A Storied Career in Labor Law: Reflections of William B. Gould IV

Writing a report for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, winning a labor dispute after a decade of litigation, and invoking Section 10(j) as chair of the National Labor Relations Board were career highlights shared by William B. Gould IV, LLB ’61, as he spoke about his recent memoir in Ives Hall on April 9. The talk was the kick-off event for the ILR School’s annual Union Days event series. 

Gould is the Charles A. Beardsley Professor of Law Emeritus at Stanford Law School. His memoir, “Those Who Travail and Are Heavy Laden: Memoir of a Labor Lawyer” (2025, Worcester Polytechnic Institute Press), explains why he chose a legal career and discusses the arc of his career so far. It also describes how friends he made while at Cornell Law School have shaped his career.

The Bedrock of Family

Based on a childhood memory, the memoir’s title alludes to Mathew 11:28, which has given Gould a sense of purpose in his life. Gould said, “when we would come to the part of the Episcopal mass when the words were read ‘come unto me, all you that travail and are heavy laden, I will refresh you,’ my father would always look at me, and I would look at him. … This is why we are on the earth. For all those who travail and are heavy laden.”

This purpose shaped Gould’s career interests, as did his experiences as a Black American, as well as key legal battles, including the Brown v Board of Education court case, and the Army-McCarthy hearings. “All these things made me interested in the idea that law was a vehicle, in some respect, for social change and for economic change in our country,” said Gould. 

The talk also touched on another of Gould’s books, “Diary of a Contraband: The Civil War Passage of a Black Sailor” (2002, Stanford University Press), which includes Gould’s great-grandfather’s diary. The diary begins in 1862, shortly after his escape from slavery in North Carolina. “For him,” said Gould, referring to his great-grandfather, “what the world was about, was the fight for right and equality. And [my father] spoke of him and so many previous generations who never had a chance in this country because of race.” 

Gould wrote, “My grandfather’s story has given me strength as well as comfort in challenging periods of trial.”

Gould gave several personal anecdotes about how being Black shaped his perspective. “I saw my own father feel the hurt that was involved when members of his own family did not want to be associated with him in public events for fear of revealing that they were Black. People, do not, I don’t believe today in this world, understand that sufficiently.” 

Cornell Law School

While studying at the Cornell Law School in the early 1960s, Gould began friendships with Kurt Hanslowe and Jack Sheinkman ’49, JD ’52, that led to professional opportunities. 

The first came about due to a legal research project assigned by Hanslowe, a professor of law and at the ILR School, on the topic of duty of fear of representation. “I took to the problem like a fish takes the water,” Gould said. Hanslowe was impressed with Gould’s work and recommended him to the UAW for a summer clerkship. “Everything in my professional life starts from there,” observed Gould.

Gould Goes Forth

In the mid-1960s, Gould began writing about racial discrimination in employment. According to Gould, these articles attracted the attention of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). In 1966, “[the commission] asked me to go throughout the mid-states of the South, like Alabama and South Carolina, to look at the system of job classification and seniority, and to write a report on how the system should look in the future, under a proper interpretation of Title VII,” Gould recounted.

Shortly after that, Gould embarked on his academic career with positions at Wayne State Law School (1968-71), Harvard Law School (1971-72) and Stanford Law School (1972-2002, emeritus 2002-present).

He has braided writing, litigation and political involvement at each professional position along the way.

Gould’s EEOC report informed a seminar he taught at Wayne State on employment discrimination law. “That was the first time it had ever been taught!” Gould said. He also introduced the first course on the topic at Harvard and at Stanford.

Because of his expertise with Title VII’s prohibitions against racial discrimination in the workplace, Gould was asked by dissatisfied workers at the Detroit Edison utility company to represent them. “They described all the problems they had there … and it was exactly like what I was teaching and talking about,” Gould said. He spent the next decade litigating the case to its conclusion. “When we finally prevailed, we got $4 million dollars … small by today’s standards, but at that time, the largest that had been given in a civil rights employment case.”

Later, Sheinkman recommended Gould to chair the National Labor Relations Board under the Clinton administration and supported his nomination. While Gould led the board, the Major League Baseball Players Association went on strike. The strike ended after the board sought and was granted a National Labor Relations Act Section 10(j) injunction against actions taken by the teams’ owners.

Gould said, “We used 10(j) in the baseball case, which caught a lot of people’s attention, and it was because the act, as it’s written, is a convoluted procedure in which justice is invariably denied by delay.” 

The later years of Gould’s career have been at Stanford. “Stanford gave me the chance to teach interesting students, to try interesting civil rights cases, to arbitrate disputes between labor and management and to travel the world,” Gould said.

Gould concluded his talk by speaking about hope for the future. 

“People talk about hope today, and we can have hope today; when we look at what we overcame in those previous years … I think a lot has changed for the better,” he said.

Union Days is sponsored by the Worker Institute. Paul Ortiz, ILR professor of labor history, and Administrative Assistant Pam Gueldner, organized Gould’s visit to Cornell.