PROFESSOR JOHN F. BANZHAF III
Professor, Banzhaf, John Banzhaf, george washington university, law school, action on smoking and health, ASH, obesity, potty parity, class action, cigarette, tobacco, nonsmokers, smoking ban, ETS, FCTC, sue the bastards, litigation, litigate, public interest, legal activism,
John F. Banzhaf III, 
Professor of Public Interest Law, FAMRI
Dr. William Cahan Distinguished Prof.

George Washington Univ. Law School, 
2000 H Street, N.W., Stockton Hall 402
Washington, DC 20052
(202) 659-4312 OR 994-7229
SEND EMAIL: LINK

B.S.E.E., M.I.T., 
J.D., Columbia University,
Sc.D., Thomas Jefferson University

OTHER LINKS:

Major Professional Accomplishments

Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)

Banzhaf Index of Voting Power

Using Law to Fight Obesity

Father of Potty Parity

Center For Nonsmokers' Rights

Volleyball: ClubGWU IM Cruises,

Banzhaf in Wikipedia (contains errors)

Banzhaf in Recent News (Google)

Banzhaf in Recent News (Topix)

Banzhaf Press Releases (PR-Inside)

Banzhaf in Archived News (Google)

Banzhaf in Books (Google)

Banzhaf in Scholarly Papers (Google)

Banzhaf in Law Reviews (Lexis)

Banzhaf in Publications (Lexis) in 2006

Banzhaf and Movies (IMDb)

Banzhaf Discussed on SSRN

Banzhaf in American Legal Academics

Banzhaf in Legal Documents (Google)

Banzhaf in Govt. Documents (Google)

Banzhaf  "Noted Faculty" at GWU Law

SOME STREAMING VIDEO:

Smokers' Rights, Civil Lights?,

The Daily Show, [06/06/02]

Defending Right of Companies Not to Hire Smokers, Fox & Friends (on Fox News) [01/22/10]

Legislating Lifestyles or Injecting Personal Responsibility into Health Care?, The Dr. Nancy [Snyderman] Show on MSNBC [09/16/09]

Charging Obese Workers More for Health Insurance,  TODAY SHOW [10/11/09]

The "Food Police," "Stossel" on Fox Business News  Segment 2  Segment 3 [01/28/10]

New Nicotine Vaccine for Smokers, WUSA-TV, Channel 9 in DC [11/24/09]

On-Air Water-Throwing Incident Seen Round the World Morton Downey Show

Why There's No Such Thing As a Right to Smoke, Morton Downey 1988

The Cheeseburger Bill, MSNBC [9/4/08]

Potential Potty Problems at Inauguration, "Morning Joe" on MSNBC-TV[1/19/08]

Fat Law Suits, Scarborough Country on MSNBC-TV [9/7/08]

Government Regulation of Smoking (on Airplanes), American Debate [1984]

Banzhaf in a New Movie - "Waiting For My Real Life" link

Tobacco Debate, Charlie Rose Show   [7/13/94]

Debate on Cigarette Advertising Directed to Children, 20/20, 1983 ABC-TV Evening News

Battle of the Widening Bulge, Eye on American, CBS-TV Evening News, [08/08/02]

Lawyer Preps for Fast Food Fight,  CBS-TV Evening News [11/03/03]

Smoking David Susskind Show [1986]

Law Suit Against McDonald's, Canadian TV [03/23/02] link

Protecting Children From Secondhand Tobacco Smoke [11/29/06] TODAY Show, NBC-TV

Why Do We Crave Unhealthy Foods?: Addiction [11/30/06] CBS-TV Evening News 

Who's to blame for overweight epidemic? [5/21/07] Channel 14

Check back soon for more links 

Professor, Banzhaf, John Banzhaf, george washington university, law school, action on smoking and health, ASH, obesity, potty parity, class action, cigarette, tobacco, nonsmokers, smoking ban, ETS, FCTC, sue the bastards, litigation, litigate, public interest, legal activism,
  John F. Banzhaf III [pronounced Banz-half] is a nationally-known professor and practitioner of public interest law, and a former scientist, engineer and inventor.  [See links below and in left column]

  Prof. John Banzhaf has been called the "Ralph Nader of the Tobacco Industry," "the Ralph Nader of Junk Food," "The Man Who Is Taking Fat to Court" [for using legal action to fight OBESITY], "Mr. Anti-Smoking," "One of the Most Vocal and Effective Anti-Tobacco Attorneys," a "Radical Feminist," a "Man Who Lives by his Writs," the "Father of Potty Parity," "the Area's Best-Known 'Radical' Law Professor," and an "Entrepreneur of Litigation, [and] a Trial Lawyer's Trial Lawyer."

  He has also been hailed as "one of the "100 Most Powerful People in Washington," "The Man Big Tobacco and Now Fast Food Love to Hate," the lawyer "Who's Leading the Battle Against Big Fat,"  "a Driving Force Behind the Lawsuits That Have Cost Tobacco Companies Billions of Dollars," "the Renowned and Often Flamboyant Public-Interest Law Professor at George Washington University," "the Fastest Legal Gun in the East," the "Dean of Public Interest Lawyers," "a Major Crusader Against Big Tobacco and Now Among Those Targeting the Food Industry," and "the law professor who masterminded litigation against the tobacco industry." 

