![]() |
Philip Jay Hirschkop (born May 14, 1936) is an American civil rights lawyer. With fellow American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) volunteer cooperating attorney Bernard S. Cohen, the two represented Mildred and Richard Loving in several court cases to overturn the Lovings' conviction for interracial marriage in the state of Virginia. [1] The case eventually reached the United States Supreme Court, and on April 10, 1967, Hirschkop and Cohen were permitted to share the oral argument for the Lovings. [2] In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of the Lovings in Loving v. Virginia , overturning their conviction and ending the enforcement of state bans on interracial marriage. [3]
Hirschkop went on to argue two additional cases before the Supreme Court in the 1970s. [4] Other clients have included Martin Luther King Jr., H. Rap Brown, Norman Mailer, the American Nazi Party, PETA, and "numerous anti-war protesters during the 1960s and 1970s." Hirschkop has served on the ACLU's national Board of Directors and as Chair of the ACLU of Virginia, which he helped found in 1969. He also served as executive director of the Penal Reform Institute. [5] [6] He has been a member of the Virginia State and Washington D.C. bars. In the 1960s, after the McCarthy era, he served as the vice chair of the National Committee to Abolish the House Un-American Activities Committee, which now is the Defending Dissent Foundation. [7]
Philip Hirschkop was born May 14, 1936, in Brooklyn, New York, the youngest of three boys in an Orthodox Jewish family. In his youth, his family relocated from Brooklyn to the safer Hightstown, New Jersey, where he attended a small high school. In Hightstown, he made friends with a number of African American migrant workers who briefly lived there as they passed through town while working in the potato fields, often under terrible conditions. He saw them often as they shopped in his father's clothing shop. He attributed "his passion for social justice" to meeting the workers in his childhood. [8]
Immediately after high school, at the age of eighteen, Hirschkop joined the Army as a Green Beret in the 77th Special Forces Air Group as a paratrooper. [9]
After the army, he attended Columbia University. While in law school in the evenings at Georgetown University, he used his Mechanical Engineering degree from Columbia to work days as an examiner in the US Patent and Trademark office, though he soon discovered that a career in patent law would not stimulate him. [7] While still in law school at Georgetown, he attended a party with a number of African-American civil rights lawyers assembled by President Kennedy and was greatly influenced. Not long after, he met the prominent civil rights attorney William Kunstler, who mentored him throughout his early career. On a trip to Danville, Virginia, to defend protestors, he witnessed what he described as "one of the worst beatings of black people ever seen in the south". Over fifty were hospitalized. He later claimed that experience made him a civil rights lawyer. Not long after, he traveled to Mississippi to fight for voting rights, and to help investigate the infamous "Mississippi Burning" murders of three civil rights workers in 1964. [10]
On April 10, 1967, only a few years out of law school, Hirschkop argued as a volunteer cooperating attorney for the ACLU [11] on behalf of the petitioners Richard and Mildred Loving in the case of Loving v. Virginia before the Supreme Court of the United States. [12] Hirschkop's co-counsel was fellow Virginian Bernard S. Cohen, who had also recently completed law school at Georgetown. [13]
Richard Loving was a white construction worker, and Mildred was of both black and native American origins according to her attorneys, though in 2004 she claimed Indian-Rappahannock and not African ethnic origins. [14] They were married in Washington, D.C. in 1958, and after returning to their home in Caroline County, Virginia, six weeks after their marriage, they were arrested and charged with violating interracial marriage laws, a felony carrying one to five years. On the day of their wedding, twenty-four states banned interracial marriage. The couple were sentenced to one year in prison, but their sentence was suspended on condition that they leave the state for 25 years. At one point according to attorney Hirschkop, Mildred, though five months pregnant and the mother of a young child, was held in a small dirty jail cell for the better part of a month. [15] [16] [17] After the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Mildred wrote Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, inquiring if the law could allow her and her husband to live in Virginia. Kennedy forwarded the letter to the ACLU office in Washington.
