Talk:Alan Dershowitz

How is he liberal?

The 3 sources cited for the claim that Alan Dershowitz is supposedly "liberal", in the first paragraph of the article, involve him taking conservative policy positions. The first of the 3 sources cited to back up this claim of him being supposedly "liberal" is his conservative position in favor of torture, in agreement with the administration of George W. Bush, and against virtually all American liberals. The second of the 3 sources cited to back up the claim of him being "liberal" involves him defending what was said in an offensive article making fun of a feminist law professor who had been brutally murdered, with the ACTUAL liberal, Laurence Tribe, disagreeing very strongly with Alan Dershowitz, so essentially Alan Dershowitz took an anti-feminist position in that incident, which is hardly liberal. The 3rd of the 3 sources cited claiming Alan Dershowitz is supposedly liberal is his advocacy of a national ID card that all citizens would be required to carry at all times "which would have the name, the address, the Social Security number, the photograph and a print fingerprint or retinal print, matchable to a computer chip", to quote Alan Dershowitz, quite an authoritarian right-wing policy position.

He also has a policy of unapologetically supporting Israel and opposing the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement, a movement made up of actual liberals, and denouncing anyone who dares to criticize Israel as being anti-Semitic, the same tactic that the right-wing Likud Party supporters use. Hardly liberal. --Yetisyny (talk) 04:29, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

1) See my comment below regarding trying to make out that support for Israel is ipso facto a conservative postion (an assumption which Dershowitz's work strives to challenge.)

2) Some of the people involved in BDS are some of the most desperately conservative people on the planet, to put it mildly.

3) An entire chapter of The Case For Israel is given over to denying that simple criticism is antisemitic and that only certain specific kinds of "criticism" (rejection of Israel's right to exist, disproportionate criticism not lodged against other nations with far worse track records, invocation of classical Judaeophobic tropes/imagery) are antisemitic. 62.190.148.115 (talk) 11:28, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

He said and wrote completely inaccurate things about the Mearsheimer and Walt paper on Israeli influence on American politics, making many false accusations about its authors as well as the content of that paper, a peer-reviewed paper that is very accurate.

He has long supported the use of torture --Yetisyny (talk) 04:29, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Incorrect. He said that legally-controlled torture, under the strict control of the judiciary, in which the victim has access to full legal and medical support throughout is a lesser evil than nations' security services torturing people on the sly with no accountability.

He also said that even legally controlled physical pressure is only acceptable in cases where someone is refusing to give information that could save lives, such as a terrorist chief who clearly knows of plans for terror plots and is refusing to divulge (the "ticking time bomb scenario") and is NOT acceptable for extracting confessions. He also praised Israel for banning its security services from using physical pressure EVEN in the case of the "ticking time bomb" but observed that, in the light of the US "rendition" program, clearly not all nations feel capable to operate at such a high moral stance. Therefore, if they MUST torture, this should be done under strict legal control.

He had been a critic of Israel's use of physical pressure prior to the ban and had come round to the position of the lesser evil of putting physical pressure under judicial control after debating the issue with young Israeli law students while on a lecture tour back in the 1990s.31.49.211.90 (talk) 08:58, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

and been opposed by actual liberals such as those at Amnesty International. He has also publicly opposed the U.S. deal to disarm Iran's nuclear program, a position that virtually all Republicans and conservatives agree with (including all 2016 Republican Presidential candidates) and which virtually all Democrats and liberals disagree with (including both the administration of Barack Obama as well as the Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders).

Although he is often referred to as supposedly being "liberal", more often than not, he takes policy positions that are typically associated with conservatives. He might be a supporter of the Democratic Party and might call himself a "liberal" but rather than take him at his word, we should compare his policy positions to actual liberals and see if they match up, and compare them to conservatives and see whether he is a better fit with them. Apart from his position on gun control, the rest of his positions all fit within the conservative half of the American political spectrum. Various Republicans such as Rudy Giuliani who are considered conservative have also supported gun control, so just because he is liberal on one issue does not make him a liberal if he is conservative on the rest of the issues. I really must take issue with him being characterized as a "liberal", as many of his policy positions run so counter to American liberalism and the progressive movement, they are anathema to it. And while believing pornography should be kept legal and supporting some limited amount of animal rights are more popular among liberals than conservatives, keeping pornography legal is also supported by a majority of conservatives, especially Constitutional conservatives, and a number of conservative publications have published conservative cases in favor of animal rights.

