state and federal
antidiscrimination requirements.
Campbell speaks regularly on the subjects of domestic violence,
victims’ rights, human rights, and international trafficking
in human beings. She has been featured in articles by People magazine,
Time, The National Journal, US News and World Report, and numerous
newspapers and has been a frequent guest on television and radio
news and talk shows.
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