Laurence Tribe

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Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox academic Laurence Henry Tribe (born October 10, 1941) is an American legal scholar known for his studies of United States constitutional law. Tribe was a professor at Harvard Law School from 1968 until his retirement in 2020. He currently holds the position of Carl M. Loeb University Professor Emeritus.

A constitutional law scholar,<ref name="Association1990">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=archive201106142344>Gregory, Vanessa (December 6, 2010) Indefensible Template:Webarchive, The American Prospect</ref> Tribe is co-founder of the American Constitution Society. He is also the author of American Constitutional Law (1978), a major treatise in that field, and has argued before the United States Supreme Court 36 times.<ref name="wapo-justice"/> Tribe was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2010.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Personal life and education

Tribe was born in 1941 in Shanghai, which was then part of the Republic of China but had been taken over by the Empire of Japan in 1937 following the Battle of Shanghai. He was the son of Paulina (née Diatlovitsky) and George Israel Tribe (ne Trejbuch)<ref>https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1996/07/08/supreme-sacrifice</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> His family is Jewish. His father was from Poland and his mother was born in Harbin to immigrants from Eastern Europe.<ref name=bight1>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=20061018thecrimson-a>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Inquisition 1991, pages 384-386">Carlton Sherwood, Inquisition: The Persecution and Prosecution of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, Regnery Publishing, 1991, 0-89526-532-X, pages 384-386</ref> Tribe spent his early years in the French Concession of Shanghai before his family immigrated to the United States when he was six years old.<ref name=bight1/><ref name="HarvGazette">Template:Cite web</ref> His family settled in San Francisco, and he attended Abraham Lincoln High School.

After graduating from high school in 1958 at age 16, Tribe went to Harvard University, where he majored in mathematics and was a member of the Harvard Debate Team that won the intercollegiate National Debate Tournament in 1961.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He graduated from Harvard in 1962 with a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude in mathematics.

Tribe then received a National Science Foundation fellowship to pursue doctoral studies in mathematics at Harvard, but dropped out after one year.<ref name="HarvGazette" /> He decided to attend the Harvard Law School instead, where he was a member of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. He graduated from Harvard Law in 1966 with a Juris Doctor magna cum laude.

Tribe married Carolyn Ricarda Kreye in 1964. They divorced in 2008. Their two children, Mark and Kerry, are visual artists.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

On May 22, 2013, he was presented with an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Columbia University during its Class of 2013 commencement.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Career

After graduating from law school, Tribe clerked for justice Mathew Tobriner of the Supreme Court of California from 1966 to 1967, then for justice Potter Stewart of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1967 to 1968. He then joined the Harvard Law School faculty as an assistant professor, receiving tenure in 1972. Among his law students and research assistants while on the faculty at Harvard have been former President Barack Obama (a research assistant for over two years),<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Chief Justice John Roberts,<ref name=":1">Template:Cite news</ref> US Senator Ted Cruz,<ref name=":1" /> former D.C. Circuit Chief Judge and Attorney General Merrick Garland,<ref name=":1" /> and Associate Justice Elena Kagan.<ref>Template:YouTube</ref> Other notable students of Tribe were U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, Chair of the House Intelligence Committee and lead manager for the first Impeachment of Donald Trump,<ref name=20191001bostonglobe-adam>Template:Cite news</ref> and Jamie Raskin, lead manager for the second Donald Trump impeachment.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 1978, Tribe published the first version of what has become one of the core texts on its subject, American Constitutional Law. It has since been updated and expanded a number of times.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In 1983, Tribe represented Unification Church leader Sun Myung Moon in the appeal of his federal conviction on income tax charges.<ref name="Inquisition 1991, pages 384-386"/>

Tribe represented the restaurant Grendel's Den in the case Larkin v. Grendel's Den, Inc., in which the restaurant challenged a Massachusetts law that allowed religious establishments to prohibit liquor sales in neighboring properties. The case reached the United States Supreme Court in 1982 and the court overturned the law as violating the separation of church and state.<ref name="Epps2001">Template:Cite book</ref> The Lawyer's Guide to Writing Well criticizes the opening of his brief as a "thicket of confusing citations and unnecessary definitions" stating that it would have been "measurably strengthened" if he had used the "more lively imagery" that he had used in a footnote later in the document.<ref name="GoldsteinLieberman2002">Template:Cite book</ref>

