Barbara Scott Preiskel

Lawyer whose career helped break down racial barriers in entertainment law as well as on the numerous corporate boards on which she served, died Tuesday at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan. She was 77 and lived in Manhattan. The cause was leukemia, her husband, Robert H. Preiskel, said. Ms. Preiskel, who grew up in Washington and graduated from Wellesley College in 1945, was the second black woman to graduate from Yale Law School, in 1947. After clerking with the U.S. District Court in Boston, she worked with the law firm of Dwight, Royal, Harris, Keogh, and Casey. In 1959, Preiskel joined the Motion Picture Association of America. During her time at MPAA, Preiskel, who was senior vice president and general consul from 1977 to 1983, helped to overturn state and local censorship laws, many of which sought to ban on-screen portrayals of interracial relationships. Presiskel also served on the boards of General Electric, Levi Strauss & Company, and the Washington Post Company. Barbara Scott was born July 6, 1924, in Washington, the daughter of a real estate broker and a chemistry teacher. Her decades of membership on charity boards began in 1958 with the Hillcrest Center for Children and ended with the Sept. 11 Fund. She had also been on the boards of the New York Community Trust and the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, among many others.