Robert Bork

American lawyer and judge (1927–2012)

Robert Bork

Bork in 2005

Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
In office
February 9, 1982 – February 5, 1988
Appointed by| Ronald Reagan
Preceded by| Carl E. McGowan
Succeeded by| Clarence Thomas
United States Attorney General
Acting
October 20, 1973 – January 4, 1974
President| Richard Nixon
Preceded by| Elliot Richardson
Succeeded by| William B. Saxbe
35th Solicitor General of the United States
In office
March 21, 1973 – January 20, 1977
President|

* Richard Nixon
* Gerald Ford

Preceded by| Erwin Griswold
Succeeded by| Wade H. McCree
Personal details
Born|

Robert Heron Bork

(1927-03-01)March 1, 1927
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died| December 19, 2012(2012-12-19) (aged 85)
Arlington, Virginia, U.S.
Resting place| Fairfax Memorial Park
Spouses|

* Claire Davidson

(m. 1952; died 1980)​

* Mary Ellen Pohl

(m. 1982)​

Children| 3
Education| University of Chicago (BA, JD)
Military service
Allegiance|  United States
Branch/service|  United States Marine Corps
Rank|  Second lieutenant
Battles/wars| Korean War

This article is part of a series on

Conservatism
in the United States

Schools

* Compassionate
* Fiscal
* Fusion
* Libertarian
* Moderate
* Movement
* Neo
* Paleo
* Progressive
* Social
* Traditionalist

Principles

* American exceptionalism
* Anti-communism
* Christian nationalism
* Classical liberalism
* Constitutionalism
* Family values
* Judeo-Christian values
* Limited government
* Militarism
* Moral absolutism
* Natural law
* Patriotism
* Republicanism
* Right to bear arms
* Rule of law
* Tradition

History

* Conservative coalition
* Conservative Democrat
* Conservative Manifesto
* Loyalists
* McCarthyism
* Modern timeline
* New Right
* Old Right
* Overview
* Reagan Doctrine
* Reaganomics
* Stalwart Republicans
* Southern Agrarians

Intellectuals

* Babbitt
* Boorstin
* Bozell Jr.
* Buchanan
* Buckley
* Burnham
* Chambers
* Dolan
* Eliot
* George
* Goldberg
* Gottfried
* Hanson
* Hazony
* Hoppe
* Jaffa
* Kirk
* Kirkpatrick
* Kreeft
* Kristol (Bill)
* Kristol (Irving)
* Kuehnelt-Leddihn
* Laffer
* Lasch
* Lodge
* Lovecraft
* Lukacs
* Mansfield
* Meese
* Meyer
* Nisbet
* Nock
* Podhoretz
* Ransom
* Santayana
* Sowell
* Strauss
* Viereck
* Voegelin
* Washington
* Weaver
* Will

Politicians

* Abbott
* Adams
* Quincy Adams
* Agnew
* Buchanan
* Bush (George H. W.)
* Bush (George W.)
* Cantor
* Cheney (Dick)
* Cheney (Liz)
* Clay
* Cleveland
* Coolidge
* Cruz
* DeSantis
* Dole
* Fillmore
* Forbes
* Gingrich
* Goldwater
* Graham
* Haley
* Hamilton
* Harding
* Hawley
* Helms
* Hoover
* Huckabee
* Johnson
* Jordan
* Lodge
* Luce
* Massie
* McCain
* McCarthy (Joseph)
* McCarthy (Kevin)
* McConnell
* McDonald
* Meadows
* Nixon
* Palin
* Paul (Rand)
* Paul (Ron)
* Pence
* Quayle
* Reagan
* Romney
* Rubio
* Rumsfeld
* Ryan
* Santorum
* Scalise
* Scott (Rick)
* Scott (Tim)
* Sessions
* Seymour
* Sherman
* Taft (Robert)
* Taft (William)
* Thurmond
* Tilden
* Trump
* Vance
* Wolfowitz

Jurists

* Alito
* Barrett
* Bork
* Burger
* Butler
* Colson
* Goldsmith
* Gorsuch
* Harlan II
* Kavanaugh
* Leo
* Meese
* O'Connor
* Parker
* Rehnquist
* Scalia
* Sessions
* Sanford
* Sutherland
* Van Devanter
* Taft
* Thomas
* Yoo

Commentators

* Bannon
* Beck
* Bartiromo
* Bongino
* Breitbart
* Buchanan
* Buckley
* Carlson
* Coulter
* Crowder
* D'Souza
* Dreher
* Drudge
* Elder
* Grant
* Hannity
* Hodgetwins
* Huckabee
* Ingraham
* Jones
* Kirk
* Klavan
* Knowles
* Krauthammer
* Lahren
* Levin
* Limbaugh
* North
* Novak
* O'Reilly
* Owens
* Palin
* Peterson
* Podhoretz
* Prager
* Robertson
* Rubin
* Santorum
* Schlafly
* Shapiro
* Tatum
* Walsh
* Watters
* Weyrich
* White
* Will
* Woods

Activists

* Bozell III
* Dobson
* Falwell
* Feulner
* Gabriel
* Graham
* Horowitz
* Kirk
* LaHaye (Beverly)
* LaHaye (Tim)
* Owens
* Park
* Prager
* Reed
* Rufo
* Schlafly (Andrew)
* Schlafly (Phyllis)
* Shapiro
* Thiel
* Washington
* Weyrich
* Wurzelbacher

Works

* Democracy and Leadership (1924)
* Our Enemy, the State (1935)
* Ideas Have Consequences (1948)
* God and Man at Yale (1951)
* The Conservative Mind (1953)
* The Conscience of a Conservative (1960)
* A Choice Not an Echo (1964)
* Roots of American Order (1974)
* A Conflict of Visions (1987)
* The Closing of the American Mind (1987)
* A Republic, Not an Empire (1999)
* Hillbilly Elegy (2017)
* The Benedict Option (2017)
* The Right Side of History (2019)

Parties

Active

* American Party
* American Independent Party
* Conservative Party of New York State
* Constitution Party
* Reform Party
* Republican Party

