Karen DeCrow

Ms. DeCrow was a writer, a lawyer and a tireless campaigner for women’s rights. As president of NOW from 1974 to 1977, she fought off pressure from the National Collegiate Athletic Association to limit the reach of Title IX, the federal law passed in 1972 that bans sex discrimination in educational institutions that receive federal money. The law, which was strengthened in 1975 to ensure equal access to sports, has been widely credited with revolutionizing women’s athletics. Not all of her campaigns were successful. The Equal Rights Amendment, which would make discrimination against women unconstitutional, has yet to pass, but not for lack of effort by Ms. DeCrow. During the 1970s and ’80s, she crisscrossed the United States in support of it and had scores of debates with Phyllis Schlafly, one of its most prominent opponents. Ms. DeCrow was born Karen Lipschultz on Dec. 18, 1937, in Chicago, the oldest of two daughters of a businessman and a former ballet dancer who stopped working outside the home after she married. Ms. DeCrow attended Chicago public schools. As a teenager, she sent short stories to top magazines, hoping to be published. She graduated from Northwestern University in 1959 with a degree in journalism. She struggled to find appealing work after college, finally accepting a job as fashion editor at Golf Digest, though she had little interest in fashion or golf. She went on to work for other magazines and for publishing houses. In 1967, after a brief first marriage, she was living in Syracuse with her second husband, Roger DeCrow, a computer scientist, and working in a small publishing house. As president she served without pay, the last NOW president to do so. Ms. DeCrow ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Syracuse in 1969 while attending the Syracuse University School of Law in her early 30s. She graduated in 1972, the only woman in her class. In 1988 Ms. DeCrow was a co-founder of World Women Watch, dedicated to combating sex discrimination worldwide. In 2009 she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. Both of her marriages ended in divorce. She is survived by a sister, Claudia Lipschultz.