The Eunice L. Burns collection primarily documents her activities in Ann Arbor government. The collection has been divided into five series: Ann Arbor City Council, 1962-68; Ann Arbor Planning Commission, 1968-74, University of Michigan Committee to Study Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, 1971-76; Downtown Development Authority, 1979-90; Huron River Watershed Council; and Miscellaneous.
Eunice L. Burns has been active in Ann Arbor civic and community affairs and city politics since the mid-1950s. For more than four decades, she has been a keen observer and sometime participant in Ann Arbor city government. Beginning first with her involvement in the revision of Ann Arbor's city charter in 1955, Burns went on in local politics with her successful campaign in 1962 for a seat on the Ann Arbor City Council. While on council, Burns's principal interests were in the areas of civil rights and city planning. She was a strong advocate for the landmark Ann Arbor Fair Housing Ordinance which was enacted on September 16, 1963.
Burns was re-elected to her council seat in 1964 and again in 1966. In 1965, in the midst of her second term on council, Burns decided to run for mayor. Hoping to be the first woman mayor and the first Democratic mayor elected since 1957, Burns lost to incumbent Republican Wendell Hulcher by more than three thousand votes. Despite her defeat, she continued to represent the first ward on council for another three years. In 1968, she decided against running for a fourth term, choosing instead to become a member of the Ann Arbor Planning Commission. She served on the commission until June 1974, serving as chair of the commission from May 1970 to August 1971.
Before coming to Ann Arbor, Burns had received her BS degree from Wisconsin State Teachers College-Lacrosse and had done graduate work at the University of Wisconsin and New York University. In 1967, she began pursuing her Master's degree in the political science department at the University of Michigan. Specializing in urban planning, she received her Master's in 1970. Burns became Assistant Dean of the School of Education at the University of Michigan in the 1970s. It was in that capacity that Burns came to play a significant role in the development of varsity athletics for women at the university. Following passage of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibiting discrimination based on sex in educational institutions receiving federal money, U-M students Sheryl Szady and Linda Laird made presentations to the Board in Control of Intercollegiate Athletics and the Board of Regents advocating the establishing of varsity intercollegiate sports for women. In April 1973 President Fleming asked Marie Hartwig, chair of the Department of Physical Education for Women to set up a Committee to Study Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (CSIAW). Hartwig tapped Burns to head the CSIAW with committee members Szady, Laird, Hartwig, Janet Hooper, Robert Blackburn, Phyllis Ocker, Robert Sauve. The committee analyzed the status of women's athletics at Michigan, did a survey of programs at other large universities and collected testimony from Michigan women athletes. The final report of the CSIAW, issued in November 1973 and commonly known as the "Burns' Report," outlined plans for the implementation of a program of varsity sports for women in compliance with Title IX and developments at peer institutions. President Fleming, meanwhile asked Hartwig to organize and manage women's varsity programs in six sports beginning in September 1973. In August of 1973, Marcia Federbush, a UM alumna and equal rights activist, filed a complaint with the Department of Health Education and Welfare raising 125 points on which the university appeared to be out of compliance with Title IX, providing further impetus to the work of the CSIAW.
In 1980, Burns was elected vice-chair of the Huron Watershed Council. She has also been active in Ann Arbor's Downtown Development Authority (DDA) since 1979.