On June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court rendered its unanimous decision overturning a Virginia State Supreme Court of Appeals ruling in favor of the state to create and enforce interracial marriage laws known as anti-miscegenation laws. The decision validated that interracial marriage bans were unconstitutional and their existence in some states and not others denied the couple equal protection under the law guaranteed by the Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment. Most significantly, it reversed the right of states to create laws that banned interracial marriage or enforce such laws where they existed. [18] [19]
On February 17, 2017, the General Assembly of Virginia passed a resolution commending Philip Hirschkop and his co-counsel Bernard S. Cohen, lauding their work on Loving. [20] On June 26, 2021, Hirschkop was interviewed and spoke in detail about the case, which video presentation is available online. [21]
The Supreme Court ruling voided the existing interracial marriage laws of 15 mostly Southern states, including all the states of the former Confederacy. A few states, notably Alabama, continued to have bans on interracial marriage on the books, though they could no longer be enforced. Alabama did not officially reverse its ban on interracial marriage until 2000 in a special election that struck the mention of anti-miscegenation from the state constitution. In violation of the Loving ruling, it continued to enforce its laws banning interracial marriage until 1970. [16] [17]
In 1967, he argued the case of Koehl v. Resor. In a highly controversial and somewhat ironic case considering his religion, he defended the right of American Nazi Party activist George Lincoln Rockwell, as a veteran, to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery, winning the decision. He initially declined the case, fully aware of the activities and beliefs of the American Nazi Party, but his associates at the ACLU encouraged him to take it to defend free speech, regardless of its content. Taking the case brought great resentment from his parents and many in the Jewish community. [7] [22]
In 1971, he defended 19 year old Leslie Bacon, a woman suspected of participating in or having knowledge of a bombing that occurred at the United States Capitol on March 1 of that year. [23]
In 1968 he defended Norman Mailer, distinguished author, against charges of disorderly conduct when he crossed a police line in a Vietnam war demonstration at the Pentagon in October 1967. Hirschkkop had difficulty overturning the ruling requiring Mailer to serve five days in prison and pay a fine. Hirschkop defended other celebrities who faced arrest as a result of participation in Vietnam war protests.
In May 1971, he served as chief legal advisor to Vietnam war protestors who numbered over 10,000 and had been arrested during capital protests. Many, in his opinion, had been arrested unjustly, and he was concerned about the length of time it would take them to get released on bail. [24]
In 1975, he defended oil heirs William H. and Nelson B. Hunt against charges of illegal wire tapping. [25] They were acquitted in late September, in a decision that was not entirely popular in Lubbock where it occurred. [26]
In November 1971, he was instrumental in bringing reforms to Virginia prisons which led a federal judge to declare "cruel and unusual punishment" in the state's prisons which included "physical punishment, bread and water diets, mail censorship, interference with access to counsel, and imposition of other penalties without due counsel". For his efforts he was described by one reporter as having helped to enact "the most sweeping court order ever issued for prison reform". [5]
In 1968, Hirschkop represented an amicus party in a U.S. Supreme Court case that declared unconstitutional an Arkansas law that prohibited teachers, in state schools, from teaching Darwin's theory of evolution. [27]
In 1970, he successfully argued Kirstein v. University of Virginia before a federal court in Virginia. At the time the university denied entrance to women, forcing them to attend inferior colleges that prepared them to be teachers. Hirschkop created a massive record, and called on the heads of several Virginia schools to explain why women could not be admitted. By winning the case, he secured the potential for Virginia women to receive a superior education.
