Students and alumni gathered in Cardozo’s Ruth & H. Bert Mack Pavilion on June 29 to watch the NYC Pride March at the 10th annual Pride Brunch.
Hosted by the Cardozo Alumni Association and the OUTlaw Alumni Group, attendees celebrated the school’s and the city’s vibrant and diverse LGBTQ+ community.
OUTlaw Alumni Co-Chairs Chantelle “Elle” Gyamfi ’20 and Davis Villano ’23, emphasized the importance of community. Gyamfi encouraged alumni to get involved in OUTlaw.
The NYC Pride March goes down Fifth Avenue, beginning at 26th Street, passing the Stonewall National Monument in Cardozo’s neighborhood of Greenwich Village, and continuing north up 7th Avenue before ending at 15th Street. The march passes by Cardozo at 12th Street, making the lobby windows the perfect place to view the colorful celebration of the New York LGBTQ+ community.
This year’s march was special for many in the LGBTQ+ community, as it marked the 10th anniversary of Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage in the United States.
Pride Brunch raises critical funds for students, with some of the proceeds going toward the Paris Baldacci Scholarship, which is named after the late Cardozo professor, whose litigation and scholarship concentrated on the rights of people in non-traditional families. Notably, he was a lawyer in the seminal 1989 Braschi v. Stahl Associates case, in which the New York Court of Appeals ruled that the surviving partner of a same-sex relationship counted as a family member entitled to remain in the couple’s apartment after the partner’s death.
The scholarship is awarded to a 3L or LL.M. Cardozo student who has done exemplary work at the school that’s related to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, two-spirit, non-binary, or intersex rights in a clinic, credited externship, or through non-credit work, such as organizing and activism.