George Washington Univ. Law School,
2000 H Street, N.W., Stockton Hall 402
Washington, DC 20052
(202) 994-7229 Fax: (202) 994-1684
SEND EMAIL: LINK
B.S.E.E., M.I.T.,
J.D., Columbia University,
Sc.D., Thomas Jefferson University
Major Professional Accomplishments
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
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 - Why is Smoking Like
Masturbation, The
Daily
Show,
[06/06/02]
Why Forcing Students Into Same Sex
Dorms is Illegal Sex Discrimination, America
Live (Fox News) [06/23/11] and America's
News HQ (Fox News) [07/17/11]
Cavuto "Loses
It" Debating Banzhaf
Over McDonald's Fox
News [05/19/11]Using Legal Action as Weapon Against Obesity, C-SPAN [09/25/04]
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]
Retire Ronald McDonald, or Kill Him Like We
Killed Joe Camel, Neil
Cavoto Show, Fox News
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," Legal
Academia's Instigator in Chief," 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 — 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 worth 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 buses, 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, in helping to pass, implement,
and enforce the first world antismoking and nonsmokers'
rights treaty [nosmoking.ws],
and persuading Congress to authorize charging smokers
more for their health insurance as part of its
comprehensive reform of health care.
More recently he helped to 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]
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. He has been dubbed "The Father of
Potty Parity" for spearheading legislative and other
movements to equalize the waiting time to use restrooms,
and most recently won a major victory in the U.S. House
of Representatives.
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, Fox & Friends, Technopolitics, CNN News, Larry King, Hannity & Colmes, Phil Donohue, the Abrams Report, American Morning With Paula Zahn, Morning Joe, 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, ]
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 .
Among the best known attorney license plates in
the U.S. are those which belong to public interest law
professor John Banzhaf. They have gone through a wide
variety of different iterations - e.g., "Sue
Bast," "Su Bastrds," etc. - which all stand for “Sue the Bastards.”
Not only have
they appeared in many media reports, but they were
brought up on CNN, in a Congressional Hearing, and in
the official Congressional Committee Report, all in an
effort to embarrass him. P.S.: it didn’t work, and
the “cheeseburger bill” against which he testified never
passed. SEE: Law
Professor John Banzhaf's "SUE THE BASTARDS" License
Plates Link
■ Legal Threat
Bubbling Beneath School Soda Contract, SEATTLE
POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER [7/17/03]: The man
who brought the threat of an anti-obesity lawsuit to the
Seattle School Board works in a university office about
3,000 miles away, with a sign hanging outside the door
that reads "Torts R Us."
His 1989 white Ford van, once used to taxi his now-grown
son around, has a vanity
license plate reading "SUEBAST" -- short for "Sue the
Bastards," a favorite credo. Link
■ Future
Lawyers of America, FACEBOOK: Rebel With Many Causes:
The George Washington University Law School catalog lists
John F. Banzhaf III’s most celebrated and notorious course
as Legal Activism.
The professor refers to this central part of his syllabus
by a less scholarly title: Sue the Bastards.
His license plate once rendered the same
sentiment semaphorically as SUE BAS. Link
■ Class
Action; Law Professor John Banzhaf III Has a
Talent for Stirring up Trouble, AMERICAN LAWYER
MAGAZINE, [07/05]: John Banzhaf III may rank as
legal academia's instigator in chief. From behind his
large desk, littered with stacks of paper and empty Diet
Coke cans, the professor at George Washington University
Law School in D.C. files (or threatens) suits about as
often as most people change clothes. Link
■ CNN CROSSFIRE [8/9/02]:
[Robert] NOVAK: Professor Banzhaf, I would like to put
something up on the screen.
NOVAK: It's a license
plate. Can we put it up there? There it is. that's your license plate.
And it says SUE BAS. Is that your wife's name,
Sue Bas?
BANZHAF: No, it's actually B-A-S-T, and stands for Sue the Bastards,
and if Virginia ever finds out what it stands for, they'll
probably take it away from me.
NOVAK: Isn't this a case of you are just one of the most
litigious men in America. You will sue anybody at the drop
of the hat.
BANZHAF: Anytime I see wrongdoing, I will sue. I'm an
equal opportunity litigator. As you know, I'm one of the
few people, who when you first had the CROSSFIRE program,
and you had the liberal and conservative, I got fired at
by the conservative, and I got fired at by the liberal. I
go after anybody. Link
■ Hearings,
Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act
[“Cheeseburger Bill,” HR 339l],
House SUBCOMMITTEE ON
COMMERCIAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW, 180th Congress
[6/19/03]
Mr. FEENEY.: So, Mr. Banzhaf, The Washington Post . . . suggest[s] that
you have or have had a license
plate that says, ''Sue the bast---s''—and it
isn't completed. Who are the ''bast---s'' that we are
referring to in the license
plate, just out of interest?
Mr. BANZHAF. ''Sue the
bastards'' is a phrase which is used by many people.
I use it two ways.
FIRST of all, if
you put the emphasis on the first part,"SUE the bastards," it suggests
that if you are going to go after the bad guys; often
suing them is a more effective way, for example, than
coming before Congress, at least for the little guy. That
is what I am finding here this morning.
SECONDLY, we can
put the emphasis on "sue
the BASTARDS,"
which means that if I am going to - as I do - spend my
life suing people, I would rather sue people whom I think
ought to be sued rather than simply sue people because
somebody walks in my office with a check. Link
■ JUNK DEAL, Their
Products Cause Heart Disease, Strokes, and Diabetes--
Adding Billions to Our Health-Care Bill. The Tobacco
Industry? Nope, America's Junk-food Manufacturers. And
Some People Think It's Time for Them to Pay, MEN’S
HEALTH: The 61-year-old Banzhaf, a stout,
broad-faced man whose
license plate reads "SUE BAST" (short for "sue the
bastards"), became interested in food last year,
when a vegan student in his class was horrified to
discover something about McDonald's french fries: Although
the company had advertised its fries as cooked in "100
percent vegetable oil," they actually contained a small
amount of beef extract--described in the company's
nutrition information only as a "natural flavor." Banzhaf
saw a possible false-advertising lawsuit and put his
students to work detailing it. A Hindu lawyer in Seattle
took the case. Initially, Banzhaf says, people laughed
when he described the suit. But in March word leaked that
McDonald's intended to settle the class-action lawsuit for
$12.4 million. Link