Defunct

* Anti-Masonic Party
* Constitutional Union Party
* Federalist Party
* Law and Order Party of Rhode Island
* National Republican Party
* Native American Party
* Whig Party

Think tanks

* Acton Institute
* Alexis de Tocqueville Institution
* American Enterprise Institute
* American Compass
* Center for Security Policy
* Center for the National Interest
* Charles Koch Institute
* Claremont Institute
* Competitive Enterprise Institute
* David Horowitz Freedom Center
* Discovery Institute
* Ethics and Public Policy Center
* Family Research Institute
* Gatestone Institute
* Heartland Institute
* The Heritage Foundation
* Hoover Institution
* Hudson Institute
* Intercollegiate Studies Institute
* Leadership Institute
* Manhattan Institute
* Mises Institute
* Pacific Research Institute
* Project for the New American Century
* Ripon Society
* R Street Institute
* Rockford Institute
* State Policy Network
* Tax Foundation

Other organizations

Economics

* American Liberty League
* Americans for Tax Reform
* Club for Growth
* Freedom Partners
* FreedomWorks
* John M. Olin Foundation
* National Federation of Independent Business
* National Taxpayers Union
* Tea Party Patriots
* United States Chamber of Commerce

Gun rights

* Gun Owners of America
* National Rifle Association
* Second Amendment Caucus

Identity politics

* ACT for America
* Concerned Women for America
* Council of Conservative Citizens
* Independent Women's Forum
* Log Cabin Republicans

Nationalism

* Federation for American Immigration Reform
* Liberty Lobby
* NumbersUSA
* Oath Keepers

Religion

* Alliance Defending Freedom
* American Center for Law & Justice
* American Family Association
* The American TFP
* Arlington Group
* Chalcedon Foundation
* Christian Coalition of America
* Christian Voice
* Eagle Forum
* Family Research Council
* The Fellowship
* Focus on the Family
* Foundation for Moral Law
* Liberty Counsel
* Moral Majority
* National Organization for Marriage
* National Right to Life Committee
* Parents Television and Media Council
* Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America
* Thomas More Law Center
* Traditional Values Coalition

Watchdog groups

* Judicial Watch
* Media Research Center

Youth/student groups

* Turning Point USA
* Young America's Foundation
* Young Americans for Liberty
* Youth for Western Civilization

Miscellaneous

* American Conservative Union
* The Conservative Caucus
* Council for National Policy
* Faith and Freedom Coalition
* Freedom Caucus
* John Birch Society
* National Conservative PAC
* Philadelphia Society
* Republican Study Committee
* Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal

Other

* ConservAmerica
* Federalist Society
* Pacific Justice Institute
* Regnery Publishing
* Republican Main Street Partnership

Media

Newspapers

* Chicago Tribune
* Dallas Morning News
* The Epoch Times
* New Hampshire Union Leader
* New York Observer
* New York Post
* The Spotlight
* The Wall Street Journal (editorial board)
* The Washington Times

Journals

* American Affairs
* The American Conservative
* The American Spectator
* American Thinker
* City Journal
* Claremont Review of Books
* Commentary
* Chronicles
* The Dispatch
* First Things
* The Imaginative Conservative
* Jewish World Review
* Modern Age
* National Affairs
* The National Interest
* National Review
* The New American
* The New Criterion
* Newsmax
* Policy Review
* Spectator USA
* Washington Examiner
* The Weekly Standard

TV channels

* CBN
* Fox Business
* Fox News
* Newsmax TV
* One America News Network

Websites

* Babylon Bee
* Breitbart News
* The Bulwark
* Campus Reform
* Conservative Review
* Daily Caller
* Daily Signal
* Daily Wire
* Drudge Report
* The Federalist
* FrontPage Magazine
* Gateway Pundit
* Human Events
* Independent Journal Review
* InfoWars
* Jihad Watch
* LifeZette
* NewsBusters
* PJ Media
* Rare
* RedState
* Taki's Magazine
* Townhall
* TruthRevolt
* Twitchy
* Washington Examiner
* The Washington Free Beacon
* The Western Journal
* WorldNetDaily

Other

* Alternative media
* Blaze Media
* PragerU
* RSBN
* The Rubin Report
* Sinclair Broadcast Group

Variants and movements

* Asian and Pacific Islander
* Black
* Christian right
* Dark Enlightenment
* Female
* Green
* LGBT
* Libertarian Republicans
* Militia movement
* Patriot movement
* Radical Right
* Tea Party movement
* Trumpism
* Christian

See also

* American nationalism
* Barstool conservatism
* Bibliography
* Conservative talk radio
* CPAC
* Founding Fathers
* Libertarianism
* List
* Prominent people
* Political parties

* Conservatism portal
* United States portal

* v
* t
* e

Robert Heron Bork (March 1, 1927 – December 19, 2012)[1] was an American legal scholar who served as solicitor general of the United States from 1973 until 1977. A professor by training, he was acting United States Attorney General and a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1982 to 1988. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan nominated Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the Senate rejected his nomination after a contentious and highly publicized confirmation hearing.

Bork was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and received both his undergraduate and legal education at the University of Chicago. After working at the law firms of Kirkland & Ellis and Willkie Farr & Gallagher, he served as a professor at Yale Law School. He became a prominent advocate of originalism, calling for judges to adhere to the original understanding of the United States Constitution, and an influential antitrust scholar, arguing that consumers often benefited from corporate mergers and that antitrust law should focus on consumer welfare rather than on ensuring competition. Bork wrote several notable books, including a scholarly work titled The Antitrust Paradox[2] and a work of cultural criticism titled Slouching Towards Gomorrah.

From 1973 to 1977, he served as Solicitor General under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, successfully arguing several cases before the Supreme Court. During the October 1973 Saturday Night Massacre, Bork became acting U.S. Attorney General after his superiors in the U.S. Justice Department chose to resign rather than fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, who was investigating the Watergate scandal. Following an order from President Nixon, Bork fired Cox as his first assignment as Acting Attorney General. Bork served as Acting Attorney General until January 4, 1974, and was succeeded by Ohio U.S. Senator William B. Saxbe.[3]

In 1982, President Reagan appointed Bork to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In 1987, Reagan nominated Bork to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell. His nomination attracted unprecedented media attention and efforts by interest groups to mobilize opposition to his confirmation,[4] primarily due to his outspoken criticism of the Warren and Burger Courts and his role in the Saturday Night Massacre. His nomination was ultimately rejected in the Senate, 42–58, and the vacancy was filled by Anthony Kennedy. Bork resigned from his judgeship in 1988, taking up a career as an author. He served as a professor at various institutions, including the George Mason University School of Law. He advised presidential candidate Mitt Romney, and was a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and at the Hudson Institute.

