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The Least Dangerous Branch

Alexander Bickel
Personal details
Born Alexander Mordecai Bickel
(1924-12-17)December 17, 1924
Bucharest, Romania
Died November 8, 1974(1974-11-08) (aged 49)
New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.
Political party Republican
Alma mater City College of New York
Harvard University
Scientific career
Fields Constitutional law
Institutions Yale Law School
Influenced Robert Bork
Samuel Alito

Alexander Mordecai Bickel (December 17, 1924 – November 8, 1974) was a law professor and expert on the United States Constitution. One of the most influential constitutional commentators of the twentieth century, his writings emphasize judicial restraint.

Bickel was born in Bucharest, Romania to Jewish parents (Solomon and Yetta Bickel). The family immigrated to New York City in 1939. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from CCNY in 1947 and summa cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1949.

Following law school, Bickel was law clerk for U.S. Appellate Judge Calvert Magruder. In 1950, he went to Europe as a law officer of the U.S. State Department, serving in Frankfurt, Germany, and with the European Defense Community Observer Delegation in Paris.

In 1952, he returned to the U.S., and clerked for Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter in the Court's 1952–53 term. He prepared a historic memorandum for Frankfurter, urging that Brown v. Board of Education be reargued.

In 1956, he became an instructor at Yale Law School, where he taught until his death. He was named Chancellor Kent Professor of Law and Legal History in 1966, and Sterling Professor of Law in 1974.

With colleague Charles Black, Bickel established Yale Law as a respected center for the study of constitutional law.


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Wikipedia

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