Editors: Sarah Weddington will be available for press interviews before the lecture between 12:15 p.m. and 1:15 p.m. in the Kelly Room of the CU law school. Contact Assistant Dean Anthony L. Bastone at (303) 492-5911 to arrange an interview.
Sarah Weddington, the winning attorney in the landmark case Roe v. Wade, will give a lecture at 2 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 28, in the Lindsley Memorial Courtroom at the CU School of Law on the Boulder campus.
The presentation, which falls on the 27th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision, will address many subjects including the development of leadership skills, legal careers of lawyers in the new millennium and the Roe v. Wade case.
The 1973 Supreme Court ruling said that states may not ban abortion in the first six months of pregnancy and that a fetus is not a "person" protected by the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
"The University of Colorado School of Law is delighted to have this distinguished attorney address the university community, the legal community and the citizens of Colorado," said Tony Bastone, assistant dean of the University of Colorado School of Law. "Sarah Weddington epitomizes the versatility of the Juris Doctor degree having served in the legal arena, academia and in politics."
The lecture is sponsored by the University of Colorado School of Law's Office of Career Services, the Colorado Women's Bar Association and Planned Parenthood of Denver.
Just six years after graduating from the University of Texas School of Law in 1967, Weddington is believed to have become the youngest person ever to win a case before the Supreme Court with Roe v. Wade. In 1972, she was the first woman elected to the Texas House of Representatives, where she served three terms before becoming the U.S. Department of Agriculture聮s General Counsel, supervising more than 200 attorneys.
From 1978 to 1981, Weddington served as Assistant to President Jimmy Carter. She later went on to become Director of the Texas Office of State-Federal Relations where she was the chief lobbyist in Washington, D.C., from 1983 to 1985.
Weddington has been presented with many honors including being named one of the "Outstanding Young American Leaders" by Time Magazine, receiving the Planned Parenthood Federation of America聮s Margaret Sanger award and the Ladies Home Journal "Woman of the Future" award.
Now an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, Weddington teaches a course called "Gender-Based Discrimination," speaks widely on women聮s issues and is currently writing her next book on the subject of leadership and self-renewal.