David D. Cole

David D. Cole is an American attorney, who served as the National Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for six years until 2024. Earlier, for two years Cole was the Hon. George J. Mitchell Professor in Law and Public Policy at the Georgetown University Law Center. He then served as a law clerk to Judge Arlin Adams of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He then became a staff attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights, He gained tenure at Georgetown Law in 1994, and was selected as the school's inaugural Hon. George J. Mitchell Professor in Law and Public Policy.

Cole has written eight books, for which he has received awards, including the Palmer Civil Liberties Prize for best book on national security and civil liberties, the American Book Award (2004), and Boston Book Review's Best Non-Fiction Book (1999). He has been published in law journals, including the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, and California Law Review. He is also a commentator on the National Public Radio program All Things Considered, He was interviewed in the 2004 BBC documentary The Power of Nightmares - The Rise Of The Politics Of Fear.

Honors and awards Cole has received awards from professional bodies and campaigning groups for his civil rights and civil liberties work, including from the American Bar Association's Individual Rights and Responsibilities Section, the National Lawyers Guild, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and the American Muslim Council. In 2004 he received the William J. Brennan Award from the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, which cited Cole as "one of the nation's most accomplished advocates for freedom of expression and an outstanding scholar of the First Amendment". In 2013 Cole also was the first recipient of the ACLU's Norman Dorsen Presidential Prize for academic contributions to civil liberties.

Publications

Personal life Cole is married to former Georgetown Law professor and current D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals judge Nina Pillard. They have two children, Sarah and Aidan Pillard.