Geoffrey F. Bowers was born in Somerville, Massachusetts in 1954. He was the plaintiff in one of the first AIDS discrimination cases to go to public hearing. Bowers received his bachelor's degree from Brown University where he studied political science. He worked in a factory and as a television news reporter before he enrolled at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City in the fall of 1979. Bowers' case inspired the film Philadelphia, in which the following message appears at the end credits: