Marilyn J. Morheuser (1924-1995)
Courtesy, Education Law Center, Newark

An influential litigator of school finance issues, Marilyn Morheuser was the leading attorney for the Education Law Center, Newark, in the law suit it brought before the court in 1981. When the case, Abbott v. Burke, was decided by the New Jersey Supreme Court in 1990, it mandated that the state provide funding for poor urban school districts equal to that of the average of the wealthiest districts, the first time in the nation a court had so ruled. A former nun in the Sisters of Loretto, Morheuser left her order in 1963. She earned a law degree from Rutgers Law School in 1970 and continued her life of commitment to children and civil rights as a lawyer. She became executive director of the Education Law Center in 1979.