Veteran joins UCLA graduation decades after missing his own due to Vietnam War draft
Department: History
Inside a UCLA course on gender in motorsports
A Fiat Lux seminar examines the roles of women in motorsports, exploring gender, strategy and cultural narratives
Brazilian driver Aurelia Nobels competes in the F1 Academy series, an all-women single-seater racing series. Nobels has backing from Scuderia Ferrari./ Photo Credit: PUMA
Kayla McCormack
On a Tuesday evening in Rolfe Hall, a small group of UCLA students settled into their seats. A simple question — “Did you follow motorsports before enrolling?” — sparked an enthusiastic exchange about favorite Formula 1 teams and drivers. One student, raised by a McLaren-loving father, shared that his recent dive into the sport had converted him to a proud tifosi – a supporter of Ferrari and one of their drivers, Charles Leclerc.
This personal connection is what makes Motorsports and Society, a Fiat Lux seminar, so impactful. Co-taught by motorsports historian Steven Meckna; Sharon Traweek, associate professor of gender studies and history; and Fred Ariel Hernandez, lead scientist for the UCLA Disability Studies Sports and Society Lab, the course offers students an interdisciplinary lens on motorsports, with a particular focus on gender and representation from World War II to today.
Fiat Lux seminars are one-unit, discussion-based courses, designed to foster intellectual curiosity in a small class setting. They connect students with leading UCLA faculty and allow them to explore timely and complex topics — like motorsports through the lens of society, culture, and STEM. In recent years, women have worked in prominent and decision making-capacities in motorsports, particularly in strategy — an area Hernández and Meckna saw as paralleling broader increases in women’s representation in science, technology, engineering and math. They proposed the course idea to Traweek, and the three collaborated to develop the course.
As part of the content, students watched an interview with Bernie Collins, former head of race strategy for Aston Martin F1 Team and current Sky Sports commentator. Collins spoke about the intense pressure of strategizing during a race but also reflected on how race strategy has become one of the technical areas in motorsports where women have consistently thrived.
“We wanted students to hear directly from someone who’s worked both on and off the pit wall,” said Meckna, a retired history teacher and longtime women’s sports coach. “Collins offers insight into how demanding a strategist’s job is, but also how strategy has created more space for women, compared to some other roles that require extensive travel due to the rigorous Formula 1 race calendar.”
After watching the clip, Meckna pushed students to think critically about why these roles have seen more female representation than others, such as race engineering. Students pointed to the structure of the roles themselves — strategy positions can rotate more regularly, Collins suggested. In contrast, engineers, who serve as a driver’s primary point of contact during a race, typically spend over a decade developing their expertise and must travel extensively throughout the season, attending nearly every grand prix.
“Children,” one student said plainly, prompting nods around the room. The class explored how the physical demands, intense schedules and lack of institutional support can still pose barriers for women.
Yet even amid these constraints, progress has accelerated. “Not long ago it would have been almost unthinkable to have a woman in a senior technical position in an F1 team,” Meckna said. “Today, it is rare not to see one. This corresponds with the increasing numbers of women in STEM fields. I’m not trying to be Pollyannaish about it — we’re still light years from anything resembling equality — but steps forward have been big and fast.”
The 2025 Formula 1 season, which kicked off earlier this month in Australia, is particularly historic. Haas’ Laura Mueller is now the first female race engineer in F1 history, working with driver Esteban Ocon.
“In professional motorsports, where most drivers are men, there are women with decision-making power,” Meckna said. “Hannah Schmitz at Red Bull makes calls that will win or lose a race for her team. So does Laura Mueller. The same was true when Leena Gade led the engineering team at Audi during their phenomenal run of success.” Gade became the first female race engineer to win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Progress on the driver side has been slower. There have been successful female racing drivers across IndyCar and endurance racing in recent years, including Danica Patrick and Lyn St. James, though no woman has started a Formula 1 Grand Prix since Lella Lombardi the 1970s.
“Part of this is numbers,” Meckna said. “There are many times more men than women in junior categories of racing. That is starting to change, though. More girls are now competing in karts, the first step on the road to Formula 1.”
