“Emilie Kempin-Spyri was the first private lecturer in law. And I was the second”, said Professor Beatrice Weber-Dürler in her speech at the inauguration of the memorial to Emilie Kempin-Spyri in 2008, almost 100 years apart.
Beatrice Weber-Dürler attended a girls’ high school in Zurich, where – unlike the boys at the boys’ high school – she learned nothing about political science or the art of political argumentation. It was only at university that she was introduced to the hitherto unknown field of Swiss constitutional law. It was all new to her. And that made it all the more exciting. She wrote her dissertation on legal equality in legislation between 1969 and 1972, the time when Swiss women were granted their long overdue political rights. It was her supervisor, Hans Nef, and his lectures that awakened her interest in constitutional law.
But what interested Beatrice Weber-Dürler more than the victory of the referendum was what happened afterwards. Equal rights and equality between men and women in the constitution. In 1975, she was present at the Women’s Congress when the popular initiative was launched. On the base of her dissertation, she was invited as an expert to the Federal Commission for Women’s Issues. The professor from Zurich contributed her scientific expertise. But the political commitment came from others. She later became a member of this commission and in 1987 discussed the 10th AHV revision and the widow’s pension with Lili Nabholz-Heidegger and Ruth Dreifuss, among others. It was at this meeting that the idea of care credits, which still play an important role in social insurance, was born.
She wrote her habilitation thesis in the 1970s on the protection of legitimate expectations in public law. Initially, she had not thought of becoming a professor. However, the experience she gained while substituting for Professor Hans Nef encouraged her to pursue this path. In 1983, she gave her inaugural lecture on the equality article, which was hot off the press. One of her colleagues was surprised that she was able to talk about it for 45 minutes.
In 1986, she became the first female professor at the University of St. Gallen. In 1990, she accepted a position at the University of Zurich, where she remained until her retirement in 2008. Among other things, she was a member of the Equal Opportunities Commission.
She has a personal message for students. You have to set priorities in life. Whatever you do, do it with full commitment. Only then will you succeed.