Lambda Legal celebrates 50th anniversary
Lambda Legal CEO Kevin Jennings in conjunction with his organization’s 50th anniversary said the courts remain crucial to the protection of LGBTQ rights in the country. “Litigation has been the crucial tool for advancing the rights of the LGBTQ+ community,” Jennings told the Washington Blade during a Sept.
25 interview. “Lambda Legal has been at the forefront of that litigation for 50 years.” The New York Court of Appeals in 1973 overruled a decision that denied Lambda Legal’s application to incorporate because its mission was “neither benevolent nor charitable” and “there was no demonstrated need for its existence.” “We have to be our own first client,” said Jennings.
Lambda Legal represented a group of gay students at the University of New Hampshire who sued after then-Gov. Mel Thomson threatened to defund the entire UNH system if they continued their “socially abhorrent activities.” The U.S.
Supreme Court in 1974 ruled in favor of the students in Gay Students Organization v. Bonner. Lambda Legal in 1983 represented Dr.