In the 1985 National Gay Task Force v. Board of Education Supreme Court case, Tribe represented the National Gay Task Force who had won an Appeals Court ruling against an Oklahoma law that would have allowed schools to fire teachers who were attracted to people of the same sex or spoke in favor of civil rights for gay people. The Supreme Court deadlocked, which left the Appeals Court's favorable ruling in place, declaring the law would have violated the First Amendment.<ref name="Blount2005">Template:Cite book</ref>

The Supreme Court ruled against Tribe's client in Bowers v. Hardwick in 1986 and held that a Georgia state law criminalizing sodomy, as applied to consensual acts between persons of the same sex, did not violate fundamental liberties under the principle of substantive due process. However, in 2003 the Supreme Court overruled Bowers in Lawrence v. Texas, a case for which Tribe wrote the ACLU's amicus curiae brief supporting Lawrence, who was represented by Lambda Legal.<ref name="Blount2005"/>

File:Larry Tribe Testifying.png
Tribe in 1987

Tribe testified at length during the Senate confirmation hearings in 1987 about the Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination, arguing that Bork's stand on the limitation of rights in the Constitution would be unique in the history of the Court.<ref name="Bronner2007">Template:Cite book</ref> His participation in the hearings raised his profile outside of the legal realm and he became a target of right-wing critics.<ref name="Bronner2007"/> His phone was later found to have been wiretapped, but it has never been discovered who had placed the device or why.<ref name="Bronner2007"/>

Tribe's 1990 book Abortion: Clash of Absolutes, was called "informative, lucidly written and cogently reasoned" in a review in the Journal of the American Bar Association.<ref name="Association1990"/>

In 1992, Tribe reargued Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc., before the Supreme Court on behalf of Cipollone.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Tribe was part of Al Gore's legal team regarding the results of the 2000 United States presidential election. Due to the close nature of the vote count, recounts had been initiated in Florida, and the recounts had been challenged in court. Tribe argued the initial case in Federal Court in Miami in which they successfully argued that the court should not stop the recount of the votes which was taking place and scheduled to take place in certain counties.<ref name="Toobin2002">Template:Cite book</ref> David Boies argued for the Gore team in a related matter in the Florida State Courts regarding the dates that Secretary of State of Florida Katherine Harris would accept recounts.<ref name="Toobin2002" /> When the original Federal case, Bush v. Gore, was appealed, Gore and his advisers decided at the last minute to have Boies instead of Tribe argue the case at the Supreme Court.<ref name="Toobin2002" /> The court determined that recounts of votes should cease and that accordingly George W. Bush had been elected president.

Since the mid-1990s, Tribe has represented a number of corporations advocating for their free speech rights and constitutional personhood.<ref name="New Yorker 2015">Template:Cite magazine</ref> Tribe represented General Electric in its defense against its liability under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act ("Superfund"), in which GE and Tribe unsuccessfully argued that the act unconstitutionally violated General Electric's due process rights.<ref name="New Yorker 2015"/><ref name=findlaw20090226>Template:Cite news</ref>

File:Larry Tribe.png
Tribe testifying in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2006

In 2014, Tribe was retained to represent Peabody Energy in a suit against the Environmental Protection Agency. Tribe argued that EPA's use of the Clean Air Act to implement its Clean Power Plan was unconstitutional.<ref name=20150320nytimes-us>Template:Cite news</ref> Tribe's legal analysis has been criticized by other legal commentators, including fellow Harvard Law School professors Richard J. Lazarus and Jody Freeman, who described his conclusion as "wholly without merit".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=20150325politico>Template:Cite web</ref> His advocacy for corporations like Peabody has been criticized by some legal experts.<ref name="New Yorker 2015"/>

On September 25, 2020, Tribe was named as one of the 25 members of the "Real Facebook Oversight Board", an independent monitoring group over Facebook.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Political involvement

Tribe is one of the co-founders of the liberal American Constitution Society, the law and policy organization formed to counter the conservative Federalist Society, and is one of a number of scholars at Harvard Law School who have expressed their support for animal rights.<ref name=AAMC>"'Personhood' Redefined: Animal Rights Strategy Gets at the Essence of Being Human", Association of American Medical Colleges. Retrieved April 10, 2011.</ref>