In 1973 he defended Susan Cohen, a deposed Virginia teacher, in a trial that questioned the "constitutionality of regulations forcing pregnant women to quit their jobs". Hirschkop stated he believed that "most pregnant women can handle teaching chores with no difficulty". The case was argued using the "equal protection clause" of the Fourteenth Amendment. [28] In 1974 he successfully argued the case, Cohen v. Chesterfield County before the Supreme Court which abolished the existing teacher leave policies for pregnant woman. When opposition lawyers used medical reasons to keep pregnant woman out of the classroom, Hirschkop called medical experts to counter them. The ruling abolished laws that required pregnant teachers to take unpaid maternity leave several months prior to their due date. [27] In another landmark ruling for teachers in Johnson v. Branch, he gained one of the earliest decisions that protected teacher's rights to participate in peaceful protest. [7]
In August 1990, he was involved in a controversial appeal in which his client PETA, and other animal rights groups were assessed two million dollars in damages on counts of invasion of privacy and defamation of character against a Las Vegas showman who used pet orangutans in his act at the Stardust Hotel. Berosini and the Stardust had successfully sued PETA after the tapes of his striking the animals were leaked to the press. Hirschkop claimed that Bobby Berosini, the showman, had been secretly filmed striking the orangutans in his act, and that he and the hotel should not retain the damage awards they had received for defamation of character in their suit against the animal rights groups. [29]
Hirschkop and his wife Phyllis married in 1959. They have two children. Their marriage ended in divorce after 21 years. [8] He has another son from a later relationship.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is an American nonprofit human rights organization founded in 1920. The organization strives "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". The ACLU works through litigation and lobbying and has over 1,800,000 members as of July 2018, with an annual budget of over $300 million. Affiliates of the ACLU are active in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The ACLU provides legal assistance in cases where it considers civil liberties at risk. Legal support from the ACLU can take the form of direct legal representation or preparation of amicus curiae briefs expressing legal arguments when another law firm is already providing representation.
Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), was a landmark civil rights decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that laws banning interracial marriage violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The case involved Mildred Loving, a woman of color, and white man Richard Loving. In 1958, they were sentenced to a year in prison for marrying each other. Their marriage violated Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which criminalized marriage between people classified as "white" and people classified as "colored". The Lovings appealed their conviction to the Supreme Court of Virginia, which upheld it. They then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear their case.
Loving Day is an annual national celebration held on June 12, the anniversary of the 1967 United States Supreme Court decision Loving v. Virginia which struck down all anti-miscegenation laws remaining in sixteen U.S. states. In the United States, anti-miscegenation laws were U.S. state laws banning interracial marriage, mainly forbidding marriage between two different races, until the Warren Court ruled unanimously in 1967 that these state laws were unconstitutional. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in the court majority opinion that "the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State."
Mildred Delores Loving and Richard Perry Loving were an American married couple who were the plaintiffs in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia (1967). Their marriage has been the subject of three movies, including the 2016 drama Loving, and several songs. The Lovings were criminally charged with interracial marriage under a Virginia statute banning such marriages, and were forced to leave the state to avoid being jailed. They moved to Washington, D.C., but wanted to return to their home town. With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), they filed suit to overturn the law. In 1967, the Supreme Court ruled in their favor, striking down the Virginia statute and all state anti-miscegenation laws as unconstitutional, for violating due process and equal protection of the law under the Fourteenth Amendment. On June 29, 1975, a drunk driver struck the Lovings' car in Caroline County, Virginia. Richard was killed in the crash, at the age of 41. Mildred lost her right eye.
Pace v. Alabama, 106 U.S. 583 (1883), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court affirmed that Alabama's anti-miscegenation statute was constitutional. This ruling was rejected by the Supreme Court in 1964 in McLaughlin v. Florida and in 1967 in Loving v. Virginia. Pace v. Alabama is one of the oldest court cases in America pertaining to interracial sex.
The Respect for Marriage Act is a landmark United States federal law passed by the 117th United States Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden. It repeals the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), requires the U.S. federal government and all U.S. states and territories to recognize the validity of same-sex and interracial civil marriages in the United States, and protects religious liberty. Its first version in 2009 was supported by former Republican U.S. Representative Bob Barr, the original sponsor of DOMA, and former President Bill Clinton, who signed DOMA in 1996. Iterations of the proposal were put forth in the 111th, 112th, 113th, 114th, and 117th Congresses.
In October 2009, Keith Bardwell, a Robert, Louisiana, Justice of the Peace, refused to officiate the civil wedding of an interracial couple because of his personal views, in spite of a 1967 United States Supreme Court ruling which prohibited restrictions on interracial marriage as unconstitutional.
Naim v. Naim, 197 Va. 80; 87 S.E.2d 749 (1955), is a case regarding interracial marriage. The case was decided by the Supreme Court of Virginia on June 13, 1955. The Court held the marriage between the appellant and the appellee to be void under the Code of Virginia (1950).