Instead I suggest he be described as a "neoconservative Democrat", terminology that would perfectly describe him. Alan Dershowitz has virtually identical policy views to Joe Lieberman, a former U.S. Senator who was essentially kicked out of the Democratic Party for being too conservative and for always siding with the administration of George W. Bush, and who went on to endorse John McCain in 2008. Unlike former Senator Lieberman, Alan Dershowitz remains a loyal Democrat, but his policy views are certainly not in keeping with the liberal wing of the party, but do fit in with the centrist/conservative wing of the Democratic Party, and more specifically, the neoconservative wings of both major parties. I don't think it makes sense to describe people as liberals or conservatives just because they describe themselves that way. People can call themselves whatever they want but that doesn't make it true. Someone can claim to be a liberal or claim to be a conservative but if their policies do not match that description, those claims should be viewed as false claims. Alan Dershowitz seems to me more of a conservative in the tradition of political philosopher Edmund Burke than a liberal in the tradition of political philosopher John Stuart Mill. Many other people have made similar observations to me and questioned whether Alan Dershowitz being characterized as liberal is a credible claim. Also, his legal history of representing wealthy perpetrators of heinous crimes rather than representing poor or working-class people is fairly conservative too. I don't see how an advocate of torture who has publicly praised Ted Cruz as brilliant and often appears on Fox News and agrees with its conservative hosts and who publicly proclaims how he hates liberal groups like MoveOn.Org, namely Alan Dershowitz, could possibly be considered a liberal. Back during the administration of George W. Bush he publicly argued in favor of many of the Bush Administration's policies, in agreement with conservatives, and now during the Obama Administration he has publicly criticized many of the Obama Administration's policies, in agreement with conservatives. He often publicly criticizes the rest of American liberals and claims he is a real liberal and everyone else who calls themselves a liberal is not. That is not the way words in the English language work. If the vast majority of liberals think one way and you think the opposite way, you are not a liberal. English is not a constructed language like Esperanto or Volapük or Klingon, but a living language like most languages, and so its words have meaning through collective understanding of what they mean, and thus it is inaccurate for Alan Dershowitz to refer to himself as a liberal or for other people to parrot this false claim of his since he is using the word to mean pretty much the opposite of what the rest of society, including the rest of people who consider themselves liberals, think it means.

