1381769334060.jpg

Anthony G. Amsterdam

University Professor, New York University School of Law

An interview with Anthony G. Amsterdam conducted April 1, 2, 8 and 9, 2009 by Myron A. Farber for the Columbia Center for Oral History, Rule of Law Oral History Project.

Anthony G. Amsterdam is a leading American law teacher, advocate and scholar. His extensive pro bono practice has served a wide variety of civil rights, legal aid and public defender organizations and Prof. Amsterdam has litigated on cases ranging from death penalty defense to claims of access to the courts of the detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Highlights of this interview include Prof. Amsterdam’s discussions of his childhood, early adulthood, and interest in civil rights; his career at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF); his role in achieving the 1967-1977 death penalty “moratorium” in the United States; and his lifelong active and behind-the-scenes work leading and shaping litigation against the racially discriminatory implementation of the death penalty in the United States.