Meckna credits these changes, in part, thanks to the unprecedented institutional support for women racers today. The F1 Academy, launched in 2023, was created specifically for this purpose. Each Formula 1 team is required to support a woman in the series, which opens opportunities for female racers to access the training, technology, telemetry, race simulation machinery and qualifying and race day routines of the top professionals in the sport.
“The history of motorsports mirrors broader societal shifts in gender equity,” Hernández said. “In the Sports and Society Lab, we’re interested in how structural changes, like educational access, media representation and community and institutional support increase inclusive opportunities for people with disabilities and women as athletes and in technical roles. This class gives students the tools to examine those systems within motorsports.”
From left: Former racer Susie Wolff and three-time F1 champion Niki Lauda share a smile. Wolff is now the F1 Academy managing director. / Photo Credit: Thomas Ormston/Wikimedia Commons.
Cultural shifts are underway not only in the paddock but also in the stands. Several students shared that their interest in motorsports and the class itself was sparked by the Netflix docuseries “Drive to Survive,” which has expanded Formula 1’s U.S. fan base, especially among women. Today, F1 fans are estimated to be around 40% female, up from just 8% in 2017, as well as significantly more culturally diverse, F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali said in 2022.
By connecting historical barriers with contemporary breakthroughs, the seminar helps students trace how representation in motorsports has shifted and where challenges remain. The course equips students to explore what progress looks like and to critically examine what else is possible.
“There’s so much potential to build on this,” Traweek said. “Motorsports intersect with engineering, emergency medicine, gender studies, environmental science and more. I know we all have hopes to see this course expand into a larger offering.”
This story was originally published in UCLA’s Newsroom, here.
Meyer Luskin on the future of history
A Q&A with the alumnus and longtime UCLA supporter on the power of the past to shape what’s next
“We are not gleaning enough of the past to have good fruit for the future,” Meyer Luskin said. “We must convince universities, and departments of history in universities, to point out … lessons for current society.”
By David N. Meyers
The impact of Meyer and Renee Luskin’s leadership and giving at UCLA cannot be overstated, with their generosity touching nearly every area of campus. As the alumni couple makes a landmark $25 million pledge to support the UCLA Department of History, Meyer took the time to share his thoughts about his first academic love — history — and why he believes it may have the ability to save us all, if we are wise enough to mind its lessons.
What was your journey to UCLA like?
I was born on the Lower East Side of New York and spent my first 14 years there. In the old days with the crowded tenements, I was really living in a ghetto with hardly any outlook on what the world was like. Then we moved to Boyle Heights, which was a little more expansive, but not a hell of a lot more. We were very poor; my life was surrounded and circumvented by being in an enclosed area. And then I’m off to UCLA and the world expands — suddenly, I see different people, different opportunities.
I had to travel an hour-and-a-half to get to UCLA because I had no car. It was a combination of a trolley on Brooklyn Avenue and then a streetcar, then a bus and then a walk of about half a mile. It wasn’t easy. I spent a year at UCLA from 1942 to 1943, went into World War II in the army and came back to UCLA in 1946. I finished my remaining three years and graduated in 1949. Then I got an M.B.A. at Stanford. One of the great things UCLA did for me was to open my world and mind to something more — and then give me the tools to go further.
How did your family influence your journey to UCLA and beyond?
My mother and father had no formal education, but they were intelligent people who, when they came over to this country, quickly learned to read and write English. My father was a working-class man, a plumber, but he insisted I get a good education and prepare myself for more. And so I did a great deal of reading as a youngster. What encouraged the reading was that I was a very sick child with all sorts of illnesses, so I was home a lot more than most children. It turned out I really enjoyed reading books of history, books of the people who affected history. It was primarily European history, Western history, but I did read some history of Asia and of other parts of the world. When I went to UCLA, I majored in history — that was my love. At UCLA, I delighted in being exposed to history on a higher level than I got in high school. When the professor would assign a chapter over a weekend, I’d spend all day Saturday and Sunday reading two or three books. I just couldn’t get enough. I had a class in European history as a freshman where I did so well that the professor asked me whether I wanted to read and grade exams for him. And my second semester, I did.
