It took the Supreme Court three months to make history for marriage equality in Windsor v. US.
It took Attorney Vic Walczak two weeks later to make history again with a court case of his own.
As Legal Director of the Pennsylvania American Civil Liberties Union, Walczak serves as one of the lead counsel for the team behind Whitewood v. Wolfe, the lawsuit that directly challenges Pennsylvania’s ban on same-sex marriage. Filed immediately after Windsor, the suit draws on language from the landmark decision and seeks what the Supreme Court could not accomplish – marriage rights for Pennsylvania gay and lesbian couples, once and for all.
“We had every intention of filing Whitewood as soon as possible,” Walczak says. “I would have filed it even sooner, but we had the Fourth of July weekend.”
It’s all in a day’s work for Walczak, who has spent more than 20 years defending America’s most controversial causes, with the world media sometimes tuning in.
He took on a Pennsylvania town to defend immigrant rights, stood against the voter ID law (a case still pending), and as a young man suffered police brutality from the Communist government in Poland.
So far his biggest victory came when he fought the Intelligent Design movement in Kitzmiller v Dover Area School District, widely regarded as the biggest legal challenge to evolution in the classroom since the legendary attorney Clarence Darrow argued in the infamous Scopes “Monkey Trial” of 1925.
But unlike Darrow, Walczak defeated the creationists, a victory with nationwide repercussions.
This case is the second time that Walczak will be defending LGBT rights.
In 2004, Walczak sued the University of Pittsburgh, demanding the school provide health insurance to the partners of gay and lesbian employees. He lost the case despite a 10-year effort, but prevailed in the end: The University changed their policy soon after the ACLU announced an appeal.
“This is a fight we’re going to win,” Walczak says. “If we don’t win it in the courts, we’re going to win it with the young people because supporting LGBT rights is a non-issue for them.”
Descended from Polish Holocaust survivors, he was born in Sweden and came to America at three years old. He grew up in New Jersey and graduated from Colgate University in 1983. In college, he worked with Polish refugees associated with the anti-Communist Solidarity movement, whose stories left him “fascinated and repelled at the same time.” This inspired a visit Poland in 1983, at the time still run by the same repressive government that had persecuted his family.
“It’s a formative experience, being in a society without any civil liberties,” he said. “It’s not an experience everyone would want to try, but it was a chance to see what it really meant to have no rights.”
Upon returning, he enrolled in Boston College Law School and graduated cum laude. A stint with the Prisoner Assistance Project in Baltimore followed, until his wife moved to Pittsburgh. Walczak became executive director of the Pittsburgh ACLU office, then was named legal director of the entire Pennsylvania chapter in 2004.
He returns to court when the Whitewood trial begins on June 9. He predicts a quick ruling, with a decision by early Fall.
“If you pull the lens back and look at history, there’s been tremendous progress in the past 25 to 50 years,” Walczak said. “Pick any issue. LGBT is a tremendous illustration of what we’ve achieved. It feels like a rollercoaster. But there’s a lot more to be done.”
