NORTH PARK — Evan Wolfson, founder of Freedom to Marry, has been tapped to deliver the spring commencement speech at Northeastern Illinois University, the school announced.
For decades, Wolfson championed the cause of same-sex couples in their pursuit of marriage equality, an effort that culminated in the landmark 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision declaring gay marriage legal nationwide.
NEIU Provost Richard Helldobler called Wolfson "one of the great civil rights leaders of our time."
Wolfson will also receive an honorary doctorate at the commencement ceremony, scheduled for May 9 at the UIC Pavilion.
According to his Freedom to Marry bio, Wolfson wrote his 1983 Harvard Law School thesis on gay people and marriage and is the author of "Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality, and Gay People's Right to Marry."
In 2000, the National Law Journal named him one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America and Newsweek called him "the godfather of gay marriage."
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