In short, Alan Dershowitz calling himself a liberal is akin to Rachel Dolezal calling herself African-American. It just isn't true and we should not repeat people's false claims about themselves any more than we do with someone like Rachel Dolezal. Both of them make similarly false claims regarding their identity, Rachel Dolezal with regard to her ethnicity and Alan Dershowitz with regard to his political ideology. Most news organizations take people at their word and if someone calls themselves a liberal, news organizations report this to be the case, which infuriated many people in the case of a similar person, former Senator Joe Lieberman. However, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia aimed at an accurate description of reality, not hagiographies that accept whatever people say about themselves to be the case. Alan Dershowitz's political beliefs are neoconservative, or "neocon" for short, very much in keeping with the rest of the American neoconservative movement and other neoconservative thinkers. The sources cited to back up the claim that he is liberal are all articles whose content points in quite the opposite direction, all articles telling about him taking positions in opposition to the vast majority of liberals. So I would say that if this article is going to call him liberal, there is citation needed of him agreeing with other liberals and being considered part of the American liberal movement rather than opposed to it. The current citations indicate the opposite of him being liberal if you look at the larger context in each of those articles rather than simply accepting that the adjective "liberal" correctly describes Alan Dershowitz just because he uses it to describe himself. The only reason those articles used that adjective to describe him is he uses it to describe himself but that sort of claim needs to be fact-checked. --Yetisyny (talk) 04:29, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Although I agree with much of what you write, it is not our role as Wikipedia editors to "compare his policy positions to actual liberals and see if they match up"; that would be unacceptable original research. All the sources that we cite describe him as a liberal, and unless you can find a reliable source describing him as a neoconservative, we cannot add this. Meanwhile, to console yourself, I recommend that you listen to Phil Ochs's song Love Me, I'm a Liberal. RolandR (talk) 12:37, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Roland is correct. It is a good example of a self-descriptor (how Dershowitz consistently promotes himself in public) being accepted as the default term by the mainstream press when introducing him. However Anatol Lieven, America Right Or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism, OUP Oxford, 2012 p.202 calls him a 'self-described liberal'and others called him a 'self-avowed liberal democrat'(Dan Gordon and Richard Baehr,'Dershowitz Finally Endorses a Republican,' American Thinker 18 June 2010). There is therefore a case for introducing per such sources a qualification that he presents himself as a liberal. Given the quality of Lieven as a source one could I think gloss 'liberal' with 'self-described' (he is a liberal on internal American issues, mostly. He is at the opposite pole on anything regarding Israel and Americdan foreign policy affecting it)Nishidani (talk) 13:55, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

I disagree with virtually everything that Yetisyny wrote, but I agree with RolandR's final conclusion. Reliable sources are what dictates what is placed in Wikipedia.

Nishidani, if only you ended your thought with "...he is a liberal on internal American issues, mostly". With regard to Israel, Dershowitz favors a two-state solution [Liberal, check!]; he's fought Israel against "administrative detention" on behalf of Palestinians [Liberal, check!]; he's written against Israel's use of "unacceptable interrogation methods" [Liberal, check!], and he's litigated against Israeli policies such as de facto discrimination against Israeli Arabs [Liberal, check!]. (Many liberals, as he is, are anti-BDS.) I'd say that his overall liberal credentials are in tact. KamelTebaast 19:28, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

It is news to me that Dershowitz opposes administrative detention. I well remember his scandalous treatment, nearly fifty years ago, of my friend Fouzi el-Asmar. Dershowitz not only defended his administrative detention, but wrote that it would be better named "preventive detention". If necessary, I can find sources for this. But it makes no difference to our description of Dershowitz; liberals can hold abhorrent positions, and if that is how reliable sources describe him that is what we must follow. RolandR (talk) 22:11, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

As there is NO formal consensus on this issue, can we hash it out? It is irresponsible to include language, in the lead no less, that Dershowitz is a "political liberal." This irresponsible non-sensical label and politicalizing is being justified because on the grounds of rules lawyering and technicalities to keep it in here. Dershowitz is certainly a lawyer and a political commentator. But he's not a politician! Either remove the liberal label completely, or simply change this to say "A political commentator" which is fair and factual. Dershowitz is not some official unofficial spokesperson for liberals everywhere or their movement anymore than Trump is an official fascist, also a political affiliation. Would people be okay with language in Trump's bio page saying, "A political fascist"? Of course not!

The justification on this seems to be that several sources say it is so! Well, I can find several sources calling Trump "a political fascist" or Steve Bannon "a political racist" (something he's proudly labeling himself, these days). But the rules against blp clearly forbids this. I see rules against including weasel words. I see rules against using this label in the lead paragraph. This is a nobrainer people! The only reason to use it seems to be that some conservative commentators like to say "Dershowitz is a liberal" so when he takes to the rightwing echochambers or Fox News to defend a conservative point of view these same conservative commentators can say that "if a liberal says it, then it must be true!"

