Frank Askin (January 8, 1932 - July 1, 2021) was an American

jurist A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyzes and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal education in law (a law degree) and often a Lawyer, legal prac ...

and professor of law at

Rutgers School of Law - Newark Rutgers Law School is the law school of Rutgers University, with classrooms in Newark and Camden, New Jersey. It is the largest public law school and the 10th largest law school, overall, in the United States. Each class in the three-year J.D. pr ...

Career

He was appointed to the Rutgers faculty upon his graduation from that school with highest honors in 1966. Admitted to the law school without an undergraduate degree, he was awarded a B.A. from City College of New York at the same time he received his J.D. from Rutgers. In 1970, he established the Constitutional Litigation Clinic as part of the law school's curriculum. Under his guidance, the clinic litigated the first police surveillance cases in the nation; battled the FBI over the investigation and maintenance of files on two precocious New Jersey high schoolers who corresponded with "the wrong persons"; defended

affirmative action Affirmative action (also sometimes called reservations, alternative access, positive discrimination or positive action in various countries' laws and policies) refers to a set of policies and practices within a government or organization seeking ...

programs up to the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

; challenged the

New Jersey State Police The New Jersey State Police (NJSP) is the official state police force of the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is a general-powers police agency with statewide jurisdiction, designated by troop sectors. History The legislation for the creation o ...

for stopping and searching "long-haired travelers" on the state's highways; argued for the right of the homeless to vote and to have access to public library facilities; and protected the right of grassroots advocacy groups to take their messages door-to-door and to privately owned shopping malls. He still is associated with the clinic. Professor Askin has been a member of the National Board of the

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is an American nonprofit civil rights organization founded in 1920. ACLU affiliates are active in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The budget of the ACLU in 2024 was $383 million. T ...

since 1969 and has been one of the ACLU's four general counsels since 1976. In 1986, he was the (unsuccessful) Democratic candidate for Congress in New Jersey's 11th District, covering parts of

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

and Morris Counties. His memoir, ''Defending Rights: A Life in Law and Politics'', was published in 1997.Frank Askin. ''Defending Rights: A Life in Law and Politics''. Humanity Books, 1997. , He is listed in ''Woodward & White's Best Lawyers in America''.

References

Rutgers profile

External links

* https://web.archive.org/web/20060909030012/http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~askin/ 1932 births 2021 deaths City College of New York alumni Rutgers School of Law–Newark alumni Rutgers School of Law–Newark faculty American legal scholars {{US-legal-academic-bio-stub