Dershowitz's Harvard Lectures Bothered Female Students

'New Yorker' is out with a lengthy, unflattering profile of the law professor
By Newser Editors,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 30, 2019 11:10 AM CDT
Updated Aug 4, 2019 7:12 AM CDT
New Yorker Profiles Dershowitz, and He Is Not Happy
Attorney Alan Dershowitz speaks during an interview on March 6, 2019, in New York.   (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

The New Yorker is out with a deep dive into the professional and personal life of Alan Dershowitz, the 80-year-old emeritus professor of Harvard Law who maintains a near-constant presence on TV as a legal analyst. In fact, his public profile has only increased since the election of Donald Trump, writes Connie Bruck. "Dershowitz, a proponent of civil liberties, has made a specialty of defending people who do outrageous things, and Trump does outrageous things constantly," she writes. To say the piece is unflattering might be an understatement. Dershowitz himself has been warning of the "hit piece" for a while now, and he's already rebuking it in interviews such as this one with Newsmax. That's because it deals not just with allegations against high-profile figures but with Dershowitz himself.

For example, two women in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal say Epstein coerced them into having sex with Dershowitz. But he denies even meeting them and calls them "serial liars." One, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, has sued Dershowitz for defamation. The story comes off as skeptical in regard to the evidence Dershowitz has offered to prove he could not have met Giuffre at Epstein's Manhattan residence. "Some of the dates (in travel records) were supported by only a handwritten datebook entry," writes Bruck. The story also recounts how Dershowitz's female students at Harvard often felt uncomfortable as he laid out defenses for the likes of Mike Tyson and William Kennedy Smith in their rape cases. He had "convoluted ways of thinking about how men could misinterpret lack of consent," says one. Click to read the full profile. Or to hear Dershowitz defend himself. (More Alan Dershowitz stories.)

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