Meyer Luskin in a 1949 yearbook photo as a member of the UCLA boxing team. As a student, his first love was history.
Did you ever consider becoming a historian?
My world was so narrow that the concept of being a professor or historian was one that I didn’t quite grasp. For me, this kid from Boyle Heights, the distance between me and professors felt too vast, and I never thought I could do anything with my love for history. After I was discharged from the army in 1946, I wondered how I would make a living. I thought, well, I’ll change my major to economics. But I did take a couple of philosophy courses at UCLA which were of great value to me, because one of them was a course in inductive logic. Professor Hans Reichenbach taught me the value of understanding probability in everyday decisions, and it helped me a lot later in life.
In 2014, you gave an address at the UCLA history department commencement ceremony that made the point that history helped you avoid some big missteps. How so?
I was in the business world, with a company that had most of its assets tied up in oil rigs in Libya. This was before [Moammar] Gadhafi, before dictatorship; there was a king, Idris. All the major oil companies employed contractors to drill their wells; we owned 10 different rigs, which led to a lot of debt. And when I was in Libya, I became acquainted with a very intelligent, cultured Libyan who was one of our employees, and I had him explain to me the history, politics and background of the nation. I then realized that the king would probably be deposed, there would be a dictatorship that hated the West, and there was a good chance that this type of dictator would nationalize the oil industry.
So I made a point to sell our business in Libya. My colleagues thought I was crazy because it was very profitable. But several years after we sold our equipment in Libya, sure enough, along comes Moammar Gadhafi, who drives out every company. All of the contractors went broke, and some even had to ransom some of the men to get them out of the country. And so knowledge of history saved our butts. Truly understanding the industry, work and society you’re in helps you make much better decisions for the future.
What do you hope history can do for society, both now and in the future?
Who can better understand the past and derive knowledge that’s worthwhile for the present and future than historians? The historian has the ability to look back and research and truly understand — something too many of us are not doing enough of because we’re taken up with the daily problems of existence. Historians give us a sense of perspective — what went wrong, what went right — and educate our citizens and political and economic leaders. Their learning can lead us to a better path so we don’t repeat mistakes.
I’ll give you a good example of learning from history, in my opinion. After World War I, the nations that won — France, the United States, England — really penalized Germany and put onerous conditions on its existence. And as a result, we had a Germany that hated the rest of the world and gave birth to a horrible dictator. And we had World War II. After World War II, we realized there’s no point in once again trying to destroy Germany; by learning from the past, we came up with the Marshall Plan. France and Germany now work together, and we haven’t had a war in the western part of Europe since — all because we learned from history.
Meyer and Renee Luskin receive the 2021 Edward A. Dickson Alumni of the Year Award from the UCLA Alumni Association. “What drives Meyer and Renee,” Chancellor Gene Block said, “is precisely what drives UCLA: a desire to solve society’s biggest challenges and to create opportunity for all through education and research.”
With today’s immediacy of social media and misinformation, I wonder if one effect may be that we lose a sense of that long-term unfolding of history. Do you think it is a critical moment for recapturing what is so significant and beneficial to society about history?
I think you have it exactly right. What has gone on in the last 20, 30, 40 years, people are getting so taken up with the immediate that there is a lack of perspective. Rather than being able to sit and discuss and talk, drawing on the perspective of the past, people think solutions have to be immediate too. A society without long-term vision will lose the lessons of the past. I blame that on a lack of reading and too much focus on day-to-day stuff on our phones. We, as a society, have gone backward rather than forward in embracing long-term thinking.
Renee Luskin’s 1953 UCLA yearbook graduation photo. She earned her bachelor’s degree in sociology and went on to pursue social work at USC.
Did that feeling — that this moment is so critical — inspire you and Renee to make such a transformational gift to the department of history right now?
Exactly, because I’m so concerned about our country and our world. I want everyone to appreciate the value of where we’ve been, what’s happened, where were the mistakes and how we can avoid repeating them. It’s going to be a dangerous outcome if people continue to get so caught up in daily and transitory events without a true vision of where we’ve been and where we’re going. We have come too close to accepting dictatorship, which sells an illusion that a strong man on a horse is going to solve all the problems. In fact, that strong man on the horse winds up putting you in jail and killing you if you don’t agree with him. It’s more important than ever to look at history and the long-term picture.
