Colonel Renee Rubin is a woman of firsts. Not content with the traditional limitations imposed upon women of her era, Renee liberated herself to pursue a rich and rewarding life, starting decades before Women’s Liberation was even a thing. For example, she was the first female ever to become president of the prestigious Commonwealth Club of California. The second female is a name you might remember from the “Good Ship Lollypop” Shirley Temple Black. Renee was also the very first female law professor at Hastings College of Law, then the first female to attend the prestigious Psychology of Criminal Interrogation and Scientific Criminal Investigation seminars of Austria. She was the first female member of the Air Force Security police, and one of the first ten female officers to teach courses in AFROTC.
Renee also pushed boundaries for women, challenging the Stock Exchange Club, the World Trade Club, and the Bankers Club to accept women members and grant them full club privileges. Renee was born September 4th, 1930 in Brooklyn, New York to Dr. Herman Rubin and Sylvia Greenwald Rubin. She attended Public School 241 from 1935 to 1942 until her parents moved the family to Pasadena, California where she attended Woodrow Wilson Junior High School until 1944. Renee graduated from Oakland High School at only 15 years old in 1945. After graduating from Pasadena Junior College in 1946, she moved on to University of California, Berkeley, where she graduated in 1950 with a Bachelor of Arts degree and a major in technical criminology – all at the young age of only 19 years old. She continued her education at the newly opened School of Criminology, part of UC Berkeley, and shortly received her Master of Criminology degree in 1952, the first woman to do so from that school. Renee had a great interest in her education and pursued many aspects relating to criminology and justice, including attending training at University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco, for Forensics Medicine, and University of California, Los Angeles, for a course in Chemical Tests to Determine Intoxication.
Renee invested a lot both mentally and physically into her education and was a part of many clubs and organizations during her school years. Most notably, she was a charter member and secretary of the University Criminology Society at UC Berkeley, as well a charter member of the Lambda Alpha Epsilon Law Enforcement Fraternity. Correspondences show that she frequently wrote letters to the Psychiatric department of San Quentin Prison inquiring about inmate studies and tours to further her education in criminology. Several of these studies covered handwriting samples taken from inmates to see if there was correlation between aggression and handwriting styles. The University Criminology Society also held public surveys asking for data, including one time where the Society asked left-handed individuals to stop in during set hours and submit a sample of their handwriting for analysis.
After enlisting in the Air Force, Renee’s drive for education continued as she later attended a course in Psychology of Criminal Interrogation and Scientific Criminal Investigation at the University of Vienna, Austria, in 1954. Renee was the first woman to ever attend the course. Several years later, Renee would go on to attend UC Hastings College of Law in 1960 and was admitted and qualified in the Northern District US Courts on the 7th of January, 1964.
Renee’s employment started at an early age, at just 15 years old she started working at United Rexall Drug Company in Los Angeles as a secretary in 1946. During her schooling at UC Berkeley, she worked as a PBX operator at the school from 1946 to 1948, later on moving into academic work. She was an assistant teacher and lab assistant in the criminology department until her enlistment in the Air Force in 1952. Once in the military, Renee was appointed as a special agent in the Office of Special Investigations from September of 1952 to March of 1955. Now stationed in Europe, Renee became an Executive Officer to the Deputy Chief of Staff in Communications until August of 1956 until she returned to the United States. There she became an assistant professor of Air Science at Pennsylvania State University, one of the first ten female officers to ever teach AFROTC. In 1960, Renee was honorably discharged from the Air Force at the position of Captain.
Now discharged from the Air Force, Renee continued her education by attending Hastings Law School while joining the Air Force Reserve. This was a very busy time in her life, most of her correspondences are either of her apologizing for not responding to letters or letters from her friends playfully chiding her for never having time for them. In 1964, Renee was admitted and qualified to practice before the Northern District US Courts Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In 1966 Renee returned to Hastings College of Law, this time to become their first ever female professor. She continued teaching at Hastings for several years as the Director of Moot Court and a Professor of Law. On April 22nd, 1969, Renee was admitted and qualified as an attorney and counselor to the Supreme Court of Law. She left her teaching position at Hastings College in 1971, retiring as Director of Moot Court and Professor of Law.
As a woman in a field where women were not only rare but discouraged to be a part of, Renee was a pioneer for women in Law and Criminology. She was a member of several prestigious business clubs meant for building business relationships but many of these clubs, while allowing female members, did not give female members equal privileges as their male counterparts. After serving for so many years in the Air Force, she was no stranger to people treating her differently when finding out she was female in a predominantly male position, however, she was not the type to passively allow herself to be mistreated. Renee, along with others, wrote letters to the presidents of clubs such as the Stock Exchange Club, the World Trade Club of San Francisco, and the Bankers Club of San Francisco. Women could not dine in the main dining room during lunch hours, which, Renee and others argued, was embarrassing and did not help build business opportunities with her clients, the main reason that many of the members of the club brought guests. The times were changing and many anti-discriminatory laws were coming into light. It was unfair for paying members to have to pay an extra fee to use private windowless dining rooms to entertain business guests during the popular lunch hour.
In February of 1973, Renee received her community college teaching credential in the State of California, making her eligible to teach Law and Political Science at any community college in the state. She retired officially from the Air Force Security Police in 1982 after being the first female to ever serve the position. In 2014, Renee was recognized for 50 years of service as a member of the California State Bar as well as being recognized for Exceptional Leadership in the US Air Force Memorial Airman’s Society.
Besides a rich social life, Renee traveled extensively around the world. With her deployments to Europe for the Air Force plus leisurely travel, Renee was quite worldly. She visited almost every state in the US, plus Morocco, Libya, Turkey, Hong Kong, Japan, the Philippines, Guam, The Marshall Islands, and even an excursion in 1995 took her to Antarctica.
In her last years, Renee has enjoyed sharing the fruits of her career through philanthropic donations to a number of organizations that share her passions and vision.
