Washington, D.C. (April 10, 2007) — In January 1959, Richard and Mildred Loving were indicted by a Virginia grand jury for violating Section 20-58 of the state criminal code. The couple hadn't killed anyone or robbed any banks. They hadn't lied, cheated or stolen. Their crime was falling in love and getting married. Richard was white; Mildred was black. In Virginia, interracial marriages were illegal, punishable by up to five years in prison.

In finding the couple guilty, a Virginia trial judge stated, "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."  In 1967, the Supreme Court of the United States threw out the Lovings' conviction, ruling that the statute adopted by the State of Virginia to prevent marriages between persons solely on the basis of racial classifications violated the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.

This fall, four decades after that historic decision, the importance and legacy of Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, will be revisited in a national symposium published by the Howard Law Journal and sponsored by Vinson & Elkins LLP. The symposium will feature six articles authored by some of the nation's leading experts and scholars in family and constitutional law.

Vinson & Elkins is proud to announce that the international law firm is sponsoring a three year symposia with the Howard Law Journal starting this fall with an issue that will focus on the Supreme Court striking down Virginia's miscegenation laws. V&E; lawyers will present an $18,000 check to the students and faculty of Howard University School of Law and the Howard Law Journal on Tuesday, April 10.

"We are deeply grateful for this important show of support from Vinson & Elkins for Howard University School of Law and for our Law Journal, which showcases some of our finest students," says Howard University Law Professor Andrew I. Gavil, who oversees the law journal. "The annual Vinson & Elkins Symposium will facilitate the Journal's efforts to attract and publish first-rate, cutting-edge scholarship, enhancing its reputation in the academic and legal community and promoting the goal of providing our Journal members with the finest training."

"Howard Law School, with its rich history and legacy of social justice, produces some of the best and brightest lawyers in the country," says V&E; Partner Dionne Lomax, a 1992 graduate of Howard University and the firm's team leader for recruiting at Howard. "Vinson & Elkins has benefited from the legal talent produced by Howard Law and it is my hope that the Vinson & Elkins symposium will further solidify our relationship with the law school and its students."

Ms. Lomax says that the planned fall symposium showcases the fact that the Howard Law Journal helps facilitate innovative and critical legal thinking that is the hallmark of Howard University's legacy.

By focusing on Loving v. Virginia, the Howard Law Journal symposium will examine an historic case that had long sat in the shadow of Brown v. Board of Education and other more well-known civil rights and civil liberties cases. At the time the Supreme Court decided Loving, 16 states had laws that prohibited interracial marriages. Because no one would perform the ceremony in Virginia, the Lovings drove to Washington, D.C. in June 1958 to be officially married, then returned to Virginia to live. Six months later, the couple were charged and convicted of violating § 20-58 of the Virginia Code:

"Leaving State to evade law. — If any white person and colored person shall go out of this State, for the purpose of being married, and with the intention of returning, and be married out of it, and afterwards return to and reside in it, cohabiting as man and wife, they shall be punished as provided in § 20-59, and the marriage shall be governed by the same law as if it had been solemnized in this State. The fact of their cohabitation here as man and wife shall be evidence of their marriage."

Chief Justice Earl Warren, in a unanimous opinion, wrote, "Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State. These convictions must be reversed."

While the Supreme Court's ruling came in 1967, many states refused to repeal or rescind their miscegenation laws for many years. The last state to remove its law criminalizing mixed-race marriages was Alabama in 2000.

For more information, please contact Dionne Lomax at 202.639.6610 or via e-mail at dlomax@velaw.com. Or you may contact Ashley Lyle at 713.758.2052 or alyle@velaw.com. 

Vinson & Elkins was established in 1917 and is one of the world's largest international law firms. The firm has more than 700 lawyers practicing in Austin, Beijing, Dallas, Dubai, Houston, Hong Kong, London, Moscow, New York, Shanghai, Tokyo and Washington D.C. Vinson & Elkins offers a wide range of legal services. Clients include public and private companies, financial institutions, municipalities, governments of sovereign nations, entrepreneurs, families and individuals. V&E; is a primary sponsor of the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Awards, which recognizes and promotes legal journalism.