Linda Greenhouse

Linda Joyce Greenhouse (born January 9, 1947) is an American legal journalist who is the Knight Distinguished Journalist in Residence and Joseph M. Goldstein Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School. She is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who covered the United States Supreme Court for nearly three decades for The New York Times. Since 2017, she has served as president of the American Philosophical Society, and is also a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Senate.

Early life and education Greenhouse was born in a Jewish family in New York City, to H. Robert Greenhouse, a physician and professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and Dorothy (née Greenlick). She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in government from Radcliffe College in 1968, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She received her Master of Studies in Law from Yale Law School in 1978, during which time she was a student of Robert Bork.

Career Linda Greenhouse (left) at the Phi Beta Kappa Book Awards Dinner in Washington, D.C., on December 7, 2018.Greenhouse began her 40-year career at The New York Times covering state government in the paper's bureau in Albany. with the exception of two years in the mid-1980s when she was a Congressional reporter. She has been a regular guest on the PBS program Washington Week.

At the conclusion of the Supreme Court session in the summer of 2008, Greenhouse accepted a Times offer for early retirement. Seven of the nine sitting Justices attended a goodbye party for her on June 12, 2008. After retiring, she continued to blog for the Times in their "Opinionator" section, and wrote occasional guest columns.

In 2010, Greenhouse and Reva Siegel co-authored a book on the history of the U.S. abortion debate prior to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Titled Before Roe v. Wade, the book is largely a selection of primary documents, with commentary provided by the two authors.

From 2010 to 2021, Greenhouse wrote a bi-weekly opinion column for The New York Times, centered on the Supreme Court and the law. Since 2016, she has been a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books.

In a 2006 speech at Harvard's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Greenhouse criticized US policies and actions at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and Haditha. She also told an anecdote about attending a Simon & Garfunkel reunion concert in 2003. She said that midway through the concert she surprised herself by suddenly breaking into tears as she realized her generation had not done a better job than previous generations of running the country. In 2004, she received the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism and the John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism. She was a Radcliffe Institute Medal winner in 2006.

Accusations of bias Greenhouse has often publicly expressed her views in support of abortion rights, and in opposition to conservative religious values. In response, New York Times editor Daniel Okrent said he had never received a single complaint of bias in Greenhouse's many years of covering the Supreme Court.

Ed Whelan, writing in a blog associated with the National Review, suggested that Greenhouse was obligated to inform her readers when she reported on a Supreme Court case for which her husband, Eugene Fidell, had submitted an amicus brief, such as in the Hamdan case and the Boumediene case. Clark Hoyt of The New York Times opined that the paper "should have clued in readers" to Greenhouse's conflict, but defended the neutrality of her reporting. In a Slate article, Emily Bazelon and Dahlia Lithwick faulted The New York Times for failing "to stand up" for Greenhouse and defend her from Whelan's criticism. They quoted Yale Law School professor Judith Resnik who pointed out that Whelan was unable to cite any actual examples of bias.

Personal life Greenhouse married lawyer Eugene R. Fidell on January 1, 1981, in Washington, D.C., in a Jewish ceremony. Together they have one daughter, filmmaker Hannah Fidell (born October 7, 1985). Greenhouse is the sister of prominent legal anthropologist Carol J. Greenhouse and sister-in-law of Alfred C. Aman Jr., former dean of Indiana University Maurer School of Law.