Bernard S. Cohen was a civil liberties attorney and Democratic member of the Virginia House of Delegates. On April 10, 1967, appearing with co-counsel Philip Hirschkop on behalf of the ACLU, Cohen presented oral argument for the petitioners in Loving v. Virginia before the U. S. Supreme Court. On June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Cohen's clients, declaring bans on interracial marriage unconstitutional, thus invalidating the anti-miscegenation laws of 15 states.
In the United States, anti-miscegenation laws were passed by most states to prohibit interracial marriage, and in some cases also prohibit interracial sexual relations. Some such laws predate the establishment of the United States, some dating to the later 17th or early 18th century, a century or more after the complete racialization of slavery. Nine states never enacted such laws; 25 states had repealed their laws by 1967, when the United States Supreme Court ruled in Loving v. Virginia that such laws were unconstitutional in the remaining 16 states. The term miscegenation was first used in 1863, during the American Civil War, by journalists to discredit the abolitionist movement by stirring up debate over the prospect of interracial marriage after the abolition of slavery.
Kitchen v. Herbert, 961 F.Supp.2d 1181, affirmed, 755 F.3d 1193 ; stay granted, 134 S.Ct. 893 (2014); petition for certiorari denied, No. 14-124, 2014 WL 3841263, is the federal case that successfully challenged Utah's constitutional ban on marriage for same-sex couples and similar statutes. Three same-sex couples filed suit in March 2013, naming as defendants Utah Governor Gary R. Herbert, Attorney General John Swallow, and Salt Lake County Clerk Sherrie Swensen in their official capacities.
Bostic v. Schaefer is a lawsuit filed in federal court in July 2013 that challenged Virginia's refusal to sanction same-sex marriages. The plaintiffs won in U.S. district court in February 2014, and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling in July 2014. On August 20, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed enforcement of the Fourth Circuit's ruling pending the outcome of further litigation. State officials refused to defend the state's constitutional and statutory bans on same-sex marriage.
Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015), is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States which ruled that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. The 5–4 ruling requires all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and the Insular Areas to perform and recognize the marriages of same-sex couples on the same terms and conditions as the marriages of opposite-sex couples, with all the accompanying rights and responsibilities. Prior to Obergefell, same-sex marriage had already been established by statute, court ruling, or voter initiative in thirty-six states, the District of Columbia, and Guam.
Loving is a 2016 American biographical romantic drama film which tells the story of Richard and Mildred Loving, the plaintiffs in the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision Loving v. Virginia, which invalidated state laws prohibiting interracial marriage. The film was produced by Big Beach and Raindog Films, and distributed by Focus Features. The film takes inspiration from The Loving Story (2011) by Nancy Buirski, a documentary which follows the Lovings and their landmark case.
David Carliner was an immigration, civil liberties, and civil rights lawyer in Washington, D.C. Among the earliest practitioners of American immigration and naturalization law, he was an early combatant of anti-miscegenation laws, challenged the segregation of public accommodations, and fought for the rights of sexual minorities to enter the country and have full employment rights in the federal government. Carliner was chair of the District of Columbia Home Rule Committee and was responsible for the first modern home rule reforms in 1967. He served as the general counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union (1976–1979); helped to found the ACLU's National Capital Area chapter and Global Rights ; and served on the boards of the ACLU (1965–1983), the American Jewish Committee (1969–1971), and a variety of other organizations. He was the author of the ACLU's 1977 handbook on immigrants' rights and a coauthor of its 1990 revision.
Doe v. Commonwealth's Attorney of Richmond, 425 U.S. 901 (1976), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States which gave summary affirmation of a lower court ruling which upheld the U.S. state of Virginia's ban on homosexual sodomy.
Robert D. McIlwaine III was an American lawyer and public official. He is known for his defense of Virginia's policies of racial segregation in the civil rights cases in which he represented the state as a lawyer for the attorney general's office, including Loving v. Virginia.
Mr. and Mrs. Loving is a 1996 drama television film directed by Richard Friedenberg that aired on Showtime. It is based on a true story, but with fictionalized parts.
William M. Marutani was the first Asian-American male judge in Pennsylvania (1975). Marutani was the only Japanese American commissioner to sit on the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC).