Papers of Muriel Morisey, 1924-2022 (inclusive), 1950-2016 (bulk)

Muriel Corinne Morisey was born on September 7, 1947, to Juanita Pope Morisey, an educator and social worker and Alfred Alexander Morisey (professionally known as A. A. Morisey) in Greensboro, North Carolina. Shortly after, the family moved to Winston-Salem where A. A. Morisey was the first Black reporter to work in the Winston-Salem Journal and Sentinelnewsroom, and likely the first full-time Black reporter in the South to work in an all-white newsroom. In 1955, the family moved to Philadelphia seeking a better school environment for their children, as North Carolina schools were segregated. Morisey attended the Quaker Friends Select School from third through twelfth grade.

In 1965, Morisey was accepted into Radcliffe College at Harvard University. She graduated in 1969 with a BA in history. While studying at Radcliffe, Morisey was active in the Choral Society and the Memorial Church Choir. She was also involved with the Harvard-Radcliffe Association of African and Afro-American Students (AFRO), which at the time was lobbying Harvard to create a department of Black studies. This student activism led to the establishment of what is now called the Department of African and African American Studies.

Upon her graduation, Morisey spent a year teaching at Boston's Hilltop Center Head Start Program before taking a summer internship position at The New York Times where she covered congressional and government agency hearings among other events. After completing her internship, Morisey worked as a Style and Metro section reporter at The Washington Post from September 1970 to February 1971. She left the Post to work as a research aide in Walter Fauntroy's successful Congressional campaign. Morisey held a variety of jobs in Congressman Fauntroy's office including staff assistant, press secretary, and office administrator. While working for Congressman Fauntroy, Morisey began attending Georgetown University Law Center in the Evening Division. Morisey left Fauntroy's office in February of 1974 for a research assistant position with the House Judiciary Committee's impeachment inquiry of President Nixon.

After Nixon's resignation, Morisey spent a year as program associate and administrator at the Black Women's Community Development Foundation, an organization established to develop programs designed to aid Black women and their families. In 1975, she accepted a position as senior legislative assistant to United States (U.S.) Representative Shirley Chisholm. Morisey worked in Chisholm's office for four years, where she directed legislative work in the areas of education and civil rights, wrote speeches, analyzed bills, drafted amendments, and prepared briefing materials for hearings. She also acted as a liaison with other congressional staff and interest groups and was a frequent panelist at conferences and seminars on the legislative process. Morisey received her JD from Georgetown University in 1977. That summer, Morisey also delivered a series of lectures on American politics in Nairobi, Kenya, and Lusaka, Zambia, under the auspices of the United States Information Agency.

In 1978, Morisey was appointed to the District of Columbia Bar. That same year she was appointed as an attorney advisor in the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Legislative Affairs. In 1979, Assistant Attorney General Drew Days created the position of Legislative Counsel, Civil Rights Division, which Morisey held until 1983. Simultaneously from 1982 to 1983 she also held the part-time position of DOJ Complaint Adjudication Officer, which she performed alongside her legislative duties. In this position she made final agency determinations of DOJ employee and applicant allegations of discrimination based on race, national origin, sex, age, or religion. In 1980, Morisey received a special commendation at the Attorney General's annual awards ceremony for her "outstanding service to the Civil Rights Division."

In 1983 Morisey accepted the position of Legislative Counsel, Washington Office, for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). She was the first person with the ACLU to hold a position with a specific civil rights advocacy portfolio. Morisey worked with the ACLU until 1985, except for September through November 1984, when she went on leave from the ACLU to act as Deputy Issues Coordinator for the Mondale-Ferraro presidential campaign.

From 1985 through 1991 Morisey was Director of Policy Analysis in the Office of Government and Community Affairs at Harvard University, and Lecturer on Education at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education from 1988-1991. From 1991 until her retirement in 2016 she was a professor at the Temple University James E. Beasley School of Law.

Throughout her career Morisey served on a variety of boards, holding leadership positions on many of them. Examples include the American Bar Association, where she served as Chair of the Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Code of Judicial Ethics, where Morisey served for two years on a committee of judges and legal ethics professors appointed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to review and revise the Pennsylvania Code of Judicial Conduct.

Morisey married Clifford John Pugh on July 30th, 1971. They divorced in December of 1977. Morisey later married Greggory Keith Spence on October 1, 1983. Their son Andrew Alexander Spence was born on May 19, 1987. Morisey and Spence divorced in 1998. She married Peter Wathen-Dunn in 2002.