Alan Dershowitz
Alan Dershowitz
Alan Morton Dershowitzis an American lawyer, jurist, and author. He is a prominent scholar on United States constitutional law and criminal law, and a leading defender of civil liberties. He spent most of his career at Harvard Law School where in 1967, at the age of 28, he became the youngest full professor of law in its history. He held the Felix Frankfurter professorship there from 1993 until his retirement in December 2013...
ProfessionLawyer
Date of Birth1 September 1938
CityNew York City, NY
careers race mind
I was critical of race-based affirmative action early on in my career and I've changed my mind. And I've publicly acknowledged that I was wrong.
years students
I was a Jewish rabbinical student for 12 years, and studied the Bible all the time.
views tactics respect-me
I understand that it's good tactics to categorize me as a close-minded, unobjective extremist, but nobody that respects me has those views.
mean views expression
Freedom of speech means freedom for those who you despise, and freedom to express the most despicable views. It also means that the government cannot pick and choose which expressions to authorize and which to prevent.
mother thinking abortion
I can't find anything in the Constitution that says you prefer the life of the mother, or the convenience of the mother if it's an abortion by choice, over the potential life of the fetus. Look, I think women, if they're required to not have abortions, could die and could - so I favor a woman's right to choose.
thinking law people
I think we're seeing privacy diminish, not by laws... but by young people who don't seem to value their privacy.
years harvard feels
I feel like my 50 years at Harvard were an interlude. I'm really a New Yorker.
play hiking museums
I love to play. I love, opera, hiking and museums. The one thing I don't do is sit. I have a tremendous amount of energy.
moving party thinking
I think extremists within the base may very well move the Democratic party away from its pro-Israel position.
thinking requirements would-be
I think there would be less torture with a warrant requirement than without one.
mother growing-up school
When I was growing up, my mother would always say, 'It will go on your permanent record.' There was no 'permanent record.' If there were a 'permanent record,' I'd never be able to be a lawyer. I was such a bum in elementary school and high school... There is a permanent record today, and it's called the Internet.
law freedom-of-speech censorship
Censorship laws are blunt instruments, not sharp scalpels. Once enacted, they are easily misapplied to merely unpopular or only marginally dangerous speech.
swings ideas liberty
Our First Amendment expresses a far different calculus for regulating speech than for regulating nonexpressive conduct and that is as it should be. The right to swing your fist should end at the tip of my nose, but your right to express your ideas should not necessarily end at the lobes of my ears.
iran nuclear weapons
What the United States has to do is send a clear message to Iran that they will not be able to develop nuclear weapons. Why endure the difficulty of sanctions if they are not going to be able to develop nuclear weapons anyway?