Charles Alan Reich ( ; May 20, 1928 – June 15, 2019) was an American academic and writer best known for writing the 1970 book, ''

The Greening of America ''The Greening of America'' is a 1970 book by Charles A. Reich. It is a paean to the counterculture of the 1960s and its values. Excerpts first appeared as an essay in the September 26, 1970 issue of ''The New Yorker''. The book was originall ...

'', a paean to the counterculture of the 1960s. Excerpts of the book first appeared in ''The New Yorker'', and its seismic reception there contributed to the book leading ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list. Due to the theme and implications of this book Reich was described as a "high priest of

antitechnology Neo-Luddism or new Luddism is a philosophy opposing many forms of modern technology. The term Luddite is generally used as a pejorative applied to people showing technophobic leanings. The name is based on the historical legacy of the English Lud ...

Life

Reich was born in New York City to a medical family. He attended City and Country School and Lincoln School in the city prior to undergraduate studies at Oberlin College, receiving his B.A. in 1949. As a law student, he was editor-in-chief of the '' Yale Law Journal'' for 1951–1952 and he clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black during the 1953-1954 term. During this period he also became a friend of Justice

William O. Douglas William Orville Douglas (October 16, 1898January 19, 1980) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, who was known for his strong progressive and civil libertarian views, and is often ci ...

, as he recounts in his autobiography. Prior to his academic career he worked for six years as a lawyer at the white-shoe firms

Cravath, Swaine & Moore Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP (known as Cravath) is an American white-shoe law firm with its headquarters in New York City, and an additional office in London. The firm is known for its complex and high profile litigation and mergers & acquisiti ...

in New York and

Arnold & Porter Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP is an American multinational law firm. A white-shoe firm, Arnold & Porter is among the largest law firms in the world, by both revenue and by its number of lawyers. History Arnold & Porter was founded in 1946 ...

in Washington, D.C. Reich was a professor at Yale Law School from 1960-1974. His "The New Property" influenced the Supreme Court to broaden its conceptualization of property in the landmark administrative law case ''

Goldberg v. Kelly ''Goldberg v. Kelly'', 397 U.S. 254 (1970), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution requires an evidentiary hearing before a recip ...

''.

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...

, Samuel Alito, and

Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...

were students of Reich when he was writing ''The Greening of America'' and he is mentioned in their biographies. Reich left Yale in 1974 to move to San Francisco, although he continued as a visiting professor from 1974 to 1976. He returned to teach at Yale from 1991 to 1994 and in February 2011. The Yale Law School Association selected Reich for its Award of Merit in 2008. Reich was

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

, and came to terms with this in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

during the 1970s era of rapidly advancing gay rights. He came out during this early period of the modern

LGBT rights movement Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movements are social movements that advocate for LGBT people in society. Some focus on equal rights, such as the ongoing movement for same-sex marriage, while others focus on liberation, as in the ...

and in his autobiography he details his activism and the process of coming to terms with his then long-repressed sexuality. Decades later Reich was less active in LGBT affairs and explicitly stated that his need to live alone "trumped" sexual orientation as meaningful in his life. Reich died in San Francisco on June 15, 2019.

Publications

Articles

Reich wrote numerous articles. The following is a selection: * 1962: "Bureaucracy and the forests: An occasional paper on the role of the political process in the free society" (

Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions The Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara, California was an influential think tank from 1959 to 1977. Its influence waned thereafter and it closed in 1987. It held discussions on subjects it hoped would influence publ ...

) * 1964: "The New Property" (''Yale Law Journal'') * 1965: "Individual Rights and Social Welfare: The Emerging Legal Issues" (''Yale Law Journal'') * 1966: "Police Questioning of Law Abiding Citizens" (''Yale Law Journal'') * 1987: "The Liberals' Mistake" (adapted from Regents' Lecture at the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...

) * 1990: "Symposium: The Legacy of ''Goldberg v. Kelly'': A Twenty Year Perspective: Beyond the New Property: An Ecological View of Due Process" (''Brooklyn Law Review'')

Books

Reich also authored and co-authored a number of books. The following is a selection: * 1970: ''

: How the Youth Revolution is Trying to Make America Livable'' * 1972: ''Garcia: A Signpost to New Space'' (co-authored with Jerry Garcia and Jann Wenner,

Straight Arrow Press Straight Arrow Press (Straight Arrow Publishing Co., Inc.) was a publishing company that published the periodical ''Rolling Stone''. They operated a book publishing division in the 1970s in San Francisco, which published authors such as Oscar ...

; re-issued, Da Capo Press, 2003) * 1976: ''The Sorcerer of Bolinas Reef'' (autobiography) * 1995: ''Opposing the System''

References

External links