Jean Dubofsky (born 1942) is the first woman to become a

Colorado Supreme Court The Colorado Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of Colorado. Located in Denver, the Court consists of a Chief Justice and six Associate Justices. Powers and duties Appellate jurisdiction Discretionary appeals The Court ...

Justice and a former Deputy Attorney General for Colorado. She was the lead attorney in ''

Romer v. Evans ''Romer v. Evans'', 517 U.S. 620 (1996), is a landmark United States Supreme Court case dealing with sexual orientation and state laws.. It was the first Supreme Court case to address gay rights since ''Bowers v. Hardwick'' (1986),. when the C ...

'', the case that overturned Colorado Amendment 2 at the US Supreme Court, resulting in a landmark ruling for

LGBT rights in the United States Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights in the United States are among the most socially, culturally, and legally permissive and advanced in the world, with public opinion and jurisprudence on the issue changing significantly si ...

Early life

Dubofsky was born in 1942 and grew up in

Topeka, Kansas Topeka ( ; Kansa: ; iow, Dópikˀe, script=Latn or ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the seat of Shawnee County. It is along the Kansas River in the central part of Shawnee County, in northeast Kansas, in the Central U ...

. As a senior in high school, she won the national ''Betty Crocker Search for the All-American Homemaker of Tomorrow'' scholarship, and met

Mamie Eisenhower Mary Geneva "Mamie" Eisenhower (; November 14, 1896 – November 1, 1979) was the first lady of the United States from 1953 to 1961 as the wife of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Born in Boone, Iowa, she was raised in a wealthy household i ...

and

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

Career

Dubofsky went to Stanford University as an undergraduate, and then got a degree from Harvard Law School in 1967. She served as legislative assistant to U.S. Senator

Walter Mondale Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale (January 5, 1928 – April 19, 2021) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 42nd vice president of the United States from 1977 to 1981 under President Jimmy Carter. A U.S. senator from Minnesota ...

from 1967 to 1969, then moved to Boulder, Colorado to practice law there. In 1975 she was appointed Deputy Attorney General for Colorado. In 1979, Dubofsky became the first female justice on the

and the youngest person ever appointed to the court, at age 37. She was the 11th woman to be appointed to any state supreme court. She served there until 1987. Dubofsky returned to private practice in 1988.

Amendment 2

In 1992, Colorado citizens voted for Amendment 2, a

ballot initiative In political science, an initiative (also known as a popular initiative or citizens' initiative) is a means by which a petition signed by a certain number of registered voters can force a government to choose either to enact a law or hold a p ...

which banned state and local laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of

sexual orientation Sexual orientation is an enduring pattern of romantic or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. These attractions are generall ...

. According to public opinion surveys, Coloradans strongly opposed discrimination based upon sexual orientation, but proponents of Amendment 2 saw it as prohibiting affirmative action based upon sexual orientation. Jean Dubofsky led the team which filed a lawsuit, ''

'', against the law two weeks after it passed. In 1993 a state court granted a preliminary injunction to prevent the law from taking effect and thereby overturning local laws in Boulder, Denver and Aspen. She argued the case before the Supreme Court of the United States in 1995, and the court ruled the law unconstitutional in 1996 by a 6–3 vote. The majority opinion found that it violated the Equal Protection Clause since it "classifies homosexuals not to further a proper legislative end but to make them unequal to everyone else". The decision was seen as a landmark, setting the stage for other rulings, including ''

Obergefell v. Hodges ''Obergefell v. Hodges'', ( ), is a landmark LGBT rights case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protect ...

in'' 2015, overturning state bans on

same-sex marriage Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 33 countries, with the most recent being Mexico, constituting ...

Awards

American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of aca ...

Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award Recipient, 1994 *

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...

Carle Whitehead Memorial Award for "exceptional commitment and dedication to civil liberties and the state of Colorado", 1993 *

Colorado Women's Hall of Fame The Colorado Women's Hall of Fame is a non-profit, volunteer organization that recognizes women who have contributed to the history of the U.S. state of Colorado. As of 2020, 170 women have been inducted. History There was a short-lived recogniti ...

, 2008

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dubofsky, Jean Justices of the Colorado Supreme Court American women lawyers American lawyers Living people Politicians from Boulder, Colorado Politicians from Topeka, Kansas Colorado lawyers Stanford University alumni Harvard Law School alumni 1942 births 21st-century American women 20th-century American women judges 20th-century American judges

Early life

Career

Amendment 2

Awards

See also

References