## Early life and education[edit]

Bork was born on March 1, 1927, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[5] He was the only child of Harry Philip Bork Jr. (1897–1974), a steel company purchasing agent, and Elizabeth (née Kunkle; 1898–2004), a schoolteacher.[6] His father was of German and Irish ancestry, while his mother was of Pennsylvania German descent.[7]

Bork attended the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut.[8] He later recalled that he spent his time there "reading books and arguing with people".[5] He then attended the University of Chicago, where he was a member of the international social fraternity Phi Gamma Delta and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1948. He then attended the University of Chicago Law School, where he was an editor of the University of Chicago Law Review. He graduated in 1953 with a Juris Doctor and membership in the Order of the Coif and Phi Beta Kappa. While in law school, Bork took a two-year leave of absence to serve in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War.

## Academic career[edit]

After law school, Bork spent another year in military service, then entered private practice in 1954 as an associate at the law firm Kirkland & Ellis and Willkie Farr & Gallagher.[5][9] In 1962, Bork left private practice and joined the faculty of Yale Law School as a professor. He taught at Yale from 1962 to 1981, with a four-year break from 1973 to 1977 when he served as U.S. Solicitor General. Among Bork's students at Yale Law were Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Anita Hill, Robert Reich, Jerry Brown, Linda Greenhouse, John Bolton, Samuel Issacharoff, and Cynthia Estlund.[10][11]

As a law professor, Bork was best known for his 1978 book The Antitrust Paradox, in which he argued that consumers often benefited from corporate mergers, and that many contemporary readings of the antitrust laws were economically irrational and hurt consumers. He posited that the primary focus of antitrust laws should be on consumer welfare (consumer welfare in Bork's book includes both producer welfare and consumer welfare) rather than ensuring competition, for fostering competition of companies within an industry has a natural built-in tendency to allow, and even help, many poorly run companies with methodologies and practices that are both inefficient and expensive to continue in business simply for the sake of competition, to the detriment of both consumers and society. Bork's writings on antitrust law, with those of Richard Posner and other law and economics and Chicago School thinkers, have been influential in causing a shift in the Supreme Court's approach to antitrust laws since the 1970s. Bork also supports using anticompetitive practices within the text as useful business practices. (e.g. exclusive deals, mergers, price fixing, etc.) [12][13][2]

## Solicitor General[edit]

Bork served as Solicitor General in the U.S. Department of Justice from March 1973[14] until 1977. As Solicitor General, he argued several high-profile cases before the Supreme Court in the 1970s, including 1974's Milliken v. Bradley, where his brief in support of the State of Michigan was influential among the justices. Chief Justice Warren Burger called Bork the most effective counsel to appear before the court during his tenure. Bork hired many young attorneys as assistants who went on to have successful careers, including judges Danny Boggs and Frank H. Easterbrook as well as Robert Reich, later Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration.

### "Saturday Night Massacre"[edit]

Main article: Saturday Night Massacre

Bork greeting President Gerald Ford in 1975

On October 20, 1973, Solicitor General Bork was part of the "Saturday Night Massacre" when President Richard Nixon ordered the firing of Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox following Cox's request for tapes of his Oval Office conversations. Nixon initially ordered U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Cox. Richardson resigned rather than carry out the order. Richardson's top deputy, Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, also considered the order "fundamentally wrong"[15] and resigned, making Bork Acting Attorney General. When Nixon reiterated his order, Bork complied and fired Cox. Bork claimed he carried out the order under pressure from Nixon's attorneys and intended to resign immediately afterward, but was persuaded by Richardson and Ruckelshaus to stay on for the good of the Justice Department.[16] Bork remained Acting Attorney General until the appointment of William B. Saxbe on January 4, 1974.[17] In his posthumously published memoirs, Bork claimed that after he carried out the order, Nixon promised him the next seat on the Supreme Court,[16] though Bork did not take the offer seriously as he believed Watergate had left Nixon too politically compromised to appoint another justice. Nixon never had the chance to carry out his promise, as the next Supreme Court vacancy came after Nixon resigned and Gerald Ford assumed the presidency, with Ford instead nominating John Paul Stevens following the 1975 retirement of William O. Douglas. Ford planned to nominate Bork to replace William Colby as CIA Director, but his advisors convinced him to turn first to Edward Bennett Williams and then George H. W. Bush instead due to Bork's unpopularity and lack of experience in intelligence.[18]

## United States Circuit Judge[edit]

Bork was a circuit judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1982 to 1988. He was nominated by President Ronald Reagan on December 7, 1981, was confirmed via voice vote by the Senate on February 8, 1982,[19] and received his commission on February 9, 1982.

One of Bork's opinions while on the D.C. Circuit was Dronenburg v. Zech, 741 F.2d 1388,[20] decided in 1984. The case involved James L. Dronenburg, a sailor who had been administratively discharged from the United States Navy for engaging in homosexual conduct. Dronenburg argued that his discharge violated his right to privacy. His argument was rejected in an opinion written by Bork and joined by Antonin Scalia, in which Bork critiqued the line of Supreme Court cases upholding a right to privacy.[20]

In rejecting Dronenburg's suggestion for a rehearing en banc, the D.C. Circuit issued four separate opinions, including one by Bork (again joined by Scalia), who wrote that "no principle had been articulated [by the Supreme Court] that enabled us to determine whether appellant's case fell within or without that principle."[21]

