Entity | Joseph L. Rauh, Jr.

Joseph Louis Rauh Jr. (January 3, 1911 – September 3, 1992) was one of the United States' foremost civil rights and civil liberties lawyers. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, by President Bill Clinton on November 30, 1993. Rauh was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Jewish parents. His mother, Sarah, was born in the U.S. His father who manufactured shirts, was born in Bamberg, Bavaria, Germany. He shirked the textiles business for Harvard University where his older brother had gone to school. His older sister became a physician. In Harvard, he played center for the Ivy League school's basketball team. He graduated magna cum laude with a degree in economics in 1932, continuing his education at Harvard Law School, where he finished first of his class.