Jack Greenberg (lawyer)

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Jack Greenberg (born 1924) is an American attorney and legal scholar. He was among the NAACP's legal counsel for a quarter century, notably including his involvement in cases included under the crucial Brown v. Board of Education decision. In all, he argued 40 civil rights cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

1 Life and career
2 Family
3 Awards
4 In film

[edit] Life and career

[edit] Education

Greenberg graduated from Columbia College in 1945 and Columbia Law School in 1948.

[edit] Civil and human rights lawyer

He became a legal counselor for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund ("LDF") in 1949, and, in 1961, succeeded Thurgood Marshall as the LDF's Director-Counsel. Including his work on Brown v. Board of Education, other cases Greenberg argued include Alexander v. Holmes, which ordered the end of segregated school systems "at once," and Griggs v. Duke Power Company [1], which outlawed basing employment and promotion decisions on the results of tests with a discriminatory impact. He was also involved in Furman v. Georgia (1972), in which the Court held that the death penalty as it was then applied was a violation of the "cruel and unusual punishment" clause of the 8th Amendment.

Since the ealry 1970s Greenberg has traveled to numerous countries in order to try to improve the human rights situation, including the Soviet Union, South Africa (while it was still under apartheid), Cameroon, the Sudan, Hungary, Bulgaria, and others.

[edit] Educator

Greenberg left the LDF in 1984 to become a professor and vice dean at Columbia Law School. He served as dean of Columbia College from 1989 to 1993. As of Autumn 2006, Greenberg still teaches at Columbia Law School and serves as a senior director of the LDF.

[edit] Author

Greenberg has varied intellectual interests: he has written a cookbook (Dean Cuisine, with Harvard Law School Dean James Vorenberg, 1990), has appeared as a panelist for a New York Times tasting of Oregon pinot noir, and is currently (as of Fall 2006) writing a book on Franz Kafka with two other scholars.

[edit] Family

In 1950 Greenberg married Sema Ann Tanzer. They had four children: Josiah (1952), David (1955, now a well-known author of humorous poetry for children), and the twins Ezra and Sarah (1958). In 1970, Greenberg divorced his first wife and married Deborah Mann Cole (née Deborah Lou Mann), widow of Wall Street lawyer and art collector Richard Cole. Soon afterwards he adopted her two children, Suzanne Cole Greenberg (born 1961) and William Cole (born 1963, now an eminent print and rare book dealer, proprietor of Cole & Contreras Books / Sylvan Cole Gallery in Sitges, Spain, near Barcelona.)

[edit] Awards

In 2001, Greenberg was presented with a Presidential Citizens Medal. President Bill Clinton commented "In the courtroom and the classroom, Jack Greenberg has been a crusader for freedom and equality for more than half a century."

[edit] In film

A feature film based upon Greenberg's book, Crusaders in the Courts, is currently in production. The film, entitled The Crusaders, will star Topher Grace as Greenberg and Terrence Howard as Thurgood Marshall.