While studying in Chicago, Roberts was a program director for the Young Women’s Christian Association. While at American University, she concurrently worked as the Assistant Director of the American Council on Human Rights, beginning in 1949 and staying until 1953. Her first position with the U.S. government was in 1960 as an attorney in the appeals and research section of the criminal division of the U.S. Department of Justice There she met and struck up a friendship with Robert F. Kennedy, the new attorney general.