Professor Kalven, the famed First Amendment scholar, had long been critical of the Court’s ruling in Roth v. United States (1957) and its progeny. He aired those reservations in his seminal 1960 Supreme Court Review article titled “The Metaphysics of the Law of Obscenity.” Thus his interest in People v. Bruce; it presented itself as a test case to reexamine Roth.

To help Kalven move from the theoretical to the practical, Kalven collaborated with Maurice Rosenfield and William Ming — two friends, highly reputable lawyers, and colleagues from their University of Chicago Law School days.