Jeffrey Rosen
Jeffrey Rosen
Jeffrey Rosen is an American academic and commentator on legal affairs. Legal historian David Garrow has called him "the nation's most widely read and influential legal commentator". Since 2013, he has served as the President and CEO of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia...
Jeffrey Rosen quotes about
thinking government answers
I think the answer has to do with the fact that [Louis D.] Brandeis was a consistent critic of bigness in business and in government.
people african-american able
It's unfortunate that [Louis] Brandeis was not able to translate or abstract his devotion to cultural pluralism and racial equality as he put it for Jews to enslave people and their descendants and to African Americans.
thinking blind-spots race
Justice Jefferson has a blind spot on race. You know, more than a blind spot. A terrible blemish on his legacy, slavery, for which he's properly excoriated. So, I think [Louis] Brandeis has done this as well.
school law people
When I was in law school I was taught that the great writers were people like [Oliver Wendell] Holmes Jr. and [Benjamin N.] Cardozo. But you go back and read their prose and it's sort of perfumed and very ornate and show-offy. And they're constantly striving for these abstractions that seem archaic nowadays.
writing gone saws
What is so inspiring about [Louis] Brandeis's writing is he saw it as a tool for democratic education. He would say things like the opinion is now convincing, now can we make it more instructive, after he'd gone through ten drafts.
writing voice louis-brandeis
[Louis] Brandeis is writing directly to us. His clear voice comes through a century and he's speaking to us and he's galvanizing us and he's persuading us. And that's why I love to read the prose.
memorable balance louis-brandeis
[Louis] Brandeis improves the prose. He simplifies it and perfects the balance of the sentence so it becomes even more memorable and aphoristic.
teaching writing citizens
Why I find Louis Brandeis so exciting and inspiring because he's teaching us - good legal writing is not a matter of taste, it's a matter of connection with fellow citizens and of democratic education.
crazy book writing
Louis Brandeis really inspired me to write this book [Louis D. Brandeis: American Prophet]. It was a crazy deadline. The editor said I'd miss the hundredth anniversary unless I pumped the thing out in six months, because I'd been delaying and dilly dallying for so long. So he both inspired me to get up early and write.
book writing thinking
But as I wrote the book [Louis D. Brandeis: American Prophet], I tried to write it as clearly and directly and passionately as possible just thinking of communicating to readers who might want to learn about this great thinker and be inspired by him as I was.
book hook republican
We shouldn't let the Republicans off the hook. Theodore Roosevelt, we learned from Jeff Cowan's new book, was just as bad as certainly [Louis] Brandeis was, or many Democrats were on the question of segregation.
party opportunity southern
Louis Brandeis never had the opportunity - or he never sought the opportunity I should say - to work closely with African American lawyers. He was also a Southern Democrat, you know, at a time when both parties were supportive of segregation.
mother running uncles
Louis Brandeis beloved uncle, Lewis Dembitz, was an ardent abolitionist. His mother was an abolitionist in Kentucky at a time when Brandeis remembered hearing the shot from the confederate soldiers after the second battle of Bull Run. Amazing to think that he heard that and I studied with one of his last law clerks in college. And that encapsulates almost all of American history.
new-york fighting long
Initially the papers said that the fact that Louis Brandeis was picked because he was Jewish. The New York Sun said he's the first Jew ever picked for the bench - a long and bitter fight expected in the Senate over confirmation.