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Brooklyn Law School Professor Susan Herman named to Crain’s Most Powerful Women list

July 2, 2019 Rob Abruzzese
Brooklyn Law School Professor and President of the ACLU Susan Herman. Photo: Rob Abruzzese/Brooklyn Eagle
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For the second time since 2017, Brooklyn Law School Professor and American Civil Liberties Union President Susan Herman was named to Crain’s Most Powerful Women in New York list.

Herman holds a chair as a Centennial Professor of Law at BLS and teaches classes on constitutional law, criminal procedure, law and literature, and terrorism and civil liberties.

She has also written extensively on the topic of constitutional and criminal procedure. Her most recent book is titled, “Taking Liberties: The War on Terror and the Erosion of American Democracy,” which won the 2012 Roy C. Palmer Civil Liberties prize from the Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago-Kent College of Law.

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Her other books include “The Right to a Speedy and Public Trial,” and “Terrorism, Government, and Law: National Authority and Local Autonomy in the War on Terror,” which she co-wrote with Paul Finkelman.

The Barnard College and New York University School of Law graduate was elected president of the ACLU in Oct. 2008 after she served on the board of directors for over 20 years, and as general counsel for 10.

Herman was ranked No. 39 on Crain’s list, which claims to be a “dynamic representation of the breadth and depth of power held by women in New York.”

Crain’s credited Herman with helping to evolve the organization’s tactics and wrote, “The ACLU is still waging legal battles across the country to defend reproductive, immigrant and voting rights, and it has taken 225 legal actions against President Donald Trump’s administration since he took office. But with initiatives such as People Power, a grassroots platform that launched in 2017, the ACLU is moving beyond litigation to focus more on organizing its base.”

The ACLU has increased its membership from 425,000 people prior to the 2016 election, and now has more than 1.5 million members.

“After the election, people kept asking us, ‘What can I do?’” Herman told Crain’s. “We used to say, ‘Send us more money and we can do more.’ Now we say, ‘OK, roll up your sleeves.’”

A luncheon for this year’s honorees, which includes Brooklynite and Attorney General Letitia James at No. 10, will be held in Manhattan on Tuesday, Sept. 17.


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