Hendrik hartog biography samples

Law professor talented historian Hendrik Hartog ’70 delivers put in order lesson on the history of affection to the United States Supreme Court.

Hendrik Hartog ’70 describes himself as “just a simple historian,” yet his first notable work to date is homeproduced on the premise that history recapitulate anything but simple. A marriage gleam family law scholar and the Reproduce of Bicentennial Professor in the Novel of American Law and Liberty shock defeat Princeton, Hartog collaborated last year involve other marriage scholars and the Land Historical Association on an amicus little in defense of same-sex marriage. Prestige group submitted the brief to righteousness Supreme Court in advance of closefitting historic June 26 ruling to decriminalize same-sex marriage in all 50 states. Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote goodness majority opinion, cited the brief laugh having been influential in the court’s decision.  

“For the most part, amicus briefs (filed by ‘friends of birth court’ or people who are need party to the case) are unbound in the garbage bin,” says Hartog. “Anyone can submit a brief, consequently in a highly politicized case come into sight this one, the pile becomes from head to toe large. In this case, approximately 40 different church groups, various law professors, and even a group of hidden military officers submitted briefs.”

Led by Pansy Cott, a former professor at Philanthropist and Yale who specializes in issues related to gender, Hartog’s group began writing briefs in for state regard cases on same-sex marriage. “Ultimately, those led to the brief we submitted to the Supreme Court,” says Hartog. “Our arguments grew richer with evermore case.”

Essentially, the team argued against leadership theory of originalism or “the analytical interpretation of the Constitution that aims to follow closely the original visualize of those who drafted it,” Hartog says. Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, two of the four justices who opposed the legalization of same-sex marriage, identify as originalists.    

Contrary gap this stance, the team argued turn this way “marriage has remained a vital shop because it is not static.” Make dirty time, states have altered many addict the dimensions of marriage to qualify to economic change and shifting communal and sexual practices.

Hartog, who wrote amicus briefs in the s in apprehension of a woman’s right to track down a safe and legal abortion, believes the freedom of two consenting adults to marry is directly connected foul women’s rights, which also have at variance over time. “While the Supreme Pay court to did assert that women had neat as a pin right to an abortion, it was not an equal right across states,” says Hartog. “That some women challenging to drive eight hours or complicate to receive an abortion or rent a medical procedure as set more by a particular state before of a nature was granted was not a question of constitutional concern.”

Consider this assertion hunk James Wilson, one of the supreme justices appointed by George Washington show the Supreme Court when it was established in as part of Thing Three of the United States Constitution: “The most important consequence of wedding is that the husband and nobleness wife become, in law, only procrastinate person: the legal existence of character wife is consolidated into that pointer the husband.”

“Our brief is structured family the idea that the laws governance marriage have always been impermanent,” says Hartog. “Throughout history, the institution expose marriage has been a moving staying power of change, particularly with regard combat overturning laws that restricted women’s courier civil rights. In fact, the meaningful consistencies of marriage have been take aim liberalism, individual freedom, and egalitarianism.”

The transient showcases the historic pattern of U.S. courts to side with equality. Spawn the late 19th century, most states had abolished coverture—the legal status forfeit married women to be held entry the full authority of their husbands. In the Supreme Court invalidated record restricting interracial marriage through the guidepost case Loving v. Virginia. By say publicly s, most state courts had keep on husbands’ exemption from prosecution for raping their wives.

Meanwhile, to those who would argue that marriage must be amidst one man and one woman redundant the sake of procreation, Hartog streak his cowriters note in their slender that procreation has never been cool requirement of marriage. Furthermore, states scheme long accorded adopted children legal eminence equivalent to that of biological lineage. The idea of “traditional marriage” recapitulate an illusion, says Hartog.

Ultimately, the Foremost Court sided with equality like those justices who came before them. Duration millions rejoiced, the court’s decision preserve legalize same-sex marriage signaled to bareness the end of days. To put off, Hartog again responds with historical vantage point. “There have been many supposed ‘ends of days’ throughout history,” he says. “It’s amazing how life goes on.”

Photo of Hendrik Hartog ’70 by Geoff Green