Tobias Barrington Wolff (born 1970) is a professor of law at the

University of Pennsylvania Law School The University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School (also known as Penn Carey Law, or Penn Law; previously University of Pennsylvania Law School) is the law school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in Phi ...

where he teaches classes on sexuality and the law, same sex marriage and human rights. He is known for his legal advocacy on

same sex marriage Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same legal sex. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 38 countries, with a total population of 1.5 billion people (20% ...

and other

LGBT LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, asexual, aromantic, agender, and other individuals. The gro ...

-related issues, and served as the chief advisor and spokesperson on LGBT issues for

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

throughout his 2007-08 presidential campaign. He is openly

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late ...

Biography

Wolff was educated at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

(BA 1992) and

Yale Law School Yale Law School (YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824. The 2020–21 acceptance rate was 4%, the lowest of any law school in the United ...

(JD 1997), where he transferred after his first year. At Yale, he wrote for the ''

Yale Law Journal ''The Yale Law Journal'' (YLJ) is a student-run law review affiliated with the Yale Law School. Published continuously since 1891, it is the most widely known of the eight law reviews published by students at Yale Law School. The journal is one ...

''. After clerking for Ninth Circuit Federal Appeals Court judges

William Albert Norris William Albert Norris (August 30, 1927 – January 21, 2017) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Norris was nominated by President Jimmy Carter on February 27, 1980, to a seat vacated by ...

and Betty Fletcher, Wolff spent two years as an associate at

Paul, Weiss Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP (known as Paul, Weiss) is an American multinational white-shoe law firm headquartered in New York City. Paul, Weiss's core practice areas are in litigation and corporate law. The firm has histori ...

before beginning his academic legal career. He has taught at

UC Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University ...

Stanford Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth governor of and th ...

, and

Northwestern Law School The Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law (formerly known as Northwestern University School of Law from 1891 to 2015) is the law school of Northwestern University, a private research university. The law school is located on the univer ...

s. He is currently professor of law at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

.Vernon Rosario, 'When Liberty is the Price of Homophobia', in ''

The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide ''The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide'' (formerly ''The Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review'') is a bimonthly, nationally distributed magazine of history, culture, and politics for LGBT people and their allies who are interested in the gamut of social, ...

'', Jan-Feb 2010, p. 39 Wolff is the youngest son of the philosopher

Robert Paul Wolff Robert Paul Wolff (December 27, 1933 – January 6, 2025) was an American political philosopher and professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Wolff wrote widely on topics in political philosophy, including Marxism, tolera ...

and literary historian Cynthia Griffin Wolff. His brother is chess grandmaster

Patrick Wolff Patrick Gideon Wolff (born February 15, 1968) is an American chess Grandmaster. He is the son of philosopher Robert Paul Wolff and brother of law professor Tobias Barrington Wolff. Wolff won the United States Chess Championship in 1992 and ...

Bibliography

* * * *

References

External links

Faculty profile at Penn Law
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wolff, Tobias Barrington 1970 births Living people 20th-century American Jews American gay men Gay Jews University of Pennsylvania Law School faculty Yale Law School alumni Yale University alumni Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison people Scholars of civil procedure law 21st-century American Jews 20th-century American LGBTQ people 21st-century American LGBTQ people