Alan Dershowitz - The Case for Color-Blind Equality in an Age of Identity Politics

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This book is lovingly dedicated to my longtime colleague in the quest for equality, Professor Charles Ogletree, and to our mutual mentor, Professor John Hope Franklin, who taught us to advocate the equal protection of the law.

Copyright 2021 by Alan Dershowitz

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

ISBN: 978-1-5107-7021-8

eBook: 978-1-5107-7022-5

Cover design by Brian Peterson

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Introduction

I n August of 1963, I was twenty-four years old, had just completed my first clerkship with Chief Judge David Bazelon of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and was beginning my second clerkship with Justice Arthur Goldberg of the United States Supreme Court. Dr. Martin Luther King was coming to Washington to lead a rally for equal justice. Having spent many years fighting for equal justiceI went down south during the summer of 1962 and was active in college and law-school organizations fighting against racial discriminationI wanted very much to hear this great mans speech. But Supreme Court law clerks were told not to attend the speech because cases growing out of the event might come before the justices.

I decided nonetheless to attend, and I stood at the edge of the crowd listening to an array of speakers and singers. King then proceeded to mesmerize the crowd with his brilliant I have a dream speech. The phrase that impacted me most was his dream that someday his children would live in a nation where they would not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. That was my dream, too, and I was determined to help make it become a reality.

Our neighborhood idol was Jackie Robinson, who, by his skill, speed, grace, and character, broke down the color barrier and became the best player on my beloved Brooklyn Dodgers. He led his team to several pennants and its sole World Series championship (only to be unceremoniously traded to the hated New York Giants at the end of his career, a trade Robinson rejected by retiring with dignity).

At college, my hero was Professor John Hope Franklin, the first African American to chair an academic department at a college that had not been historically Black.

At law school, two of my classmates were African American twins, one of whom went on to became a judge on New Yorks highest court, the other a professor. They made it by the content of their character, intellect, and work ethic.

As an Orthodox Jewish descendant of Eastern-European immigrants, I had not always been judged by these meritocratic qualities. When I applied to Wall Street law firms, I was turned down by every one of them, despite my credentials, which included being first in my class at Yale Law School, the editor in chief of Yale Law Journal, a championship debater, a prospective Supreme Court law clerk, and a potential professor at a leading law school. Wall Street law firms practiced a brand of legal apartheid: there were white-shoe firms that hired only White Protestants, with an occasional German Jew from a prominent banking family. But a Jewish kid from Brooklyn whose grandparents had immigrated from Poland was simply not eligible for these firms.