I would like to see wikipedia return to its roots of encyclopedic content instead of being a platform for fake news and political culture-warring. I'm politically nonpartisan and an independent voter, and would like to stay neutral in this. This content should be removed or altered unless an overwhelming consensus says otherwise and can justify it reasonably and in the voice of wikipedia. As far as Dershowitz being referred to in the lead or elsewhere as "A Political Liberal" I would like to go on record as a Vote against.Parttime711employee (talk) 00:45, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Eh? I didn't understand your comparison to Bannon. Leaving aside your nonsense, Dershowitz has been an historic supporter of Democrats and liberal positions (including gun control, sexual and racial issues, socioeconomics, etc). There are at least three reliable sources that confirm this. Being a liberal in America doesn't mean a Jeremy Corbyn, it could mean someone like Bill Maher as well. Stop disrupting, please.--יניב הורון (talk) 00:55, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

I am still learning the ropes. You got me there. However, being a "historic supporter" doesn't make him a professional "liberal", a spokesperson for liberals everywhere, or notable in his political commentary on liberals. He is not a politician. However, he is notable for being a celebrity defense attorney and a political commentary. He often defends far-right conservative radical Dinesh D'Souza. By your same line of logic this could make him a political conservative. The sources listed contain opinions at best. You are advocating for something here called "original research" by coming to a conclusion based on the sources. That is apparently a serious violation. I also saw that this is referred to as weasel words and a violation of blp on living people. Neutral language is required according to that standard. If you are not going to vote against or for, then your objection is noted.Parttime711employee (talk) 02:59, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

"far-right conservative radical Dinesh D'Souza" lol! You've made your personal opinion clear and showed me you have no idea about American politics. If you want to change consensus, you'll need to work from content policies instead. Extracted from one of the MANY sources available in article: Even liberal legal scholars such as Alan Dershowitz have been brave enough to make the argument publicly...

I'm done with you.--יניב הורון (talk) 07:34, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Well, you've made "your personal opinion clear" and demonstrated that you have no understanding of American politics if you can not even acknowledge D'Souza's well-documented partisan conservatism and bias, something even the official wikipedia article on him does.

As far as Dershowitz is concerned, even your source you listed doesn't go as far as you do "referring to him as a liberal scholar" not a "political liberal" (the language of this article I object to). My post here was meant to find out how 'all' involved editors feel about this choice of content. It was not personally directed at you since we don't know each other, so it was your choice if you took it that way.

Given your choice in the tone you specifically took with me, if you are truly "done with me" then I will thank you in advance.Parttime711employee (talk) 01:12, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Support of Trump Travel Ban

The following topic needs adding as a section:

Dershowitz's Support of President Trump's 7 Muslim majority country ban or Executive Order 13769 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13769

1- After the order was suspended by the federal judge in Washington state appeal court ruling on the 9th circuit decision, Dershowitz appeared on CNN numerous times defending the premise of President Trump's order as justified and predicted the 3 federal judges would quash the ban and grant a win to Administration.

2- Immediately after the ban was upheld unanimously by 3 Federal judges on February 9th 2016, Dershowitz appeared on CNN and advised president Trump to draft a new executive order in consultation with congress and the senate which would basicaly implement the same effects which in Dershowitz's opinion was needed to protect the country. He repeated these support and his advice numerous times on the night in video call and later by phone to various presenters through the hours.

Both his support of President Trump on this historic event and his sugggestion, taken up or not, are in deed much more important than much of the topics in the article. Several of President Trump's surrogates through the night on CNN supported and applauded Dershowitz's support and suggestion.

"“ ... I’m very much opposed to the president’s travel ban ..." 62.190.148.115 (talk) 15:25, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Add his Twitter and FB Please

Twitter @AlanDersh and on Facebook @AlanMDershowitz

Via The Hill (well known and reputable and famous liberal news organization): http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/379372-trump-is-right-the-special-counsel-should-never-have-been-appointed — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.23.178.244 (talk) 00:03, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Eliminate "liberal" from the lead