Tribe served as a judicial adviser to Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.<ref name="beststu">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Egelko2008">Template:Cite news</ref> In February 2010, he was named "Senior Counselor for Access to Justice" in the Department of Justice.<ref name="wapo-justice">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="harvard">Template:Cite web</ref> He resigned eight months later, citing health reasons.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In December 2016, Tribe and notable lawyers Lawrence Lessig and Andrew Dhuey established The Electors Trust under the aegis of Equal Citizens. They provide pro bono legal counsel as well as a secure communications platform for those of the 538 members of the United States Electoral College who were considering a vote of conscience against Donald Trump in the presidential election.<ref name="The Electors Trust">Template:Cite web</ref>

After the dismissal of James Comey in May 2017, Tribe wrote: "The time has come for Congress to launch an impeachment investigation of President Trump for obstruction of justice." Tribe argued that Trump's conduct rose to the level of "high crimes and misdemeanors" that are impeachable offenses under the Constitution.<ref name="Tribe">Template:Cite news</ref> He added: "It will require serious commitment to constitutional principle, and courageous willingness to put devotion to the national interest above self-interest and party loyalty, for a Congress of the president's own party to initiate an impeachment inquiry."<ref name="Tribe" />

Tribe is on the board of the Renew Democracy Initiative, an American political organization founded in 2017 to promote and defend liberal democracy in the U.S. and abroad.<ref name=20180425washingtonpost-6170f646>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2004, Tribe acknowledged having plagiarized several phrases and a sentence in his 1985 book, God Save this Honorable Court, from a 1974 book by Henry Abraham.<ref name=20041004weeklystandard>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=20041124nytimes-nyregion>Template:Cite news</ref> After an investigation, Tribe was reprimanded by Harvard for "a significant lapse in proper academic practice," but the investigation concluded that Tribe did not intend to plagiarize.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Tribe has stirred controversy due to his promotion of conspiracy theories about Donald Trump's fitness for the presidency.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="auto">Template:Cite news</ref> Dartmouth political scientist Brendan Nyhan harshly criticized Tribe, saying that he "has become an important vector of misinformation and conspiracy theories on Twitter."<ref name=":0"/> According to McKay Coppins of The Atlantic, Tribe has been "an especially active booster" of the Palmer Report, "a liberal blog known for peddling conspiracy theories".<ref name="auto1">Template:Cite news</ref> Tribe removed the posted tweets following the Palmer Report and contests the accuracy of the story of controversy.<ref name=":0"/><ref name="auto"/><ref name="auto1"/>

On August 8, 2023, The New York Times reported that Kenneth Chesebro, who initially laid out "a plot to use false slates of electors to subvert the 2020 election", referred to comments by Tribe, to which Tribe responded that his referred comments were "a gross misrepresentation of my scholarship” by Chesebro, and were "taken out of context".<ref name="NYT-20230808">Template:Cite news</ref>

On August 19, 2023, several legal constitutional scholars, including conservative legal scholar J. Michael Luttig and Tribe,<ref name="ATL-20230819">Template:Cite news</ref> argued that former U.S. President Donald Trump is now barred from presidential office under section 3 of the 14th Amendment because of his alleged support for the January 6 United States Capitol attack.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2025, Tribe argued that the power that Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency attempt to exercise over the U.S. federal government is illegal. Tribe says that Musk "absolutely" faces a conflict of interest in his roles as a government contractor and federal employee.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Cases

Template:Update The following is a list of cases Tribe has argued in the Supreme Court, as of the end of 2005:

Case Citation Year
Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia Template:Ussc 1980
Heffron v. International Society for Krishna Consciousness Template:Ussc 1981
Crawford v. Board of Education Template:Ussc 1982
Larkin v. Grendel’s Den, Inc. Template:Ussc 1982
White v. Massachusetts Council Template:Ussc 1983
Pacific Gas & Electric v. California Template:Ussc 1983
Hawaii Housing Auth. v. Midkiff Template:Ussc 1984
Northeast Bancorp v. Fed. Reserve Template:Ussc 1985
National Gay Task Force v. Board of Education Template:Ussc 1985
Fisher v. City of Berkeley Template:Ussc 1986
Bowers v. Hardwick Template:Ussc 1986
Pennzoil v. Texaco Template:Ussc 1986
Schweiker v. Chilicky Template:Ussc 1988
Granfinanciera v. Nordberg Template:Ussc 1989
Sable Communications v. FCC Template:Ussc 1989
Adams Fruit v. Barrett Template:Ussc 1990
Rust v. Sullivan Template:Ussc 1991
Cipollone v. Liggett Template:Ussc 1992
TXO v. Alliance Resources Template:Ussc 1993
Honda Motor Co. v. Oberg Template:Ussc 1994
U.S. v. Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Template:Ussc 1996
Timmons v. Twin Cities Area New Party Template:Ussc 1997
Vacco v. Quill Template:Ussc 1997
Amchem Products v. Windsor Template:Ussc 1997
Baker v. General Motors Template:Ussc 1998
AT&T v. Iowa Utilities Board Template:Ussc 1999
Ortiz v. Fibreboard Template:Ussc 1999
Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board Template:Ussc 2000
New York Times Co. v. Tasini Template:Ussc 2001
U.S. v. United Foods Template:Ussc 2001
FCC v. NextWave Template:Ussc 2002
State Farm v. Campbell Template:Ussc 2003
Nike v. Kasky Template:Ussc 2003
Johanns v. Livestock Marketing Association Template:Ussc 2005

Tribe has argued 26 cases in the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals:Template:Citation needed

Case Citation Circuit Year
Worldwide Church of God v. California 623 F.2d 613Template:Dead link 9th 1980
Grendel's Den v. Goodwin 662 F.2d 102 1st 1981
Pacific Legal Foundation v. State Energy Resources 659 F.2d 903Template:Dead link 9th 1981
United States v. Sun Myung Moon 718 F.2d 1210 2nd 1983
Romany v. Colegio de Abogados 742 F.2d 32 1st 1984
Westmoreland v. CBS 752 F.2d 16 2nd 1984
Colombrito v. Kelly 764 F.2d 122 2nd 1985
Texaco v. Pennzoil 784 F.2d 1133 2nd 1986
U.S. v. Bank of New England 821 F.2d 844 1st 1987
U.S. v. Gallo 859 F.2d 1078 2nd 1988
U.S. v. GAF Corporation 884 F.2d 670 2nd 1989
U.S. v. Western Electric Company 900 F.2d 283 D.C. 1999
Fineman v. Armstrong World Industries 980 F.2d 171 D.C. 1992
U.S. v. Western Electric Company 993 F.2d 1572 D.C. 1993
Lightning Lube v. Witco Corporation 4 F.3d 1153 3rd 1993
Hopkins v. Dow Corning Corporation 33 F.3d 1116 9th 1994
Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone v. U.S. 42 F.3d 181 4th 1994
Georgine v. Amchem Products, Inc. 83 F.3d 610 3rd 1996
BellSouth Corp. v. F.C.C. 144 F.3d 58 D.C. 1998
SBC Communications v. F.C.C. 154 F.3d 226 5th 1998
City of Dallas v. F.C.C. F.3d 341 5th 1999
U.S. West v. Tristani Template:Cite web (90.5 KB) 10th 1999
U.S. West v. F.C.C. Template:Cite web (220 KB) 10th 1999
Southwest Voter Registration v. Shelley Template:Cite web (23.0 KB) 9th 2003
Pacific Gas and Elec. v. California Template:Cite web (144 KB) 9th 2003
General Electric v. E.P.A. Template:Cite web (49.8 KB) D.C. 2004

Selected works

Books

  • Technology: Processes of Assessment and Choice (1969)
  • Environmental Protection (1971; co-author with Louis Jaffe)
  • Channeling Technology Through Law (1973)
  • The American Presidency: Its Constitutional Structure (1974)
  • American Constitutional Law (treatise; 1978, 1979, 1988, and 2000)
  • The Supreme Court: Trends and Developments (1979, 1980, 1982, 1983)
  • God Save This Honorable Court: How the Choice of Supreme Court Justices Shapes Our History (1985)
  • Constitutional Choices (1985)
  • Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes (1990)
  • On Reading the Constitution (1991; co-author with Michael Dorf)
  • The Invisible Constitution (2008)
  • Uncertain Justice: The Roberts Court and the Constitution (2014; co-author with Joshua Matz)
  • To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment (2018; co-author with Joshua Matz)

Articles

See also

References

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Bibliography

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