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
able firsts debate
Well, first of all, no professor should be able to say, I refuse to defend my position. I refuse to debate my position.
ideas people desert
Ideas don't desert you; ideas aren't treasonous to you, but people can be.
simple law people
For most people, the question why be good - as distinguished from merely law abiding - is a simple one. Because God commands it, because the Bible requires it, because good people go to Heaven and bad people go to Hell.
kings powerful doe
Doing something because God has said to do it does not make a person moral: it merely tells us that person is a prudential believer, akin to the person who obeys the command of an all-powerful secular king.
tombstone boring satisfying
I've had such a satisfying life professionally and personally. I hope my tombstone says, 'Never boring.'
issues israel around-the-world
I'm not a single-issue person, but I spend so much time on Israel because it is so unfairly condemned around the world.
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.
thinking requirements would-be
I think there would be less torture with a warrant requirement than without one.
moving party thinking
I think extremists within the base may very well move the Democratic party away from its pro-Israel position.
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.
years harvard feels
I feel like my 50 years at Harvard were an interlude. I'm really a New Yorker.
freedom-of-speech violence should
Being offended by freedom of speech should never be regarded as a justification for violence.