Harvard Law School Library exhibit: HLS and the road to marriage equality

In 1983, Evan Wolfson ’83 authored a prescient third year paper titled “Samesex Marriage and Morality: The Human Rights Vision of the Constitution.” Thirty years and countless examinations of the constitution later, two cases regarding gay marriage, Hollingsworth v. Perry (challenging California’s Proposition 8) and United States v. Windsor (challenging the Defense of Marriage Act) are being argued in front of the Supreme Court on March 26 and 27.

Wolfson, who founded and is president of Freedom to Marry, led a wave of Harvard Law School students and faculty members who fought for or participated in the discussion about gay marriage. The Caspersen Room in the Harvard Law School Library is currently displaying an exhibit documenting the involvement of HLS students, faculty and alumni in the long road to marriage equality. The exhibit includes Wolfson’s 3L paper along with briefs and other exhibits from HLS Professors Elizabeth Bartholet ’65, Lawrence Lessig, Frank Michelman ’60, William Rubenstein ’86, Carol Steiker ’86 and Laurence Tribe ’66; Lecturers on Law Kevin Russell and Benjamin Heineman Jr., as well as Associate Professor at Loyola Law School Douglas NeJaime ’03, many of whom have advocated before the courts on behalf of LGBT rights.

Read more about the exhibit on the Harvard Law School website.