Or change it to better reflect his ambivalence and sometimes conflictive political views. In many ways, what I am doing is a call to reconsider what other editors have mentioned here before (here). I think that leaving "liberal" in the lead, without any context, misinforms and may confuse readers. Just last month, he admitted to have long been a loyal liberal (here). But he often bashes liberals as a group and left-wing pundits in a way that seems more than simply self-criticism. He is also broadly seen as an idiosyncratic or a sometimes-centrist thinker. He implied it in that article, and admitted as much in this other piece. So, I propose that we either delete that from the lead, or change it to "centrist liberal," which is closer to what he said of himself (like-minded... centrist liberals), with a short reference to the plasticity of his opinions. Additionally, adding a more complete explanation in the article's body is a must. Caballero/Historiador ^⎌ 14:06, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

I agree. Am I trying to find some way to formally arbitrate this since this article is being abused in the way you describe. Would like to have a formal vote and consensus on this issue, one of many I am seeing across wikipedia where content is being used in the service of fake news to disrupt democracies by foreign powers.Parttime711employee (talk) 00:33, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Agenda?

Without wishing to cast aspersions on individual posters on here, it seems to me that the campaign to remove the word "liberal" on here is part of a wider (and in relation to Wikipedia, bad faith) agenda to make out that support for Israel is ipso facto a "conservative" position and to reduce the Israel/Palestinian conflict to a Right/Left issue (as though a person who strongly supports Israel must also automatically sign up to free market economics, cuts to benefits and public services, opposition to national healthcare, greater equality for women/minorities etc.) In Dershowitz's case, trying to delete "liberal" from his description is a particularly gross distortion, since the crux of The Case For Israel and its sequels is that the books put forward the pro-Israel case as being a left wing cause in tune with the best of liberal values. 62.190.148.115 (talk) 10:53, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

He had a spat with Richard Painter on TV a few days ago¹: Dershowitz started attacking Painter personally (and, yes, trying to put in a bit of a rant about Israel) after Painter had admonished him for calling Robert Mueller a liar. I also saw him described as "Alan Dershowitz, who’s become a staunch defender of Donald Trump"². Therefore it seems to me that there's more than just his support of Israel that marks him as a conservative. So no, I don't think pointing him out as conservative is neccessarily part of an agenda against Israel, nor do I think pointing out his support of Israel is conclusive proof that he's more conservative than liberal. But yes, from what I gather, in the US conservatives tend to be more unreservedly pro-Israel, leftists less so. So it looks like a legitimate piece of evidence for his conservative-ness to me.

1: https://www.msnbc.com/david-gura/watch/alan-dershowitz-richard-painter-clash-over-mueller-s-integrity-1226970691637)

2: http://mindy-fischer-writer.com/2018/05/dershowitz-has-complete-meltdown-on-msnbc-in-unhinged-attack-on-richard-painter-video/ Yeah, that doesn't look very unbiased.³

3: As a counterweight, here's the opposite perspective on the same thing: http://mindy-fischer-writer.com/2018/05/dershowitz-has-complete-meltdown-on-msnbc-in-unhinged-attack-on-richard-painter-video/

--CRConrad (talk) 11:24, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

https://newrepublic.com/article/148080/happened-alan-dershowitz Not a "staunch defender of Trump" at all, just a stickler for adherence to the law even when it relates to removing from office a politician with whom one profoundly disagrees. Similar to the defence of the anti-Iraq war movement agaist accusations of being apologists for Saddam.

Also with respect, I put it to you that the sources from which you gather that "the US conservatives tend to be more unreservedly pro-Israel, leftists less so" could well be themselves influenced by - or even be consciously part of - the same agenda to equate "pro-Israel" with "Conservative". This does not necesarily mean that they are influenced by anti-Israel sources - there is also plenty of pull on the other end from conservatives eager to monopolize support for Israel.