You seem to me to be a staunch proponent of the famous aphorism delivered by the Harvard philosopher George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
I’m thinking of what Mark Twain said — and I probably will get it wrong — but he says something like, “History may not repeat itself, but it surely rhymes.” We are not gleaning enough of the past to have good fruit for the future. We must convince universities, and departments of history in universities, to point out the similarities to and lessons for current society.
We need more articles published in the newspapers and on television of studies of how something in the past relates to exactly what’s going on right now. It would make for a better world for us all. I hope that other universities would also have their history departments emphasize the need to use their studies to educate the public more. I hope the UCLA history department sets the standard and leads in helping society understand what they’ve learned.
One last question. You and Renee have made remarkable and ample investments in UCLA. What does the university mean to you?
I believe in order to have a true democracy, we have to have a truly great public university. If the public of a nation does not have a place where they can go for higher learning and to be lifted, then you cannot make any progress, and you go backward. I believe that we must support the public university more than ever, which we’re doing. The knowledge of the world essentially emanates from the university.
I also think great ideas for humanity do not come solely from “hard” science; they also come from the “soft” sciences. UCLA in the fullest sense — all of its disciplines — must be supported. And history shall always be important for the progress of people.
Myers, the Sady and Ludwig Kahn Chair in Jewish History, is director of the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy and the UCLA Initiative to Study Hate.
This article, written by David N. Myers, originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom.
UCLA History’s “Why History Matter” series presents
Five Black suffragists who were critical to the long battle for the vote
By Jessica Wolf
In her latest book, “Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle for the Vote,” UCLA professor emerita Ellen DuBois traces the three-generation struggle that led to the ratification of the 19th Amendment in August 1920.
The battle for women’s suffrage was intertwined with America’s confrontation with slavery and its enduring effects of structural racism and inequity. As DuBois traces the sustained movement, she also shines a light on suffragists who fought for the enfranchisement of all Black citizens, and who often found their cause diminished — or themselves dismissed — by white women leading the suffragist charge.
Wikimedia Commons Sojourner Truth Today is Women’s Equality Day, which marks the date the 19th Amendment was certified by the Secretary of State. In honor of the 100th anniversary of that milestone, we celebrate five African American women highlighted in DuBois’ book — each of whom played a critical role in the fight for women’s suffrage. They are listed here in order of their birth years.
Sojourner Truth
Truth (1797-1893)was an abolitionist and women’s rights activist best known for her speech on racial inequalities, “Ain’t I a Woman?” delivered at the 1851 Ohio Women’s Rights Convention. In it, she challenged prevailing notions of racial and gender inferiority and inequality by reminding listeners of her combined strength and her gender.
She devoted her life to the abolitionist movement and sponsored several other causes, including prison reform, property rights and universal suffrage.
Mary Ann Shadd Cary
Cary (1823–1893) was an activist, writer, teacher and lawyer, and the first female African-American newspaper editor in North America. Her family participated in the Underground Railroad until the passage of Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, causing them to move to Canada.
In 1853, she created “The Provincial Freemen,” Canada’s first anti-slavery newspaper. She was a member of the National Woman Suffrage Association and spoke at the NWSA’s 1878 convention. Cary also advocated for the 14th and 15th Amendments at a House Judiciary Committee hearing, publicly taking offense that the writing of the amendments was not gender neutral.
► Read an interview with DuBois about her latest book
Frances Watkins Harper
Harper (1825-1911) was a poet and orator who advocated for abolition and education through speeches and publications. She published several poetry collections and the publication in 1859 of “Two Offers” made her the first African-American woman to publish a short story.
She was a member of the American Equal Suffrage Association and later formed the American Woman Suffrage Association with Frederick Douglass and other reformers.
Ida B. Wells
Wells (1862–1931) was a journalist, abolitionist and feminist who led an anti-lynching crusade in the 1890s. She openly confronted white women in the suffrage movement who ignored lynching, causing her to be ostracized by some women’s suffrage organizations. Wells brought her campaign to the White House in 1898, calling for President William McKinley to make reforms.
