Gerald Gunther

Gerald Gunther (May 26, 1927 – July 30, 2002) was a German-born American constitutional law scholar and a professor of law at Stanford Law School from 1962 until his death in 2002. Gunther was among the twenty most widely cited legal scholars of the 20th century, and his 1972 Harvard Law Review article, "The Supreme Court, 1971 Term Foreword: In Search of Evolving Doctrine on a Changing Court: A Model for a Newer Equal Protection," is the fourth most-cited law review article of all time. Gunther's casebook, Constitutional Law, originally published in 1965, is one of the most widely used constitutional law textbook in American law schools.

Early life and education

Gerald Gunther was born on May 26, 1927, in Usingen im Taunus, Germany, where his family had worked as butchers for over three centuries. Though initially hesitant to leave Germany, Gunther's family fled for the United States in 1938, only a few hours after witnessing the destruction of their town synagogue. Upon arriving in America, Gunther's family settled in Brooklyn, New York. He then received an M.A. in public law and government from Columbia University in 1950 and an LL.B., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review, in 1953. In 1976, Gunther famously defended the freedom of speech rights of American Nazis,

Gunther is played by Ronald Guttman in the film On the Basis of Sex (2018). The scene has Gunther playing a Tenth Circuit judge in a moot court to prepare Ruth Bader Ginsburg for an oral argument in Moritz v. Commissioner.