Joseph Margulies

Mr. Margulies is a Professor of Government at Cornell University. He was Counsel of Record in Rasul v. Bush (2004), involving detentions at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Station, and in Geren v. Omar & Munaf v. Geren (2008), involving detentions at Camp Cropper in Iraq. Presently he is counsel for Abu Zubaydah, whose interrogation in 2002 prompted the Bush Administration to draft the “torture memos.” In June 2005, at the invitation of Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, Margulies testified at the first Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on detainee issues.

Margulies writes and lectures widely on civil liberties in the wake of September 11 and his commentaries have appeared in numerous publications, including the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the National Law Journal, the Miami Herald, the Christian Science Monitor, the Virginia Quarterly Review, and the Legal Times. He is also the author of the widely acclaimed book, Guantánamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power (Simon and Schuster 2006). Among other accolades, Guantánamo was named one of the best books of 2006 by The Economist magazine. It received the prestigious Silver Gavel Award of 2007, given annually by the American Bar Association to the book that best promotes “the American public’s understanding of the law and the legal system.” It also won the Scribes Book Award of 2007, given annually by the American Society of Legal Writers to honor “the best work of legal scholarship published during the previous year.” He is also the author of What Changed When Everything Changed: 9/11 and the Making of National Identity (Yale Univ. Press 2013) and has won numerous awards for his work since 9/11.

Columns by Joseph Margulies
The Simple Message of Tolerance That Eludes President Trump
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Cornell law professor Joseph Margulies calls upon President Trump to condemn the rise of anti-Asian calumny and violence and contrasts Trump’s actions today with those of President George W. Bush after the September 11 attacks. Margulies points out that immediately after 9/11, President Bush defined national identity in the language of equality and tolerance, stressing that Muslims and Arab-Americans were not the enemy.

COVID-19 Lays Bare the Cruelty of Neoliberalism
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Cornell law professor Joseph Margulies observes how the COVID-19 pandemic is exposing the cruel folly of neoliberal governance. Margulies points out that neoliberalism—the idea that social problems are better solved by the private sector than by government—has brought millions of Americans to the edge of financial and physical ruin, and COVID-19 will push them over. He argues that now more than ever, we must be communitarians rather than individualists.

What Happens Now?
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Cornell law professor Joseph Margulies points out that in the face of the present COVID-19 pandemic, there seems to be general consensus nationwide that the federal government should intervene to mitigate the economic damage, even among those who very recently believed that social problems are better solved by the private sector than by the government. Margulies asks whether this new perspective will also evoke compassion. He points out that, given the expected duration of the fight against the novel coronavirus, $2,500 is not nearly sufficient for a struggling family of four who can no longer work. What will we do for the tens of millions of Americans facing disaster?

How to Spot a Nation in Freefall
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Cornell law professor Joseph Margulies points out that when a nation doesn’t have the money to fix its roads but does give money away to help the rich get richer, that is a sign of a nation in collapse. Margulies describes the shift to neoliberal thinking under Nixon that has produced record levels of economic inequality and explains why the Trump administration’s proposed economic policies would benefit only the rich.

The Law Will Not Save Us
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Cornell law professor Joseph Margulies reminds us that the rule of law exists in the United States primarily to conceal politics; that is, one cannot rely on having “the law” on one’s side if politics are opposed. Margulies illustrates this point by replacing “the lawyers reviewed the law and decided” with “the high priests studied the entrails and decided”—a substitution that ultimately yields the same results.

The Curious Politics of Forgiveness
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Cornell law professor Joseph Margulies discusses the public dimension of forgiveness and explains why politics are inherent in the act of forgiving. Margulies describes numerous examples of people whose arguably comparable transgressions resulted in society’s vastly different degrees of willingness to forgive them.

Dismantling the Falsest Comparison: Why a Woman’s Right to Choose Has Nothing to Do With Nazism and Jim Crow
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Cornell law professor Joseph Margulies addresses comments made in an op-ed by Atlanta District Attorney John Melvin that opponents of restrictive abortion laws are similar to Nazis or supporters of Jim Crow laws. Margulies explains why the comparison is not only intellectually and morally bankrupt, but also shameful, deserving of the most direct condemnation.

How Should A Progressive Prosecutor Respond to Injustice Beyond Her Courtroom?
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Cornell law professor Joseph Margulies explains why and how a progressive prosecutor should work to correct injustice throughout the criminal justice system. Margulies argues that a prosecutor must not, for example, turn a blind eye to the prisons in her state or pursue convictions for unjust laws.

A Welcome Turn to Violence
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Cornell law professor Joseph Margulies describes several refreshing perspectives in the area of criminal justice reform that tackle the crucial and difficult issue of violent crime. By way of background, Margulies explains the simplistic and erroneous idea that drives the enormous (and enormously expensive) carceral state and explains the importance of recognizing humanity in order to begin to dismantle it.

Seven Steps for Progressive Prosecutors
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Cornell law professor Joseph Margulies describes seven steps that progressive prosecutors must take to advance three fundamental principles of meaningful criminal justice reform—dignity, community, and equity. Margulies explains the importance of going beyond piecemeal initiatives to truly embracing and furthering an alternative organizing vision for the prosecutorial function.

CNN is Wrong on Marc Lamont Hill
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Cornell law professor Joseph Margulies discusses a comment within a speech by Professor Marc Lamont Hill that sparked recent controversy and led to his termination as a political commentator at CNN. While critics claim Professor Hill’s speech implied a desire for the complete and total destruction of the State of Israel, Margulies argues that focusing on one line in a much longer speech is insufficient to glean the true meaning behind Hill’s message.

Preferences, Norms, and a President Who Can’t Tell the Difference
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Cornell law professor Joseph Margulies explains the difference between preferences and norms and argues that when social norms and personal preferences conflict, the norm must win. Margulies laments that President Donald Trump misunderstands the elemental distinction between social norms and personal preferences and accepts the norm as legitimate only to the extent it coincides with his personal views.

Especially After Pittsburgh
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In the wake of the tragedy in Pittsburg, which in some ways mirrors the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, Cornell law professor Joseph Margulies draws upon his experience representing Abu Zubaydah—the first person held in the CIA "enhanced interrogation program"—to provide an answer the question of how one can represent someone so many people hate. Margulies argues that the advocate’s highest calling is to insist upon humanity even when society is most determined to deny it.

The Future of the American City: Part Two
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In this second of a four-part series about a new approach to community well-being, Cornell law professor Joseph Margulies comments on the problem of displacement. Margulies points out that influx of capital is not necessarily bad for community well-being but distinguishes gentrification, which can be good, from displacement, which is harmful to communities.

About That Op-Ed: Ideological Consensus Trumps Political Demagoguery
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Cornell law professor Joseph Margulies explains how the recent anonymous op-ed published in The New York Times underscores the fundamental continuity between the Obama and Trump administrations on issues of national security. As Margulies observes, our approach to national security in the post-9/11 world has achieved hegemonic status, but we should hope that some future president might not share the same hegemonic view of transnational terror and instead may try to set national security on a different course.

The More Things Change: Donald Trump and the National Security State
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Cornell law professor Joseph Margulies describes the ways in which the United States has changed (and remained the same) in its approaches to national security, from President George W. Bush to President Barack Obama to President Donald Trump. Margulies refers to a column he wrote in January 2017 predicting the trajectory of national security under President Trump and points out that many of his predictions have come to pass.