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, Mathematical
Using Law to
Fight Obesity
Center For Nonsmokers' Rights
Volleyball: Club, GWU IM, Cruises,
In
Wikipedia (contains errors)
Some
Press
Releases
(PR-Inside)
In Publications
(Lexis) in 2006
Among "Noted Faculty" at GWU Law
Role
in
Supreme Court SCRAP Case
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]
First
Lady's
Obesity
Plan
is
Weak, MSNBC-TV and NEWSY [02/11/10]
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
Right of Companies
to Have a Smokefree Work Force FOX NEWS: Mike and
Juliet
Who's to blame for
overweight epidemic? [5/21/07] Channel 14
INTERESTING AUDIO
Banzhaf on the Mathematics of Voting and
Elections, [05/21/10] BBC's More or Less [time = 4;15-8:30]
Banzhaf on the Mathematics of Potty Parity, [06/25/10], BBC's More or Less [time = 20.50-26.00]
Check back soon for more links
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.
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, link2,
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
voting, multi-member electoral districts, the Electoral College, the EU Constitution1, EU
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 .