Vanity Fair, June 2011

J U N E 2 0 1 1 N O . 6 1 0 | VA N I T Y FA I R . C O M
Hall of Fame
VANITY FAIR NOMINATES
ANN TISCH
Ann Tisch,
18 years ago Ann photographed
Rubenstein Tisch saw no with students
obstacles to her dream of of the Young
a public, single-sex school
Women’s
in Harlem, where 83 perLeadership
cent of the students were
School on
below the poverty line
graduation
and some lived in homeday 2010.
less shelters or in foster care. Because,
as she interviewed teenage mothers,
she came to realize how much a real education could change lives, and she was troubled
that there was no New York school that was effectively training young women from disenfranchised families. Because in 1996 she resisted
the American Civil Liberties Union’s objection
to single-sex education, found space in an office building on 106th Street, and opened the
Young Women’s Leadership School (T.YW.L.S).
Because this month Tisch will beam from the
stage at the 11th graduation ceremony of
T.Y.W.L.S. as the 63 members of the class of 2011
dance down the aisles in their white satin gowns.
Because 100 percent of the school’s graduates
are accepted at colleges, and some have participated in the Intel International Science and
Engineering Fair or had their work shown at
the Tribeca Film Festival. Because Tisch’s vision of uniforms and Brearley-level homework
and enrichment programs has morphed into a
movement and spawned sister schools from
Chicago to San Antonio. Because, as Tisch told
last year’s graduating class, “Ladies, I have
an ambition for you… of succeeding in life, a
life that has love and is productive and has visions and dreams, a life that gives back. Please
come back to us to mentor your little sisters…
They need to know that they can accomplish
what you have already done.” –Marie Brenner
ECAUSE