Bernardine Dohrn

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Bernardine Rae Dohrn (born January 12, 1942) is a former leader of the 1960s radical leftist organization Weatherman. She is an Associate Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law and the Director of Northwestern's Children and Family Justice Center.

1 Personal life
2 Radical history
3 Legal career
4 Articles by Dohrn
5 External links
6 References

[edit] Personal life

Bernardine Dohrn was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1942 and grew up in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin. She graduated from Whitefish Bay High School where she was a cheerleader ^[1]. She attended Miami University for one year, then transferred to the University of Chicago, where she graduated with honors with a B.A. in Political Science in 1963, and with a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School in 1967. ^[2]

[edit] Radical history

Dohrn became one of the leaders of the Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM), a radical wing of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), in the late 1960s. The ninth annual national SDS conference was held in Chicago in the summer of 1969, and the SDS collapsed in an RYM-led upheaval. In July 1969, Dohrn, Eleanor Raskin, Dianne Donghi, Peter Clapp, David Millstone and Diana Oughton, all representing "Weatherman", as Dohrn's faction was now called, traveled to Cuba and met with representatives of the North Vietnamese and Cuban governments.

The Weathermen, as they were known colloquially, conducted a series of bombings against the US government throughout the early 1970s, bombing several federal buildings. Dohrn is a principal signatory on the group's "Declaration of a State of War" (1970) that formally declared war on the U.S. Government, and completed the group's transformation from political advocacy to violent action. Dohrn also co-wrote and published the subversive manifesto Prairie Fire (1974), and participated in the covertly-filmed Underground (1976).

After the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion, the accidental detonation of a bomb being made that killed three of the members, all members of Weatherman went underground and the group took on its last and most famous title, the Weather Underground. The Weathermen and Weather Underground were suspected in various bombings — police cars, the National Guard Association building, the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon. Dohrn allegedly participated in many of the group's revolutionary activities. While on the run from police, Dohrn married another Weatherman leader Bill Ayers, with whom she has two children. During the last years of their underground life, Dohrn and Ayers resided in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago, where they used the aliases Christine Louise Douglas and Anthony J. Lee.^[3] The couple turned themselves in to authorities in 1980. While some charges relating to their activities with the Weathermen were dropped due to governmental misconduct,^[4] Dohrn pled guilty to charges of aggravated battery and bail jumping, receiving probation.^[5] She later served less than a year of jail time, after refusing to testify against ex-Weatherman Susan Rosenberg in an armed robbery case.^[6] Shortly after turning themselves in, Dohrn and Ayers became legal guardians of the son of former members of the Weather Underground, Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, after they were convicted of murder for their roles in a 1981 armored car robbery.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Legal career

From 1984 to 1988, Dohrn was employed by the law firm Sidley Austin, although her criminal record has prevented her from being admitted to either the New York or Illinois bar.^[7] In 1991, she became a Clinical Associate Professor of Law at Northwestern University in Chicago. She now serves on the board of numerous human rights committees and teaches comparative law. Since 2002, she has served as Visiting Law Faculty at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. Dohrn's legal work has focused on reforming the much criticized juvenile court system in Chicago and on advocating for human rights at the international level. Dohrn is Director and Founder of the Children and Family Justice Center which supports the legal needs of adolescents and their families.