The Supreme Court, Same-Sex Marriage and the Constitution: Linda Greenhouse Will Speak at Smith

In more than nearly four decades of reporting on the Supreme Court for The New York Times, Linda Greenhouse has covered milestone decisions around race, federal elections, reproductive rights and, this past summer, same-sex marriage.

Now, as the country moves forward with implementation of the justices’ decision that overturned bans on same-sex marriage—see, for example, the current debate around issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in Kentucky—Greenhouse will talk with Smith students, faculty, staff and the broader public about what the Supreme Court’s decision tells us about the U.S. Constitution.

Greenhouse’s talk—part of Smith’s Presidential Colloquium Series—will take place at 1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 18, in the Alumnae House Conference Room. The event, which is presented in observance of Constitution Day, is open to all; no tickets are required.

Greenhouse’s long history in covering the Supreme Court for the nation’s paper of record has given her unprecedented insight into the workings of the court, as well as a uniquely influential platform for detailing the impact of the court’s decisions.

“Reading the opinions in [this past summer’s same-sex marriage case], Obergefell v. Hodges, I was struck by how determined the dissenters were to fan the flames of resentment,” she wrote in the Times, shortly after the decision was released. “Social change doesn’t come without conflict. That was true of abortion before Roe v. Wade, as Nixon-era Republican strategists grabbed the issue as a tool of party realignment, successfully linking it to a larger ‘family values’ agenda that for the first time made allies of conservative Protestants and traditionally Democratic Catholics. That was true of same-sex marriage, political fear of which led Clinton-era Democrats into the wilderness of the Defense of Marriage Act.”

In addition to writing for the Times, Greenhouse has documented the court in three books: The U. S. Supreme Court: A Very Short Introduction; Becoming Justice Blackmun, a biography of Justice Harry A. Blackmun; and Before Roe v. Wade: Voices That Shaped the Abortion Debate Before the Supreme Court’s Ruling, co-authored with Reva B. Siegel.

Greenhouse is a Senior Research Scholar in Law, the Knight Distinguished Journalist in Residence, and Joseph Goldstein Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School. Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, she is one of two non-lawyer honorary members of the American Law Institute, which in 2002 awarded her its Henry J. Friendly Medal. She also is vice president of the Council of the American Philosophical Society, which in 2005 awarded her its Henry Allen Moe Prize for writing in the humanities and jurisprudence. A past member of the Harvard University Board of Overseers, Greenhouse serves on the Senate of Phi Beta Kappa and on the national board of the American Constitution Society.

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Radcliffe College (Harvard), Greenhouse earned a Master of Studies in Law degree from Yale Law School, which she attended on a Ford Foundation Fellowship.

The White House illuminated to celebrate the Supreme Court decision that guaranteed a constitutional right to same-sex marriage across America.