With Frances Watkins Harper, Mary Church Terrell and Harriet Tubman, she cofounded the National Association of Colored Women (later the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs), which was created to address civil rights and women’s suffrage issues.
Mary Church Terrell
Terrell (1864-1954), one of the first African-American women to earn a college degree, is best known as a national activist for civil rights and suffrage. After graduating from Oberlin College, Terrell became part of a rising Black middle and upper class who fought racial discrimination.
Terrell joined Ida B. Wells in anti-lynching campaigns, but her life’s work focused on the idea of racial uplift, the belief that Black people would help end racial discrimination by advancing themselves and other members of the race through education, work and community activism. She was a cofounder and the first president of the National Association of Colored Women.
This article, written by Jessica Wolf, originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom.
Historian’s new book traces three generations of suffragists
Ellen DuBois observes that expanding the vote is still not something established political leaders are eager to do. (Photo Credit: Scarlett Freund)
They persisted.
August 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which ensured that all American women could vote in federal elections. Ellen DuBois, UCLA professor emerita of history, has devoted her academic life to the stories of the women (and men) whose unrelenting, passionate and organized advocacy withstood 75 years of shifting partisan politics to finally enfranchise women in the U.S.
Written for anyone who cares about rights in America, her latest book, “Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle for the Vote,” which came out Feb. 25, takes a comprehensive look at the incomparable effort.
Her storytelling illuminates the lives and efforts of three generations of suffragists, as her prose passes the baton from woman to woman, grandmother to mother, mother to child. She celebrates the efforts of such champions as Carrie Chapman Catt and Alice Paul, who were critical in the final push into the 20th century, and she illustrates how African American women — led by Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Mary Church Terrell and Mary Ann Shadd Cary — demanded voting rights, even when white suffragists ignored them.
In a presidential election year, and as primary voters head to the polls for Super Tuesday on March 3, it is fitting to heed activist Gloria Steinem’s praise for DuBois’ work:
“Ellen DuBois tells us the long drama of women’s fight for the vote, without privileging polite lobbying over radical disobedience — or vice versa. In so doing, she gives us a full range of tactics now, and also the understanding that failing to vote is a betrayal of our foremothers and ourselves.”
We asked DuBois to share some of the key takeaways from “Suffrage.”
The Americans who took up the fight for women’s right to vote were originally proponents of “universal suffrage,” which would have meant a constitutional amendment affirming votes for every American citizen over the age of 18 — regardless of race or gender. How different might this battle have been if that original purpose had been successful?
The Constitution gives little control to the federal government over voting — just times, places, etc. — and none whatsoever over who gets to vote. The three voting amendments, including the 19th, barely tamper with that, only forbidding the states from named disenfranchisement. And as we know from the history of African American voter suppression, those are easy to get around.
If the suffragists’ early attempt to reframe voting as a positive right of national citizenship [had been successful], much of what we suffer today by way of voter suppression — which comes from the states — would no longer be legal or constitutional. We would have universal enfranchisement, which we cannot say we have now.
“Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle for the Vote” Photo Credit: Simon & Schuster
This book is also a fascinating rendering of the kaleidoscopic nature of American partisan politics. What was the biggest obstacle to women’s suffrage?
This is a question that suffragists and historians have long pondered. General male opposition to women taking a place in politics, as well as women’s hesitation about leaving their traditional roles, certainly played a part.
But as I studied the last few decades of the movement, I was especially struck by the determination of politicians to keep women without votes — both at the national level, fighting against amendment passage, and the state level, opposing ratification, the ultimate obstacle.
This was the case even when it was clear to the final opponents that women’s suffrage was inevitable. Politicians’ opposition certainly reflected their own conservative ideas about who women were — their delicate wives and the pesky radicals who wanted the vote — but it was also a political calculation. The suffragists and other social activist women had developed a solid reputation as nonpartisan reformers, and politicians didn’t want that. Finally, it was impossible to predict which party enfranchised women would favor. It turned out to be both.
As we know from our own times, expanding the vote is still not something established political leaders are eager to do.