In 1986, President Reagan considered nominating Bork to the Supreme Court after Chief Justice Warren Burger retired. Reagan ultimately nominated then-Associate Justice William Rehnquist to be the next Chief Justice and Bork's D.C. Circuit colleague, Antonin Scalia, for Rehnquist's Associate Justice seat. Some journalists and correspondents believed that if Reagan nominated Bork in 1986, Bork would have likely reached the Supreme Court, for the Senate at that time was led by the Republicans. However, the Senate Democrats might still have fought to defeat Bork in 1986, and the Republicans' Senate majority at the time was narrow (53–47), which implies that maybe Bork still would have been defeated in 1986, especially when the six Republicans[22] who voted against Bork's 1987 nomination were not first elected in the November 1986 Senate elections.[23]

## U.S. Supreme Court nomination[edit]

Main article: Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination

See also: Bork tapes

Bork (right) with President Ronald Reagan, 1987

President Reagan nominated Bork for associate justice of the Supreme Court on July 1, 1987, to replace retiring Associate Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. A hotly contested United States Senate debate over Bork's nomination ensued. Opposition was partly fueled by civil rights and women's rights groups, concerned about Bork's opposition to the authority claimed by the federal government to impose standards of voting fairness upon states (at his confirmation hearings for the position of solicitor general, he supported the rights of Southern states to impose a poll tax),[24] and his stated desire to roll back civil rights decisions of the Warren and Burger courts. Bork is one of four Supreme Court nominees (along with William Rehnquist, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh) to have been opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union.[25][26] Bork was criticized for being an "advocate of disproportionate powers for the executive branch of Government, almost executive supremacy",[15] most notably, according to critics, for his role in the Saturday Night Massacre.

Before Justice Powell's expected retirement on June 27, 1987, some Senate Democrats had asked liberal leaders to "form a 'solid phalanx' of opposition" if President Reagan nominated an "ideological extremist" to replace him, assuming it would tilt the court rightward.[27] Democrats warned Reagan there would be a fight if Bork were nominated.[28] Nevertheless, Reagan nominated Bork for Powell's seat on July 1, 1987.

Following Bork's nomination, Senator Ted Kennedy took to the Senate floor with a strong condemnation of him, declaring:

> Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is--and is often the only--protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy. ... The damage that President Reagan will do through this nomination, if it is not rejected by the Senate, could live on far beyond the end of his presidential term. President Reagan is still our president. But he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and the next generation of Americans. No justice would be better than this injustice.[29][30]

Bork responded, "There was not a line in that speech that was accurate."[31] In an obituary of Kennedy, The Economist remarked that Bork may well have been correct, "but it worked".[31] Bork contended in his book, The Tempting of America, that the brief prepared for then-Senator Joe Biden, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, "so thoroughly misrepresented a plain record that it easily qualifies as world class in the category of scurrility."[32] Opponents of Bork's nomination found the arguments against him justified, claiming that Bork believed the Civil Rights Act was unconstitutional, and he supported poll taxes, literacy tests for voting, mandated school prayer, and sterilization as a requirement for a job, while opposing free speech rights for non-political speech and privacy rights for gay conduct.[33] In 1988, an analysis published in The Western Political Quarterly of amicus curiae briefs filed by U.S. Solicitors General during the Warren and Burger courts found that during Bork's tenure in the position during the Nixon and Ford Administrations (1973–1977), Bork took liberal positions in the aggregate as often as Thurgood Marshall did during the Johnson Administration (1965–1967) and more often than Wade H. McCree did during the Carter Administration (1977–1981), in part because Bork filed briefs in favor of the litigants in civil rights cases 75 percent of the time.[34][35]

Bork (right) with Reagan, 1987

Television advertisements produced by People For the American Way and narrated by Gregory Peck attacked Bork as an extremist. Kennedy's speech successfully fueled widespread public skepticism of Bork's nomination. The rapid response to Kennedy's "Robert Bork's America" speech stunned the Reagan White House, and the accusations went unanswered for 2+1⁄2 months.[36]

During debate over his nomination, Bork's video rental history was leaked to the press. His video rental history was unremarkable, and included such harmless titles as A Day at the Races, Ruthless People, and The Man Who Knew Too Much. Writer Michael Dolan, who obtained a copy of the hand-written list of rentals wrote about it for the Washington City Paper.[37] Dolan justified accessing the list on the ground that Bork himself had stated that Americans had only such privacy rights as afforded them by direct legislation. The incident led to the enactment of the 1988 Video Privacy Protection Act.[38][39]

To pro-choice rights legal groups, Bork's originalist views and his belief that the Constitution did not contain a general "right to privacy" were viewed as a clear signal that, should he become a justice of the Supreme Court, he would vote to completely overrule the Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade. Accordingly, a large number of groups mobilized to press for Bork's rejection, and the 1987 Senate confirmation hearings became an intensely partisan battle.

On October 23, 1987, the Senate denied Bork's confirmation, with 42 senators voting in favor and 58 senators voting against. Two Democratic senators (David Boren of Oklahoma, and Fritz Hollings of South Carolina) voted in favor of his nomination, while six Republican senators (John Chafee of Rhode Island, Bob Packwood of Oregon, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, Robert Stafford of Vermont, John Warner of Virginia, and Lowell Weicker of Connecticut) voted against it.[40] His defeat in the Senate was the worst of any Supreme Court nominee since George Washington Woodward was defeated 20–29 in 1845, and the third-worst on record.

The seat to which Bork had been nominated went to Judge Anthony Kennedy, who was unanimously approved by the Senate, 97–0.[41] Bork, unhappy with his treatment in the nomination process, resigned his appellate court judgeship in 1988.[42]

### "Bork" as a verb[edit]

According to columnist William Safire, the first published use of "bork" as a verb was possibly in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution of August 20, 1987, two months prior to the final vote: "Let's just hope something enduring results for the justice-to-be, like a new verb: Borked."[43] A well known use of the verb "to bork" occurred in July 1991 at a conference of the National Organization for Women in New York City. Feminist Florynce Kennedy addressed the conference on the importance of defeating the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying: "We're going to bork him. We're going to kill him politically. This little creep, where did he come from?"[44] Thomas was confirmed after the most divisive confirmation hearing in Supreme Court history to that point.