The irony of this all is that in practice Israeli society is one of the most institutionally liberal, in fact downright hippyish societies in the Western world, up there with places like Sweden and New Zealand. 62.190.148.115 (talk) 12:32, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

"Trump himself has denied fundamental civil liberties by his immigration policies, his attitude and actions regarding the press, and his calls for criminal investigations of his political enemies. The ACLU will criticize those actions as it should ..." Doesn't sound like a Trump fan to me. 62.190.148.115 (talk) 12:47, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

And more from the same source: 'Dershowitz told me he diverges with the Trump administration on many other issues. “I’m very much opposed to the president’s travel ban,” he said. “I’ve very much opposed to the free availability of guns in school. I’m opposed to the death penalty.” Indeed, capital punishment is where the contrast is clearest. Trump is not only a supporter of the death penalty, but an enthusiast of it. As a Supreme Court clerk in the early 1960s, Dershowitz helped launch the legal war in the 1960s that led to its brief abolition a decade later." ' 62.190.148.115 (talk) 15:23, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Unsupported POV statement in lead

I have reworded a statement in the lead, changing "a leading defender of civil liberties" to "a noted civil libertarian." Neither the AP nor the Washington Post sources support the statement that Dershowitz is "a leading defender of civil liberties." The statement is inherently slippery in the first place: "leading" in what sense, or what context? Does it mean he is a leading defender of civil liberties in all of American history? In the 20th/21st centuries? Only among his contemporaries?

But even beyond the problems of the phrase, the text of both sources is insufficient to stake a claim that Dershowitz is a "leading" anything in this area. The Washington Post refers to Dershowitz—in a story about the appeal of the criminal conviction of Scooter Libby, i.e., not a civil liberties context—as a "noted civil libertarian". To be "noted" is not necessarily to be "leading". The story only mentions Dershowitz in passing and supplies no other comment on Dershowitz's reputation as a leading defender of civil liberties. This kind of claim should be staked, if at all, on a source primarily about Dershowitz, his career, and his reputation, not an article which only mentions him in passing and makes a less substantial claim than the Wikipedia text.

The AP story, which is at least primarily about Dershowitz, comes closer but falls short. The AP refers to Dershowitz as "the defender of the civil rights of Soviet refuseniks and U.S. Nazis"; it says "Four days out of five Dershowitz teaches. On the fifth, he practices law and generally makes a public fuss in defense of civil liberties." Finally, it says "His staunch, orthodox defense of civil liberties has led him to take unpopular cases." It also lists many of Dershowitz's past clients in a civil liberties context. Again, we certainly have an impression that he has taken on many civil liberties cases, even those that are controversial, and that he has experience, expertise, and a passion for civil liberties. But does this make him a leading defender of civil liberties? The AP doesn't compare his stature to anyone else. It certainly gives the impression that Dershowitz is a notable civil libertarian, but not necessarily a leading one. The sum of the two articles together doesn't work to support the claim, either. Being called a notable figure in a field twice—once in passing, once more substantially—does not make one a "leading" figure in the field.

I went back through the article history to trace the origin of this phrase. Precision123 made these additions to the lead in 2015. First, on April 30, 2015 Precision123 added a statement calling Dershowitz "a strong defender civil liberties" [sic], using the AP source and a NY Times source not present in the current version. That source calls Dershowitz "a man with unusual energy and a deep dedication to civil liberties, [who] says he tries to become involved in 'the most challenging, the most difficult and the most precedent-setting cases.'" Again, the first part of the statement supports identifying Dershowitz as a notable civil liberties attorney, not not necessarily a leading one; the second part of the statement comes from Dershowitz himself, and we can't cite Dershowitz to say "[Dershowitz is] a leading defender of civil liberties." The bigger picture of the NY Times article, which is a review of his book The Best Defense, is a bit more nuanced: see, for example, the paragraph that begins: "And his courtroom defeats are somehow never his fault. This is the crux of the book. When Alan Dershowitz wins, it is because of his brilliance; when he loses, it is because the system is corrupt." The article also says "Still, there is a fuzziness as to what principle led him to become involved in some of the cases he describes." These statements taken together suggest that the writer acknowledges Dershowitz as a lawyer committed to civil liberties causes, but also as a lawyer who may have been less candid about his work and motivations than one would hope to find in a memoir. On March 2, 2015, Precision123 removed the NY Times source, added the Washington Post source, and changed the phrase from "a strong defender" to "a leading defender."

