The hottest ticket in Washington, D.C., on October 10, 1995, was a seat in the gallery of the U.S. Supreme Court. The courtroom was packed with lawyers and journalists. The New York Times, the Washington Post , the newsmagazines and the TV networks were all there to watch attorney Jean Eberhart Dubofsky urge the court to strike down Colorado's controversial Amendment 2. The measure sought to nullify all state and local laws that protect homosexuals against discrimination and barred the passage of any new laws protecting them at the state or local level.
Dubofsky took the case in the summer of 1992, before the amendment was put to the voters in that year's November elections. When, nearly three years later, the Supreme Court agreed to decide its constitutionality, Dubofsky concentrated "on the composition of the court and how to pull down as many votes as possible instead of working on hitting a home run," says Rick Hills, then an associate in Dubofsky's practice in Boulder, Colo., and now an assistant professor at the University of Michigan Law School.
Dubofsky was born and raised in Topeka, Kan., the oldest child of a math professor father and a librarian mother. She attended Stanford as a National Merit Scholar after turning down a Betty Crocker All-American Homemaker of Tomorrow scholarship. "I certainly wasn't the homemaker type," she says with a chuckle. After college, Dubofsky went to Harvard Law School and then worked as an aide to then-Sen. Walter Mondale on Capitol Hill. After marrying Frank Dubofsky, '64, the couple moved to Colorado, where she served as deputy attorney general and later as a Colorado state Supreme Court justice from 1979 to 1987.
Dubofsky's colleague on the state Supreme Court, George Lohr, remembers the hectic schedule she kept. "She was very dedicated to her work to the point of being driven," Lohr says. "She used to get up at 4 a.m. to prepare for court conferences and her opinions and work straight through the day."
Eight years ago, when Dubofsky's sons were 10 and 12 years old, she decided to step down from the court and now maintains her own practice, concentrating mostly on appellate work and cases with social justice themes. In preparing for her court date in Washington, D.C., she wrote the legal briefs, but had a team of lawyers to help find witnesses, gather evidence and research past rulings.
In May, Dubofsky's months of careful preparation paid off when the Supreme Court handed down its ruling. By a 6-to-3 vote, the justices found Amendment 2 unconstitutional. Dubofsky's persuasive argument had resulted in a landmark decision for gay rights in America.
"I always thought it was ridiculous that this law could be constitutional, but I also appreciated how conservative the court is," Dubofsky says. Then she adds breezily, "I always thought we would win."
--Felicia Paik, '88
