Distinguished Lecture Postcard 2014

Heather K. Gerken, J. Skelly Wright Professor of Law, Yale Law School

Presented by:

The Interlocking Gears of Rights and Structure: Why the Critics are Wrong About United States v. Windsor.

THE ANNUAL DISTINGUISHED LECT URE

THE ANNUAL DISTINGUISHED LECTURE Nonprofit Org. US Postage

The Interlocking Gears of Rights and Structure: Why the Critics are Wrong About United States v. Windsor.

PAID

Boston University School of Law 765 Commonwealth Avenue Boston, Massachusetts 02215 www.bu.edu/law

Presented by:

Heather K. Gerken, J. Skelly Wright Professor of Law Yale Law School OCTOBER 2, 2014.

About the Annual Distinguished Lecture

12:45 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.

Boston University School of Law Sumner M. Redstone Building

The Annual Distinguished Lecture was established in 1986 to bring outstanding legal scholars to Boston University School of Law to present lectures on important legal topics.

Revised versions of the lectures are published in the Boston University Law Review.

While most academics have celebrated the result in United States v. Windsor, which struck down a key provision of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, they’ve disliked the reasoning.

As soon as the opinion was released, commentators immediately condemned Justice Kennedy as a muddle-head and started squabbling over whether Windsor was “really” a rights opinion or a federalism opinion. Professor Gerken will argue that this rigid insistence on an either/ or approach, however, misses the crucial truth undergirding Windsor: the ends of equality are served by both rights and structure. In the marriage-equality debate—as with so many others—federalism and rights have served as interlocking gears moving us forward. Kennedy’s opinion might not have been a model of clarity, but at least it recognized that important fact.

Windsor is neither an equality opinion nor a federalism opinion. It is both. And that is precisely as it should be.

Past Speakers MARTHA ALBERTSON FINEMAN Emory University School of Law DEAN HAROLD KOH Yale Law School JOHN C. COFFEE Columbia Law School LAWRENCE LESSIG Harvard Law School SAUL LEVMORE University of Virginia School of Law JOSEPH RAZ Oxford University CATHERINE A. MACKINNON University of Michigan Law School CASS R. SUNSTEIN University of Chicago Law School RICHARD A. POSNER Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals For a full list of past speakers, visit the site below.

To RSVP, please email lawevent@bu.edu.

If you have academic questions about the program, please contact Professor Michael Meurer at meurer@bu.edu.

For more information visit us online at bu.edu/law/events/upcoming/#Gerken

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