Burt Neuborne
New York, NY 10011
Undergrad college/major: Arts and Sciences/History.
Affiliations at Cornell: Tau Epsilon Phi.
Advanced degrees: LL.B. Harvard Law School ’64, (cum laude).
Career/occupation: I am currently the Inez Milholland Professor of Civil Liberties NYU
Law School. I have taught Constitutional Law at NYU since 1974. After a short stint in
private practice I was a staff lawyer for the ACLU from 1967-74, and served as ACLU
National Legal Director from 1981-86. I have served as Founding Legal Director of the
Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School since 1995. I estimate that over the past
46 years, I have participated in more than 500 cases seeking to enforce the United States
Constitution. My batting average isn’t anything to brag about, but I’ve hit with some
power. I once hit for the constitutional cycle, arguing and winning four separate
constitutional cases in the same dizzying day in the United States Supreme Court, the
Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the Southern District of New York, and the New
York City Criminal Court. For the past 14 years, I have served as Lead Settlement
Counsel in the $1.25 billion settlement with the Swiss banks designed to return
Holocaust-era bank accounts to their true owners, and after leading the legal effort to
require German corporations to compensate WW II slave laborers, as United States
appointee to the Board of Trustees of the German Foundation designed to compensate
victims of slave labor during WW II. More than $8.5 billion has been distributed to
Holocaust victims and their families as a result of the litigation. I served as a member of
the New York City Commission on Human Rights during the Koch administration, and
as a Special Counsel to the NOW Legal Defense Fund during the years that my wife,
Helen Redleaf Neuborne (’62), served as its Executive Director. As a practical joke,
Milosz Foreman cast me to play Jerry Falwell’s lawyer in “The People v. Larry Flynt.” I
had opposed Falwell on behalf of the ACLU during the actual case.
Honors and awards:
I have been elected to membership in the American Academy of Art and Sciences, and
have been awarded the university-wide NYU Distinguished Teaching Award. I have also
received an Award for Dedication to American Values from the Anti-Defamation
League.
Published work: I am a co-author of the two volume “Political and Civil Rights
in the United States,” I have published more than twenty scholarly articles, most recently
on campaign finance reform, and write often for national newspapers and magazines.
Marital status: Married – December 23, 1961.
Spouse: Helen Redleaf Neuborne ’62. Helen graduated from law school, worked as a Legal Aid lawyer for abused and neglected children, served in the Koch administration, headed the National Organization for Women’s Legal Defense Fund, and is currently a senior Executive at the Ford Foundation.
Children: Ellen Neuborne BA Brown Univ., married to David Landis; Lauren Neuborne (1969-96) - After graduating from Cornell with distinction, Lauren died of heart problems in her final year of rabbinical school at Hebrew Union.
Grandchildren: Henry Landis (15) and Leslie Landis (11).
Outstanding Cornell memory: Meeting Helen and falling in love.
How has your life differed from what you expected? I had expected a conventional life. Instead, Helen and I have had the amazing good fortune to share a life that has merged our personal values with our professional ambitions.
Personal reflections: My great worry is that my grandchildren will not have the same remarkable opportunities that were open to me. The class of 1961 won the birth lottery. We were too young for Korea; most of us were just too old for Vietnam; we lived through one of the great moral re-awakenings in human history as the country began to grapple with pervasive racism and learned to treat women as first class citizens; we were on the early edge of the post-war baby boom, so we got a crack at the good jobs and the real estate bargains before the wall of people behind us hit. We saw the triumph of freedom over totalitarianism. I pray that our children and grandchildren will be as lucky.