In March 2002, the Oxford English Dictionary added an entry for the verb "bork" as U.S. political slang, with this definition: "To defame or vilify (a person) systematically, esp. in the mass media, usually to prevent his or her appointment to public office; to obstruct or thwart (a person) in this way."[45] Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh used the term during his own contentious Senate confirmation hearing testimony, when he stated: "The behavior of several of the Democratic members of this committee at my hearing a few weeks ago was an embarrassment. But at least it was just a good old-fashioned attempt at borking."[46]

## Later work[edit]

Following his failure to be confirmed, Bork resigned his seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and was for several years both a professor at George Mason University School of Law and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. He consulted for Netscape in the Microsoft litigation.

Bork later served as a fellow at the Hudson Institute, a visiting professor at the University of Richmond School of Law and a professor at Ave Maria School of Law in Naples, Florida.[47] In 2011, he worked as a legal adviser for the presidential campaign of Republican Mitt Romney.[48]

## Advocacy of originalism[edit]

Bork's official judicial portrait, painted by Peter Even Egeli

Bork is known by American conservatives for his theory that the best way to reconcile the role of the judiciary in the U.S. government against what he terms the "Madisonian" or "counter-majoritarian" dilemma of the judiciary making law without popular approval is for constitutional adjudication to be guided by the framers' original understanding of the United States Constitution.[49] Reiterating that it is a court's task to adjudicate and not to "legislate from the bench," he advocated that judges exercise restraint in deciding cases, emphasizing that the role of the courts is to frame "neutral principles" (a term borrowed from Herbert Wechsler) and not simply ad hoc pronouncements or subjective value judgments. Bork once said, "The truth is that the judge who looks outside the Constitution always looks inside himself and nowhere else."[50]

Bork built on the influential critiques of the Warren Court authored by Alexander Bickel, who criticized the Supreme Court under Earl Warren, alleging shoddy and inconsistent reasoning, undue activism, and misuse of historical materials. Bork's critique was harder-edged than Bickel's, writing: "We are increasingly governed not by law or elected representatives but by an unelected, unrepresentative, unaccountable committee of lawyers applying no will but their own." Bork's writings influenced judges such as Associate Justice Antonin Scalia and Chief Justice William Rehnquist of the U.S. Supreme Court, and sparked vigorous debate within legal academia about how to interpret the Constitution.

Some conservatives criticized Bork's approach. Conservative scholar Harry Jaffa criticized Bork (along with Rehnquist and Scalia) for failing to adhere to natural law principles, and therefore believing that the Constitution says nothing about abortion or gay rights (Jaffa believed that the Constitution prohibited these things.)[51][52] Robert P. George explained Jaffa's critique this way: "He attacks Rehnquist and Scalia and Bork for their embrace of legal positivism that is inconsistent with the doctrine of natural rights that is embedded in the Constitution they are supposed to be interpreting."[51] Jaffa attacked Bork as insufficiently conservative.[53] Bork, in turn, described adherents of natural law constitutionalism as fanatical.[54]

## Works and views[edit]

Bork wrote several books, including the two best-sellers The Tempting of America, about his judicial philosophy and his nomination battle, and Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline, in which he argued that the rise of the New Left in the 1960s in the U.S. undermined the moral standards necessary for civil society, and spawned a generation of intellectuals who oppose Western civilization. During the period these books were written, as well as most of his adult life, Bork was an agnostic, a fact used pejoratively behind the scenes by Southern Democrats when speaking to their evangelical constituents during his Supreme Court nomination process.[citation needed] Bork's 1971 Indiana Law Journal article "Neutral Principles and Some First Amendment Problems" has been identified as one of the most cited legal articles of all time.[55]

In The Tempting of America, p. 82, Bork explained his support for the Supreme Court's desegregation decision in Brown v. Board of Education:

> By 1954, when Brown came up for decision, it had been apparent for some time that segregation rarely if ever produced equality. Quite aside from any question of psychology, the physical facilities provided for blacks were not as good as those provided for whites. That had been demonstrated in a long series of cases… The Court's realistic choice, therefore, was either to abandon the quest for equality by allowing segregation or to forbid segregation in order to achieve equality. There was no third choice. Either choice would violate one aspect of the original understanding, but there was no possibility of avoiding that. Since equality and segregation were mutually inconsistent, though the ratifiers did not understand that, both could not be honored. When that is seen, it is obvious the Court must choose equality and prohibit state-imposed segregation. The purpose that brought the fourteenth amendment into being was equality before the law, and equality, not separation, was written into the law.

External videos

Interview with Bork on The Tempting of America, February 26, 1990, C-SPAN
Presentation by Bork on Slouching Towards Gomorrah, September 30, 1996, C-SPAN
Booknotes interview with Bork on Slouching Towards Gomorrah, December 1, 1996, C-SPAN
Presentation by Bork on Coercing Virtue, September 8, 2003, C-SPAN
After Words interview with Bork on A Time to Speak, January 17, 2009, C-SPAN

Bork opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, saying that the provisions within the Act which prohibited racial discrimination by public accommodations were based on a principle of "unsurpassed ugliness".[56][57] He came to repudiate his earlier views, saying in his 1987 confirmation hearing that the Civil Rights Act and other racial equality legislation of the 1960s "helped bring the nation together in ways which otherwise would not have occurred."[58] Bork opposed the 1965 Supreme Court ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut, which struck down a Connecticut Comstock Act of 1873 that prohibited the use of contraceptives for married couples.[59] Bork said the decision was "utterly specious", "unprincipled" and "intellectually empty".[59] Bork argued that the Constitution only protected speech that was "explicitly political", and that there were no free speech protections for "scientific, literary or that variety of expression we call obscene or pornographic."[60]

Bork was known for his disregard for the Ninth Amendment. When asked about his views on unenumerated constitutional rights during his confirmation hearings by Arizona Senator Dennis DeConcini, Bork famously compared the Ninth Amendment to an uninterpretable inkblot, too vague for judges to meaningfully enforce.[61][62][63]

Bork explains why he agreed to fire Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, 2008

In 1998, he reviewed High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton, conservative pundit Ann Coulter's book on impeaching Clinton, pointing out that "'High crimes and misdemeanors' are not limited to actions that are crimes under federal law."[64]

In 1999, Bork wrote an essay about Thomas More and attacked jury nullification as a "pernicious practice".[65] Bork once quoted More in summarizing his judicial philosophy.[66] In 2003, he published Coercing Virtue: The Worldwide Rule of Judges, an American Enterprise Institute book that includes Bork's philosophical objections to the phenomenon of incorporating international ethical and legal guidelines into the fabric of domestic law. In particular, he focused on problems he viewed as inherent in the federal judiciaries of Israel, Canada, and the United States— countries where he believes courts have exceeded their discretionary powers, discarded precedent and common law and instead substituted their own liberal judgment.