By the time the 19th Amendment was passed, millions of women already had the right to vote in federal elections, thanks to state constitutions. By 1919, women in Wyoming and Colorado had voted in five or six presidential elections. Western states like California were critical to eventual nationwide suffrage. Who were some of the most important suffragists who helped win the vote in California?
California, when it amended its state constitution to enfranchise women in 1911, was the sixth state to do so — and by far the most important.
Maud Younger was a wealthy San Franciscan, among those young people known as “new women” for their eagerness for modern lives and new experiences. She left home, went to New York City, worked as a waitress and trade union activist, and returned to California to organize working women. They called her the “millionaire waitress.” She was responsible for getting the brewers union on board, which helped to overcome suffragists’ reputation for being anti-alcohol.
Sarah Massey Overton, an African American woman from San Jose, not only organized her area’s African American community, but — unusual for these years — worked closely with white suffragists in the interracial Political Equality League.
Hispanic Californian suffragists were harder to trace. I located a very interesting woman, Maria de Lopez, whose family was in California before its statehood. As of 1910, she was a college graduate and taught at UCLA and later was a scholar of Spanish-language literature. Fascinating!
Multiple other amendments to the U.S. Constitution were ratified before the 19th. How did the push for these amendments affect the fight for women’s suffrage? Why was the 17th Amendment critical to the eventual passage and ratification of the 19th?
The reconstruction amendments 14th and 15th were crucial: the latter for omitting women from the expansion of the franchise, which angered suffragists; the former for establishing — for the first time — national citizenship, which led hundreds of suffragists to claim the right to vote in the 1870s including Susan B. Anthony.
It was several decades before other amendments were added. The 17th made the election of senators dependent on the people’s vote, when previously they were appointed by state legislators. This played a role in breaking the final opposition to the women’s suffrage amendment in the upper house. The 18th Amendment [prohibition of alcohol] took this contentious issue, often associated with women voters, off the table and removed an issue of the opposition.
Do you have a favorite suffragist? If so, who and why?
I’m often asked this. I do love Elizabeth Cady Stanton for her brilliant insights into the multifaceted nature of women’s subordination and her vision for broad freedoms for women. These days she is remembered more for her racist and elitist outbursts against men who voted before women, but I think she has more to offer us than just that. These women are all so great, so varied, so brave, so determined — “nevertheless they persisted.” I love them all.
Your book also illustrates the power of an archive. Susan B. Anthony had the brilliant foresight to establish a multivolume history of the movement — including photographs and images of suffragists — and then donated copies to libraries and universities for posterity. Obviously this was critically important to historians like yourself and Eleanor Flexner, who wrote 1959’s “Century of Struggle.” What other stories are waiting to be told from this archive? What are you working on next?
The suffrage movement is unique for its geographical breadth and depth. It lasted so long, and constitutional amendments, which are contested like this one, require organized activism in virtually every state. There is so much more to be said about suffragists in our country.
A second issue is a more complex one: the varied and painful history of racism within the suffrage movement, which lasted from the years of emancipation through the height of the Jim Crow era.
Finally, and this is one of my unfinished projects, women’s enfranchisement was an international issue. In almost every country where women have received the right to vote, they have organized to fight for it. It was rarely given. I’m working on that in the interwar years.
My next big project is a major biography of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who has never really had one. I’m going to give her that.
DuBois is on a speaking tour for the book, including several upcoming events in town.
March 7 at 2 p.m. — “The Surprising Road to Woman Suffrage” illustrated book lecture at Los Angeles Public Library’s Central Library
March 8 at 1 p.m. — “The Right to Vote Then and Now” panel discussion at Royce Hall. Also featuring Adam Winkler, Brenda Stevenson, Katherine Marino, Sheila Kuehl and Sandy Banks.
March 14 at 11 a.m. — “The Surprising Road to Woman Suffrage” Caughey Foundation Lecture at the Autry Museum of the American West
March 15 at 2 p.m. — Book presentation with Jessica Millward, UC Irvine associate professor of history, and Culver City Mayor Meghan Sahli-Wells at the Wende Museum
This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom.