Adam Cohen (journalist)
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Adam Seth Cohen (born 1962) is an American journalist, author, lawyer, and former assistant editorial page editor of ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''. He also works in the administration of New York City Mayor
Bill de Blasio Bill de Blasio (; born Warren Wilhelm Jr., May 8, 1961; later Warren de Blasio-Wilhelm) is an American politician who served as the 109th mayor of New York City from 2014 to 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he held the office of New Y ...
.


Education

Cohen graduated from
Bronx High School of Science The Bronx High School of Science, commonly called Bronx Science, is a public specialized high school in The Bronx in New York City. It is operated by the New York City Department of Education. Admission to Bronx Science involves passing the Sp ...
. He obtained his bachelor's degree in the interdisciplinary honors Social Studies program from
Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher ...
in 1984 and received his J.D. degree in 1987 from
Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each c ...
where he was the president of the ''
Harvard Law Review The ''Harvard Law Review'' is a law review published by an independent student group at Harvard Law School. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the ''Harvard Law Review''s 2015 impact factor of 4.979 placed the journal first out of 143 ...
''.


Career

After graduating from Harvard Law School, Cohen clerked for Judge
Abner Mikva Abner Joseph Mikva (January 21, 1926 – July 4, 2016) was an American politician, federal judge, lawyer and law professor. He was a member of the Democratic Party. Mikva served in the United States House of Representatives representing Illinois ...
on the federal D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and then served as a lawyer for the
Southern Poverty Law Center The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, it is known for its legal cases against white ...
in
Montgomery, Alabama Montgomery is the capital city of the U.S. state of Alabama and the county seat of Montgomery County, Alabama, Montgomery County. Named for the Irish soldier Richard Montgomery, it stands beside the Alabama River, on the Gulf Coastal Plain, coas ...
. Cohen subsequently worked as a staff attorney for the
American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
(ACLU) in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. While at the ACLU, he focused on school finance and
educational equity Educational equity, also known as equity in education, is a measure of achievement, fairness, and opportunity in education. The study of education equity is often linked with the study of excellence and equity. Educational equity depends on two ...
issues and was part of the legal team that brought an Alabama state court class action in 1991, claiming that the public school system violated the state constitution by failing to provide an equitable, adequate or "liberal" education. In 1993 the state courts ruled in favor of the ACLU and the children plaintiffs in '' Harper v. Hunt'', finding that poor schools were not equitably funded. The lower court decision was reviewed in the federal courts. During his tenure as Alabama attorney general,
Jeff Sessions Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (born December 24, 1946) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 84th United States Attorney General from 2017 to 2018. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as United States ...
, later President
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
's attorney general of the United States, fought against the findings of the Alabama courts. Sessions was ultimately successful in his campaign to prevent schools in poorer Alabama communities from being funded at the same level as schools in wealthier districts. After leaving the ACLU, Cohen spent seven years as a senior writer for ''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...
'' magazine, until he left to become a member of ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' editorial board. During his tenure at the ''Times'', from 2002 until 2010, Cohen's editorials focused on tech and legal affairs. After leaving ''The New York Times'', he became a lecturer in law at
Yale Law School Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by '' U.S. News & World ...
and a fellow at the
Yale Information Society Project The Information Society Project (ISP) at Yale Law School is an intellectual center studying the implications of the Internet and new information technologies for law and society. The ISP was founded in 1997 by Jack Balkin, Knight Professor of ...
, teaching courses in media and internet law. He also wrote a legal column which appeared in Time.com every Monday. Beginning in 2011, Cohen also served as special policy advisor to New York State Governor
Andrew Cuomo Andrew Mark Cuomo ( ; ; born December 6, 1957) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 56th governor of New York from 2011 to 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected to the same position that his father, Mario Cuo ...
. In 2014 Cohen joined New York City Mayor de Blasio's administration as chief speechwriter. In 2015 he moved to the mayor's Center for Economic Opportunity, as a special policy advisor. Along with
Elizabeth Taylor Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was a British-American actress. She began her career as a child actress in the early 1940s and was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinema in the 1950s. ...
, the literary editor of the ''
Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...
'' and Cohen's co-author of ''American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley, His Battle for Chicago and the Nation'', Cohen is also co-editor of ''
The National Book Review ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
''. In 2017, Cohen was a
Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made ...
juror in the category of criticism and in 2018 he was a juror in the category of Feature Writing. Cohen is the author of five books. The most recent, ''Supreme Inequality: The Supreme Court's Fifty-Year Battle for a More Unjust America'', argues that the United States Supreme Court turned away from protecting the poor and weak and from advancing a more just and equal society across broad and diverse areas of law (education, poverty, campaign finance, democracy, workers' rights, corporations, and criminal justice), reversing the course the law had been on under the jurisprudence of the
Warren Court The Warren Court was the period in the history of the Supreme Court of the United States during which Earl Warren served as Chief Justice. Warren replaced the deceased Fred M. Vinson as Chief Justice in 1953, and Warren remained in office until ...
. This reversal occurred in the aftermath of Chief Justice
Earl Warren Earl Warren (March 19, 1891 – July 9, 1974) was an American attorney, politician, and jurist who served as the 14th Chief Justice of the United States from 1953 to 1969. The Warren Court presided over a major shift in American constitutio ...
's retirement and President
Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
's successful bid—deemed a ruthless and baseless "squeeze play" by Cohen—to force liberal Justice
Abe Fortas Abraham Fortas (June 19, 1910 – April 5, 1982) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1965 to 1969. Born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee, Fortas graduated from R ...
off the court by threatening federal investigations of Fortas and his wife. Nixon went on to appoint four conservative justices (new Chief Justice
Warren Burger Warren Earl Burger (September 17, 1907 – June 25, 1995) was an American attorney and jurist who served as the 15th chief justice of the United States from 1969 to 1986. Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Burger graduated from the St. Paul Colleg ...
, future Chief Justice
William Rehnquist William Hubbs Rehnquist ( ; October 1, 1924 – September 3, 2005) was an American attorney and jurist who served on the U.S. Supreme Court for 33 years, first as an associate justice from 1972 to 1986 and then as the 16th chief justice from ...
, then-conservative Associate Justice
Harry Blackmun Harry Andrew Blackmun (November 12, 1908 – March 4, 1999) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1970 to 1994. Appointed by Republican President Richard Nixon, Black ...
, and Associate Justice Lewis Powell). Calling the book "impressive and necessary", ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' praises Cohen's "sweeping review" as showing that "the Court has repeatedly engaged in judicial activism ''against'' the poor", aggressively exacerbating income inequality in the United States. "Cohen sums up the result of fifty years of jurisprudence in the areas he explores, writing that 'the post-1969 Court has been working unrelentingly to protect the wealthy and powerful, and to make
he United States He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
more hierarchical and exclusionary - and it has been succeeding. When it comes to the law, and its many consequences for society, we are all living in Nixon's America now. Asked to explain how he reconciles the post-Warren Court's progressive-leaning decisions on gay rights (marriage equality), curbing executive powers during wartime and (some) reproductive freedom decisions with his narrative of a reactionary court, Cohen responded, "Well, you might just say that in a capitalist system like ours, wealth and money and the current income and wealth distribution are really where the rubber hits the road. Look at how corporations actually have gotten a lot better on things like affirmative action, inclusion, gay rights, and things like that, but they haven't gotten good at distributing their money to the poor. That's really the thing that separates the corporate mentality from a more progressive outlook." Cohen's previous book, ''Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck'', was named to the longlist for the 2016
National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...
, and is slated to be made into an Amazon film, ''Unfit'', starring
Dakota Johnson Dakota Mayi Johnson (born October 4, 1989) is an American actress. The daughter of actors Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith, she made her film debut at age ten with a minor role in the dark comedy film ''Crazy in Alabama'' (1999) with her mothe ...
.


Books

*Co-author of ''American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley, His Battle for Chicago and the Nation'' (2000) *'' The Perfect Store: Inside E-Bay'' (2002) *''Nothing to Fear: FDR's Inner Circle and the Hundred Days That Created Modern America'' (2009) *''Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck'',
Penguin Press Penguin Group is a British trade book publisher and part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. The new company was created by a merger that was finalised on 1 July 2013, with Bertelsmann initiall ...
(Mar. 1, 2016) *''Supreme Inequality: The Supreme Court's Fifty-Year Battle for a More Unjust America'', Penguin Press (publication date Feb. 25, 2020)


References


External links


Author Website
*

by Adam Cohen, Editorial Observer, ''The New York Times'', August 19, 2007
The Perfect Store Book Review at Letters on Pages

'One Hundred Days Until Disappointment'
review of ''Nothing to Fear'' in the ''
Oxonian Review ''The Oxonian Review'' is a literary magazine produced by postgraduate students at the University of Oxford. Every fortnight during term time, an online edition is published featuring reviews and essays on current affairs and literature. It is t ...
'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Cohen, Adam 1960s births Living people Harvard Law School alumni The New York Times editors 20th-century American journalists American male journalists Harvard College alumni The Bronx High School of Science alumni Year of birth missing (living people)