Susan N. Herman | |
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![]() Herman in 2011 | |
President of the American Civil Liberties Union | |
In office October 2008 –January 31, 2021 | |
Preceded by | Nadine Strossen |
Succeeded by | Deborah Archer |
Personal details | |
Born | 1947 (age 77–78) Brooklyn,New York,U.S. |
Children | 1 |
Education | Barnard College (BA) New York University (JD) |
Occupation | Law professor |
Susan N. Herman (born 1947) is an American legal scholar who served as president of the American Civil Liberties Union from October 2008 to January 2021. [1] [2] Herman has taught at Brooklyn Law School since 1980. [3] [4]
Herman was born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island. Herman earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy from Barnard College in 1968 and a Juris Doctor from the New York University School of Law,where she was a note and comment editor for the New York University Law Review. [5] [6]
Herman served as pro se law clerk for the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She was a staff attorney and later associate director for Prisoners' Legal Services of New York. [5]
Herman teaches constitutional law and criminal procedure,seminars on law and literature,and terrorism and civil liberties, [7] at Brooklyn Law School where she is the inaugural Ruth Bader Ginsburg Professor of Law. [8]
She began working for the ACLU as an intern in law school. [1] When she was elected president,Herman was the organization's general counsel and had served on its board for 20 years. [1] [3]
Herman's book Taking Liberties:the War on Terror and the Erosion of American Democracy was published by Oxford University Press in October 2011, [9] and won the 2012 Chicago-Kent College of Law/Roy C. Palmer Civil Liberties Prize. [10]
Herman has appeared as a guest on NPR,PBS,C-SPAN,NBC News,and MSNBC. She has written opinion columns for The New York Times ,Time, Newsday ,and HuffPost . [11] [12] [13] [14]
In 2019,Herman was named to Crain's New York Business biennial list of the "Most Powerful Women in New York". [15]
Herman is married to Paul Gangsei,a law partner at Manatt,Phelps &Phillips. They have one daughter. [16]