Lawyer fought for farmworkers
Shelley Davis, 56, who as deputy director of the advocacy group Farmworker Justice fought for the safety of workers, children and the environment, died of breast cancer Dec. 12 at Georgetown University Medical Center.
A lawyer who lived in Silver Spring, Md., Davis represented migrant and seasonal farmworkers and their families on issues from health and safety to wages.
Nationally known for her skill in immigration, environmental, health and safety, agricultural and housing law, Davis expanded the usual array of demands made on public-interest lawyers. She practiced law in federal and state courts as well as in government administrative forums.
She battled a 2006 Environmental Protection Agency proposal to allow humans to be exposed to pesticides as part of toxicity tests. She worked to improve health and legal protections for child farmworkers, and she trained adults as health and legal advocates.
A leader in advocating for pesticide protection, Davis helped push the EPA to adopt standards controlling the conditions under which fields are sprayed and how laborers can minimize exposure. She also participated in a successful challenge of the EPA’s approval of the use of two toxic pesticides, guthion and phosmet.
Born in New York in 1952, she graduated from Pennsylvania’s Bryn Mawr College and received a law degree from the Columbus School of Law at Catholic University in 1978.
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