Bork advocated modifying the Constitution to allow Congressional supermajorities to override Supreme Court decisions, similar to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms' notwithstanding clause. Though Bork had many liberal critics, some of his arguments have earned criticism from conservatives as well. Although an opponent of gun control,[67] Bork denounced what he called the "NRA view" of the Second Amendment, something he described as the "belief that the constitution guarantees a right to Teflon-coated bullets." Instead, he argued that the Second Amendment merely guarantees a right to participate in a government militia, that its intent was to guarantee the right of militia membership, not an individual right to bear arms.[68][69] He is quoted as saying that the gun lobby's interpretation of the Second Amendment was intentional deception, not "law as integrity," and that states could technically pass a ban on assault weapons.[70][68]

Bork converted to Catholicism from Presbyterianism in 2003.[71]

In October 2005, Bork publicly criticized the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, saying her nomination was "a disaster on every level."[72][73]

On June 6, 2007, Bork filed suit in federal court in New York City against the Yale Club over an incident that had occurred a year earlier. Bork alleged that, while trying to reach the dais to speak at an event, he fell, because of the Yale Club's failure to provide any steps or handrail between the floor and the dais. (After his fall, he successfully climbed to the dais and delivered his speech.)[74] According to the complaint, Bork's injuries required surgery, immobilized him for months, forced him to use a cane, and left him with a limp.[75] In May 2008, Bork and the Yale Club reached a confidential, out-of-court settlement.[76]

On June 7, 2007, Bork with several others authored an amicus brief on behalf of Scooter Libby arguing that there was a substantial constitutional question regarding the appointment of the prosecutor in the case, reviving the debate that had previously resulted in the Morrison v. Olson decision.[77]

On December 15, 2007, Bork endorsed Mitt Romney for president. He repeated this endorsement on August 2, 2011, during Romney's second campaign for the White House.

A 2008 issue of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy collected essays in tribute to Bork. Authors included Frank H. Easterbrook, George Priest, and Douglas Ginsburg.

## Personal life[edit]

Bork was married to Claire Davidson from 1952 until her death from cancer in 1980. They had a daughter, Ellen, and two sons, Robert Bork Jr. and Charles Bork. In 1982, he married Mary Ellen Pohl,[78] a Catholic religious sister turned activist.[79] Bork Jr. is a prominent conservative activist who is currently president of the Antitrust Education Project.[80]

Bork died of complications from heart disease at the Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Virginia, on December 19, 2012.[81][42][82] Following his death, Scalia referred to Bork as "one of the most influential legal scholars of the past 50 years" and "a good man and a loyal citizen". He is interred at Fairfax Memorial Park.

## Selected writings[edit]

* Bork, Robert H. (1971). "Neutral Principles and Some First Amendment Problems". Indiana Law Journal. 47 (1): 1–35.
* — (1978). The Antitrust Paradox. New York: Free Press. ISBN 0-465-00369-9; 2nd edition (1993).
* — (1990). The Tempting of America. New York: Free Press. ISBN 0-684-84337-4.
* — (1996). Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline. New York: ReganBooks. ISBN 0-06-039163-4.
* — (2003). Coercing Virtue: The Worldwide Rule of Judges. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute Press. ISBN 0-8447-4162-0.
* — (ed.) (2005). A Country I Do Not Recognize: The Legal Assault on American Values. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press. ISBN 0-8179-4602-0.
* — (2008) A Time to Speak: Selected Writings and Arguments. Wilmington, DL: ISI Books. ISBN 978-1-933859-68-2
* — (2013) Saving Justice: Watergate, the Saturday Night Massacre, and Other Adventures of a Solicitor General. New York: Encounter Books. ISBN 978-1-59403-681-1

## See also[edit]

* Aaron Director
* Originalism
* Ronald Reagan Supreme Court candidates
* Swiftboating
* Unsuccessful nominations to the Supreme Court of the United States

Portals:

* Biography
* United States
* Law
* Politics
* Conservatism

## References[edit]

1. ^ O'Neill, Johnathan (1999). "Bork, Robert H.". American National Biography (online ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.21596. (subscription required)
2. ^ a b Bork, Robert H. (1978). The antitrust paradox: a policy at war with itself. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-00369-3.
3. ^ "Bork: Nixon Offered Next High Court Vacancy in '73". Yahoo! News. February 25, 2013.
4. ^ Meyers III, William G. (Winter 1990). "The Role of Special Interest Groups in the Supreme Court Nomination of Robert Bork" (PDF). Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly. 17 (2).
5. ^ a b c Bronner, Ethan (December 19, 2012). "A Conservative Whose Supreme Court Bid Set the Senate Afire". The New York Times.
6. ^ "Paid Notice: Deaths Bork, Elizabeth Kunkle". The New York Times. January 18, 2004. Archived from the original on May 24, 2013.
7. ^ McDannald, Alexander Hopkins (February 1, 1989). The Americana Annual, 1988: An Encyclopedia of the Events of 1987; Yearbook ... Americana Corporation. ISBN 978-0-7172-0219-5. Retrieved December 20, 2012.
8. ^ Bronner 2007, p. 43
9. ^ "Nomination of Robert H. Bork to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States".
10. ^ "Special Counsel Investigation". Washington Journal. C-SPAN. August 11, 1998.
11. ^ Frey, Jennifer (2005). "Introducing Samuel Issacharoff". The Law School Magazine. Archived from the original on May 1, 2011. Retrieved December 20, 2012.
12. ^ Gerhart, Peter M. (1982). "The Supreme Court and Antitrust Analysis: The (Near) Triumph of the Chicago School". The Supreme Court Review. 1982: 319–349. doi:10.1086/scr.1982.3109560. JSTOR 3109560. S2CID 147003503.
13. ^ Fox, Eleanor M. (1987). "The Battle for the Soul of Antitrust". California Law Review. 75 (3): 917–923. doi:10.2307/3480656. JSTOR 3480656.
14. ^ "Nixon's Men: All Work and No Frills; President's Men: All Work and No Frills", The New York Times. March 21, 1973.
15. ^ a b Noble, Kenneth B. (July 26, 1987). "New Views Emerge of Bork's Role in Watergate Dismissals". The New York Times. Archived from the original on May 24, 2015. Retrieved June 4, 2012.
16. ^ a b "Bork: Nixon Offered Next High Court Vacancy in '73". Yahoo News. ABC News. February 25, 2013. Archived from the original on March 1, 2013.
17. ^ "William Bart Saxbe". The United States Department of Justice. Archived from the original on April 7, 2010.
18. ^ Wilentz, Sean (2008). The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008 (1 ed.). New York, NY: Harper. ISBN 978-0-06-074480-9. OCLC 182779124.
19. ^ "PN891 – Robert H. Bork – The Judiciary". 1982. Retrieved February 15, 2016.
20. ^ a b DRONENBURG v. ZECH, 741 F.2d 1388 (D.C. Cir. August 17, 1984).
21. ^ DRONENBURG v. ZECH, 746 F.2d 1579 (D.C. Cir. November 15, 1984).
22. ^ John Chafee, Bob Packwood, Arlen Specter, Robert Stafford, John Warner, and Lowell Weicker.
23. ^ Somin, Ilya (December 20, 2012). "The Volokh Conspiracy". Retrieved December 20, 2012.
24. ^ Buchanan, John H.; Kropp, Arthur J. (October 23, 1987). "Bork Hearings Showed How Democracy Works; A Very Small Poll Tax". The New York Times. Retrieved December 20, 2012.
25. ^ "ACLU Opposes Nomination of Judge Alito". American Civil Liberties Union. Archived from the original on April 6, 2007. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
26. ^ "ACLU spending more than $1M to oppose Kavanaugh". Politico. October 2018. Retrieved October 1, 2018.
27. ^ Fuerbringer, Jonathan (June 30, 1987). "Byrd Says Bork Nomination Would Face Senate Trouble". The New York Times. Retrieved February 14, 2016.
28. ^ Manuel Miranda (August 24, 2005). "The Original Borking". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on October 28, 2005. Retrieved August 10, 2007.
29. ^ "34. The Bork Nomination". Eightiesclub.tripod.com. Archived from the original on January 6, 2006. Retrieved June 20, 2010.
30. ^ Broder, John M. (August 27, 2009). "Edward M. Kennedy, Senate Stalwart, Is Dead at 77". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 5, 2015. Retrieved April 10, 2010.
31. ^ a b "A hell of a senator". The Economist. August 29, 2009. Archived from the original on August 30, 2009.
32. ^ Damon W. Root (September 9, 2008). "Straight Talk Slowdown". Reason. Retrieved October 26, 2008.
33. ^ ""Borking," explained: why a failed Supreme Court nomination in 1987 matters". Vox.com. September 26, 2018. Archived from the original on July 8, 2019. Retrieved July 20, 2019.
34. ^ Segal, Jeffrey A. (1988). "Amicus Curiae Briefs by the Solicitor General during the Warren and Burger Courts: A Research Note". The Western Political Quarterly. 41 (1). SAGE Publications: 135–144. doi:10.2307/448461. JSTOR 448461.
35. ^ O'Connor, Karen (1983). "The Amicus Curiae Role of the U.S. Solicitor General in Supreme Court Litigation". Judicature. 66: 256–264. Retrieved August 30, 2019.
36. ^ Gail Russell Chaddock (July 7, 2005). "Court nominees will trigger rapid response". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved August 10, 2007.
37. ^ "The Bork Tapes Saga". The American Porch. Archived from the original on October 9, 2007. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
38. ^ "Video Privacy Protection Act".
39. ^ Peterson, Andrea (April 28, 2014). "How Washington's last remaining video rental store changed the course of privacy law". The Washington Post. Retrieved January 8, 2018.
40. ^ "Senate's Roll-Call On the Bork Vote". The New York Times. Associated Press. October 24, 1987.
41. ^ Greenhouse, Linda. Becoming Justice Blackmun. Times Books. 2005. Page 189.
42. ^ a b "Judge Robert H. Bork, conservative icon, dies at 85". The Washington Post. December 19, 2012.
43. ^ Safire, William (May 27, 2001). "On Language: The End of Minority". The New York Times Magazine. p. 12\. Document ID 383739671, ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851–2004) database. "judge fights 'borking' needed to stop court-packing?"
44. ^ Fund, John (January 8, 2001). "The Borking Begins". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
45. ^ v. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/bork Archived August 27, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
46. ^ "Kavanaugh hearing: Transcript". Bloomberg Government. Retrieved October 17, 2018.
47. ^ "History Timeline – Ave Maria School of Law". Ave Maria School of Law. Archived from the original on March 12, 2016. Retrieved March 11, 2016.
48. ^ Grove, Lloyd (October 17, 2011). "Robert Bork's Romney Connection". Newsweek. Archived from the original on November 3, 2011. Retrieved December 20, 2012.
49. ^ Mark, Graber (December 24, 2012). "Robert Bork, the original originalist". The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved April 22, 2021.
50. ^ Dennis J. Goldford (2005). The American Constitution and the Debate Over Originalism. Cambridge University Press. p. 174\. ISBN 978-0-521-84558-8. Retrieved October 26, 2008.[permanent dead link]
51. ^ a b Linstrum, Erik (September 30, 2003). "Political scholar Jaffa defends moral foundation of government". The Daily Princetonian. Archived from the original on June 5, 2009. Retrieved December 11, 2010.
52. ^ Pulliam, Mark. "Bad Originalism". Misrule of Law.
53. ^ Jaffa, Harry V. (1999). Storm Over The Constitution. Lexington Books. ISBN 978-0-7391-0041-7.
54. ^ Bork, Robert H. (January 2003). "Constitutional Persons". First Things.
55. ^ Shapiro, Fred R.; Pearse, Michelle (2012). "The Most-Cited Law Review Articles of All Time". Michigan Law Review. 110: 1483–1520.
56. ^ "Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork distanced himself Wednesday from…". UPI. Retrieved September 29, 2018.
57. ^ Dorf, Michael C. (March 27, 2014). "A Principle of Unsurpassed Ugliness". The Huffington Post. Retrieved September 29, 2018.
58. ^ Hearings Before the Committee on the Judiciary United States Senate One Hundredth Congress First Session on the Nomination of Robert H. Bork to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States — Part 1 of 5. Internet Archive (Report). U.S. Government Printing Office. 1989. p. 153\. J–100–64. Retrieved February 12, 2024.
59. ^ a b Taylor, Stuart Jr. (July 27, 1987). "Bork at Yale: collegues [sic] recall a friend but a philosophical foe". The New York Times. Retrieved September 29, 2018.
60. ^ "Judge Bork vs. Himself: Evolution of His Views". The New York Times. September 21, 1987. Retrieved September 29, 2018.
61. ^ Ward, Ian (February 23, 2022). "Joe Biden's Secret Constitutional Weapon". POLITICO. Retrieved December 27, 2022.
62. ^ "About the Law Library | Law Library of Congress | Research Centers | Library of Congress" (PDF). Library of Congress. February 3, 2008. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 3, 2008. Retrieved December 27, 2022.
63. ^ "Bork Nomination Day 1, Part 1 | C-SPAN.org". www.c-span.org. Retrieved December 27, 2022.
64. ^ Bork, Robert H. (1998). "Thinking the unthinkable". The Wall Street Journal. 232 (46).
65. ^ "Thomas More for Our Season". Leadership U. Archived from the original on August 19, 2000. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
66. ^ "Regula Pro Lege, Si Deficit Lex: The Latin Sapience of High Judges". The Federal Bar Association. Archived from the original on November 19, 2016. Retrieved November 17, 2016.
67. ^ "Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline". The Mises Review. Archived from the original on August 25, 2012. Retrieved January 1, 2008.
68. ^ a b Luther, Claudia (March 15, 1989). "Lectures at UCI With Rose Bird : Bork Says State Gun Laws Constitutional". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on August 13, 2020. Retrieved December 27, 2022.
69. ^ Life Magazine, Vol 14, No. 13.
70. ^ Herz, Andrew (1995). "Gun Crazy: Constitutional False Consciousness and Dereliction of Dialogic Responsibility". Boston University Law Review. 75. Archived from the original on June 5, 2023 - via HeinOnline.
71. ^ "Judge Bork Converts to the Catholic Faith". National Catholic Register. Archived from the original on October 4, 2003. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
72. ^ "Bush says Miers has experience, leadership". The Mercury News. Archived from the original on October 28, 2005. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
73. ^ Robert H. Bork, "Slouching Towards Miers", The Wall Street Journal, October 19, 2005, p. A12.
74. ^ "Robert Bork Cites 'Wanton' Negligence in Suing Yale Club for $1-Million". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
75. ^ "Robert H. Bork v. The Yale Club of New York City" (PDF). United States Court Southern District of New York. Archived (PDF) from the original on November 26, 2007. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
76. ^ Zambito, Thomas (May 9, 2008). "Supreme nominee Bork settles Yale suit". Daily News. New York. Archived from the original on May 12, 2008. Retrieved June 20, 2010.
77. ^ "United States of America v. Lewis Libby" (PDF). United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 25, 2007. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
78. ^ Vile 2003, p. 111
79. ^ Beckwith, David (September 21, 1987). "A Long and Winding Odyssey". Time. Archived from the original on February 4, 2013. Retrieved March 20, 2009.
80. ^ Bork Jr., Robert H. (July 12, 2021). "Opinion | Joe Biden's Antitrust Paradox: Where's the Consumer Welfare?". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved April 26, 2022.
81. ^ Bronner, Ethan (December 19, 2012). "Robert H. Bork, Conservative Jurist, Dies at 85". The New York Times. Retrieved December 17, 2012.
82. ^ Memmott, Mark (December 19, 2012). "Robert Bork, Who Was Turned Down For Supreme Court, Dies". NPR. Retrieved December 20, 2012.

