Rand Schrader (May 11, 1945 – June 13, 1993) was an American AIDS and gay rights activist who also served as a judge of the Los Angeles Municipal Court.

Early life and education

Schrader was born in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

.Obituaries: Rand Schrader, Judge And Gay Advocate, 48
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' (June 15, 1993). He graduated from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

and then from the

University of California, Los Angeles School of Law The UCLA School of Law is one of 12 professional schools at the University of California, Los Angeles. UCLA Law has been consistently ranked by '' U.S. News & World Report'' as one of the top 20 law schools in the United States since the inception ...

in 1973.Tracy Wilkinson
Municipal Court Judge Faces Challenge of AIDS - Disease
, ''

The Los Angeles Times ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...

'' (November 25, 1991).

Professional career and judicial service

After graduating from law school, Schrader was hired by

Los Angeles City Attorney The Los Angeles City Attorney is an elected official who serves as the city of Los Angeles' government's lawyer and as a criminal prosecutor for misdemeanor violations. The Los Angeles County District Attorney prosecutes felonies. The city attorne ...

Burt Pines. He was the first

openly gay Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBT people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity. Framed and debated as a privacy issue, coming out of ...

staffer to work in the Los Angeles City Attorney's office. In 1980, Schrader was appointed to the Los Angeles Municipal Court by

Governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

Jerry Brown Edmund Gerald Brown Jr. (born April 7, 1938) is an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 34th and 39th governor of California from 1975 to 1983 and 2011 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected Secretary of ...

. Schrader was recommended to Brown by gay rights activist Sheldon Andelson. Schrader served on the bench until April 1993.

AIDS-related advocacy and death

Los Angeles County Supervisor Ed Edelman appointed Schrader to the Los Angeles County AIDS Commission when it was established in 1987. Schrader served as chairman of the commission from 1989 to 1991. In 1991, Schrader announced that he had been recently diagnosed with AIDS. He disclosed that he had tested positive for

HIV The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of ''Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immune ...

in 1989 and had developed pneumocystis pneumonia in October 1991. Schrader went public with his diagnosis in an attempt increase AIDS awareness and to combat discrimination and misinformation associated with AIDS. Schrader died from AIDS-related complications on June 13, 1993 in Century City,

. Shortly before his death, in May 1993, the 5P21 HIV/AIDS clinic at

Los Angeles County – USC Medical Center Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center, also known as County/USC, or by the abbreviation LAC+USC (and sometimes still referred to by its former name Los Angeles County General), is a 600-bed public teaching hospital located at 2051 Marengo Street in ...

was named in honor of him.Los Angeles Clinic Named for AIDS Activist Rand Schrader
''

'' (May 15, 1993). Schrader had previously advocated for the establishment of the clinic.

Personal

Schrader's long-time partner was entrepreneur

David Bohnett David C. Bohnett (born April 2, 1956) is an American philanthropist and technology entrepreneur. He is the founder and chairman of the David Bohnett Foundation, a non-profit, grant-making organization devoted to improving society through social ...

, who after Schrader's death used his own entire life savings and the $386,000 benefits from Schrader's life insurance to create the pioneering website

GeoCities Yahoo! GeoCities was a web hosting service that allowed users to create and publish websites for free and to browse user-created websites by their theme or interest. GeoCities was started in November 1994 by David Bohnett and John Rezner, and ...

.Michael Kearns
Out on the Web
, '' LA Weekly'' (November 24, 1999). At the time of Schrader's death, they had been partnered for 10 years.

References

External links