  He's also been called often by his enemies a "Legal Terrorist," the "Osama bin Laden of Torts," a "Legal Bomb-Thrower," and a "Legal Flamethrower," and he has frequently been attacked on web sites (which are often inaccurate) [see, e.g., BanzhafWatch.com] by those who opposed his activities clear indications, he says, that his many targets fear him and his legal actions.

  As a young lawyer, John Banzhaf brought a legal action which required  broadcast stations to provide hundreds of millions of dollars of free broadcast time for anti-smoking messages — an action which resulted in the first ever decline in cigarette consumption, something even the 1964 Surgeon General's Report was not able to achieve.  Subsequently, after founding Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) to serve as the legal-action arm of the antismoking community [ About ASH ], he helped drive cigarette commercials off the air, and started the nonsmokers' rights movement by first getting no-smoking sections and then smoking bans on airplanes and in many other public places. 

  Banzhaf and ASH have played a major role in the war on smoking and for nonsmokers' rights, including promoting and helping to mastermind law suits against the tobacco industry, in defending the legal rights of nonsmokers in hundreds of legislative, administrative, and judicial proceedings, and in helping to pass, implement, and enforce the first world antismoking and nonsmokers' rights treaty [nosmoking.ws]. More recently he helped  ban cigarette advertising in several European countries, and to ban smoking outdoors, in homes and cars where foster children are present, to protect children involved in custody disputes, etc. [New Frontiers For Nonsmokers]. His contributions to the war on smoking have been very widely recognized [ What Others Have Said About ASH]

  At the George Washington University Law School, Prof. John Banzhaf teaches Torts, Administrative Law, Disabled People and the Law, and Law and the Deaf.  He also teaches a unique world-famous course — "Legal Activism" [Law 637], which has been dubbed "suing for credit
"[GW's Legal Powerhouse] and "Sue the Bastards" — where his law students, which the press dubbed "Banzhaf's Bandits" [Time Magazine], learn to become public interest lawyers by bringing their own legal actions [Spotlight: Professor brings the classroom to the courtroom]. 

   He and his students are widely known for bringing hundreds of innovative public interest legal actions including one of the leading Supreme Court environmental law suits,  persuading the F.T.C. to require "corrective advertising," preventing dry cleaners from charging women more to launder their shirts ," suing former Vice President Spiro T. Agnew  to recover the bribes he received, safety standards for school buses, clearer warnings on birth control pills, smoke detectors in airplane lavatories, auto bumper standards, new police procedures for dealing with spousal abuse, the end to a scheme to defraud veterans, greater roles for blacks on television, clearer labeling of foods, and many other victories.

  Prof. Banzhaf has also achieved many additional public interest legal victories, including: forcing the Cosmos Club to admit women, using the threat of a civil law suit to pressure Durham County DA Mike Nifong to step down and drop rape charges against three Duke lacrosse players, helping to get the first woman admitted to formerly all-male state-supported military academies, etc.

   Recently, Prof. Banzhaf started a movement to use legal action as a weapon against obesity modeled on his earlier successes in using legal action as a weapon against smoking [CBS1, CBS2, Canadian TV].  So far, ten (including two threatened) fat law suits have been successful [link], and have forced McDonald's, Kraft, KFC, Kelloggs, and other major companies to make significant changes likely to help reduce obesity.

  John Banzhaf has discussed and/or debated smoking and obesity as well a wide variety of legal issues, including self defense, governmental corruption, sex discrimination, auto and food safety, jury nullification, Potty Parity, drug testing, various constitutional issues, etc.   on all of the major television network news programs, as well as on Face the Nation, McNeil Lehrer, Nightline, Oprah Winfrey, Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, The O'Reilly Factor, Nightwatch, Crossfire, Technopolitics, CNN News, Larry King, Hannity & Colmes, Phil Donohue, the Abrams Report, American Morning With Paula Zahn, DaySide with Linda Vester, Lou Dobbs Tonight, Tucker, and many other national programs both here and in other countries, in Op-Ed pieces, and in numerous programs and publications both here and around the world.  More recently he appeared on The Daily Show, and the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

  After graduating from Stuyvesant High School in New York City,  Professor Banzhaf received his undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from M.I.T.  For a time before entering law school he worked as a scientist and engineer, writing several published technical papers, and obtaining two U.S. patents; one on a Directional Antenna for Space Satellites, and another (for which he wrote the patent application) on an Electronic Multiplying System.  At the Columbia University Law School, he was an Editor of the Law Review, obtained the first copyright ever registered on a computer program [link], helped persuade Congress to amend the copyright statute to include data processing, and developed a new mathematical technique now termed the "Banzhaf Power Index" used by Banzhaf and others for determining voting power in complex voting systems including weighted votingmulti-member electoral districts, the Electoral College, the EU Constitution1EU Constitution2, and in other situations (e.g., convex geometries, on SSRN)

  Professor Banzhaf serves as the Faculty Advisor for the GWU Volleyball Club/Teams [
Club,  GWU IM,  Cruises,] and is a member of  the World Technology Network [http://www.wtn.net].  On campus, he played a role in forcing George Washington University to discontinue its Pinkerton-operated anonymous hotline [link], to revise its sexual harassment policy, and to limit smoking on campus. Link1, Link2 .