I searched the talk page archives to see if this issue had come up before. There was a discussion in 2005 about the use of the word "leading" in the lead section, but it was in a different context. See this edit, which was also linked in the previous discussion.

I wanted to post my rationale here, in advance of even making the edit, out of recognition that the topic has been recognized as controversial per the banner heads at the top of this talk page. That said, this edit does not touch on what has been identified as the most controversial and sensitive material on the page, i.e. Dershowitz's commentary on the Arab–Israeli conflict. In the spirit of good faith, I also tagged Precision123 so that he has an opportunity to see the changes I'm making and to respond. I'm open to other alternate wordings, I just think "leading" overstates the sources. —BLZ · talk 03:17, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

I appreciate the discussion and the good faith. I do not, however, think this merits the five or six paragraphs and research into edits from three years ago. The issue is noted versus leading defender? Two words that are synonymous. As are advocate, proponent, and defender. Dissecting these words is unnecessary.

CNN has introduced him as "a leading civil liberties advocate". The NY Times refers to him as "a leading civil-liberties scholar". The Boston Globe has referred to him as "a famous civil liberties advocate" and as an "internationally known scholar and high-profile defense and civil liberties lawyer". The Associated Press refers to him as "a leading civil liberties lawyer". The LA Times has referred to him as "a prominent civil liberties attorney" and as someone "who built a national reputation as a civil liberties lawyer". Biography.com refers to him as a "civil liberties icon" and "a famed attorney and Ivy League scholar known for his emphasis on civil liberties". Reuters has referred to him as a "famed civil liberties lawyer" and "noted civil liberties lawyer". Foreign Policy refers to him as "a staunch civil liberties advocate for decades—he represented Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel in the Supreme Court in 1972 after Gravel read the Pentagon Papers into the congressional record". Haaretz refers to him as "a prominent civil liberties lawyer". Encyclopedia.com refers to him as "an emphatic proponent of civil liberties". Business Insider refers to him as "a leading proponent of civil liberties".

The original language in the intro is well supported. --Precision123 (talk) 20:18, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

No mention of Sue Barlach?

Why does the personal life section completely omit his marriage to Sue Barlach? For whatever reason, this article completely omits any discussion of her, her allegation of abuse against Dershowitz, and her subsequent suicide.108.70.12.24 (talk) 16:23, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Greetings fellow Grey Wolf. It gets weirder. Dershowitz's book Chutzpah, published 1991, has three references in the index to Barlach and three of Cohen. It first mentions his present wife Carolyn Cohen as his wife on page 8. It then mentions (in his biographical chronology) Sue Barlach by name, mentioning them meeting and being married on page 48. The second Barlach reference is on page 58 which refers to "my wife" (Borat voice). Now get this: the final two references are to Cohen on page 347, and then to Barlach on 348. 347's reference, purportedly to Cohen, is "Each of us is married to a Jewish woman". Then on the very next page, the reference, purportedly to Barlach, is to "our wives" (him and his friends). Neither wife is mentioned by name yet the two pages are seemingly one continuous description of his present-day 1991 life with his friends and family, and there is nothing in the book to explain this seemingly bizarre conflict of information. There is however one other index entry: "Dershowitz, Sue (first wife), see Barlach, Sue". There is no similar entry for "Dershowitz, Carolyn". Chutzpah indeed, Alan. Jamieli (talk) 09:47, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

If you have other reliable references that cover Sue Barlach and Dershowitz, feel free to add them here. With reliable sourcing, I believe that the article could have an additional sentence or two about their marriage and divorce without running into issues of undue weight.Dialectric (talk) 14:43, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DM0aTJaUrLIC&pg=PA33&lpg=PA33#v=onepage&q&f=false

A New Yorker Magazine profile of Dersh (he's interviewed for the piece) says they divorced at some unspecified date and that Sue died in 1984. They had at least one son named Elon, born 1961, who is this film producer (also mentioned in the New Yorker piece):

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0220642/

His IMDB lists his parent as Carolyn Cohen, but that's probably just an error. Jamieli (talk) 17:06, 30 July 2018 (UTC)