Thirty-five hours before the justices set foot in the courtroom for the two cases, three students from the Kennedy School of Government had claimed a spot on the sidewalk of East Capitol Street, camping out in order to guarantee themselves a seat to hear the landmark cases yesterday morning.

Kennedy School students Adan D. Briones, Tannon Carroll and Daron K. Roberts arrived in Washington, D.C. around 11 p.m. on Sunday night to wait in the line for the court’s public seating.

The three attended the University of Texas as undergraduates, and said they witnessed the impact of the 1996 ruling in the Hopwood v. Texas case, which struck down the use of affirmative action in Texas universities.

“It changed the environment on campus for the negative,” Carroll said.

After two nights in the cold, treks to the bathroom in Union Station, trips to the car to charge their cell phones and endless hours of card games, the three—numbers 27 through 29 in line—were admitted to oral arguments yesterday morning. The cut-off was number 50, Carroll said.

“I definitely think it was worth it,” Carroll said, “It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences.”

Riding to Rally

While Briones, Carroll and Roberts endured Monday’s snow showers, two buses containing about 50 Harvard students departed Cambridge for a nine-hour ride to Washington.

Although the students, who were mostly from Harvard’s graduate schools, were ready to sacrifice sleep and class time for a social cause, the ride down was anything but political—except for the vote on which video to watch first.

On one of the buses, students slept, read and watched Zoolander, The Sixth Sense and My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

But the trip wasn’t all fun and games.

After the bus arrived in D.C. around 12:30 a.m. yesterday, a group of students arranged to meet at 4 a.m. to wait in the “three-minute-line” for brief public viewing of the oral arguments.

The remainder of the students met at 8 a.m. to rally in front of the Supreme Court and march to the Lincoln Memorial later in the afternoon.

Harvard Business School student Kimberly M. Kyles said she saw the trip as her first chance to support such an important cause.

“I’ve benefitted from affirmative action, and I feel like I’ve never done my part to advance things. This is the first opportunity for me to do that,” she said.