### Bibliography[edit]

* Bronner, Ethan (2007). Battle for Justice: How the Bork Nomination Shook America. New York, New York, United States: Sterling. ISBN 978-1-4027-5227-8.
* Vile, John R. (2003). Great American Judges: An Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, California, United States: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1-57607-989-9.

## External links[edit]

Wikiquote has quotations related to Robert Bork.

Look up bork in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Robert Bork's America

* The Legacy of Robert H. Bork, Retro Report
* Robert Heron Bork at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a publication of the Federal Judicial Center.
* A Conversation with Judge Robert H. Bork – Event Video, Federalist Society, 2007-06-26
* Appearances on C-SPAN
* Congressional Record: Floor Vote on Bork Nomination
* Think Tank Biography: Robert Bork
* Bork, Robert H. (1996) Our Judicial Oligarchy . 1996 First Things November.
* Robert Bork at IMDb
* Robert Bork at Find a Grave

Legal offices

Preceded by

Erwin Griswold

|  Solicitor General of the United States
1973–1977  | Succeeded by

Daniel Mortimer Friedman
Acting

Preceded by

Elliot Richardson

|  United States Attorney General
Acting
1973  | Succeeded by

William B. Saxbe

Preceded by

Carl E. McGowan

|  Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
1982–1988  | Succeeded by

Clarence Thomas

* v
* t
* e

United States Solicitors General

* Bristow
* Phillips
* Goode
* Jenks
* Chapman
* Taft
* Aldrich
* Maxwell
* Conrad
* Richards
* Hoyt
* Bowers
* Lehmann
* Bullitt
* Davis
* King
* Frierson
* