Radcliffe Day 2024 | Panel | The Long Arc of Equality and Justice in America

The promise of equality remains central to America’s identity, even at moments when political discord, cultural differences, and polarized debates seem to divide the country. As public opinion, laws, and judicial rulings evolve and, at times, retrench, it is useful to recall the quotation, famously referenced by Martin Luther King Jr., “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” On Radcliffe Day, Melissa Murray moderated a multigenerational panel of activists, scholars, and attorneys who discussed where we are today in the context of this long arc and explored how to work together toward a future that advances equal rights for all.

Speakers:
Melissa Murray is the Frederick I. and Grace Stokes Professor of Law at NYU School of Law, where she teaches constitutional law, family law, criminal law, and reproductive rights and justice. Murray’s writing has appeared in such legal and lay publications as the Atlantic, the Harvard Law Review, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Yale Law Journal. She is a legal analyst for MSNBC and a cohost of Strict Scrutiny, a Crooked Media podcast about the Supreme Court and legal culture. Murray is a graduate of Yale Law School and the University of Virginia. Following law school, she served as a judicial clerk to Sonia Sotomayor, then a judge of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and Stefan Underhill of the US District Court for the District of Connecticut.

Nina Perales is vice president of litigation for MALDEF, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, where she supervises the legal staff and litigation in offices across the United States. Perales is best known for her work in voting rights: She tried and argued successfully before the US Supreme Court a challenge to Texas redistricting that resulted in that court’s first ruling of Latino vote dilution under the Voting Rights Act. She also secured favorable US Supreme Court rulings in challenges to an Arizona voter registration law in 2013 and Texas redistricting in 2018. Perales has presented more than 10 oral arguments to the US Courts of Appeals. She has testified numerous times before US Congress and state legislatures on voting rights and currently serves as an adjunct professor at Harvard Law School, where she teaches a course called Current Topics in Latino Civil Rights. Perales earned her undergraduate degree from Brown University and law degree from Columbia University School of Law.

Mary L. Bonauto is the senior director of civil rights and legal strategies at GLAD, where her litigation extends to helping enact and enforce some of the earliest antidiscrimination laws covering sexual orientation as well as litigating coverage and enforcement of state and federal statutes. In 2003, with a GLAD team, she argued Goodridge v. Department of Public Health as Massachusetts became the first state to allow same-sex couples to marry. In 2015, Bonauto successfully argued before the US Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges on the right-to-marry question as part of a Michigan team representing April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, which established the freedom to marry for same-sex couples nationwide. She also coled, with Gary Buseck, GLAD’s federal court challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), leading to the first federal court rulings against DOMA. Bonauto currently serves on the Maine Justice for Children Task Force, and her work has been recognized with numerous awards, including the 2014 MacArthur Fellowship and an honorary degree from Harvard University in 2016. Bonauto graduated from Hamilton College and Northeastern University School of Law and regularly writes and speaks on legal topics.

Adam Liptak covers the Supreme Court for the New York Times. A graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, he practiced law for 14 years before joining the Times’ news staff in 2002. In 2007, he began writing “Sidebar,” a column on legal affairs. In 2008, he became the paper’s Supreme Court correspondent. Liptak was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in explanatory reporting in 2009, and he is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has taught courses on the Supreme Court and the First Amendment at the University of Chicago Law School, New York University School of Law, the University of Chicago Law School, and Yale Law School.

Jerome Foster II is an activist, social entrepreneur, impact consultant, and speaker. He is the youngest White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council member in US history and the founder of Waic Up, an international media organization for social impact. He is currently a curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art and the executive director of the Waic Up initiative, a community outreach and communication nonprofit.

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