Isabel Marcus, a University of Buffalo law professor and women’s rights advocate, who met with students in China’s Tiananmen Square and confronted Operation Rescue protesters closer to home, died Oct. 31 in Los Angeles. She was 83.

Marcus spent most of her five decades in academia at the University of Buffalo, where she co-founded the Institute for Research and Education on Women and Gender, served as director of graduate and international programs at the law school, and was twice a Fulbright Scholar.

As the Cold War came to an end, Marcus turned her attention to developing a legal framework for women’s rights in Central and Eastern Europe. Her seminal work, Dark Numbers, explored the lack of official accountability for domestic violence.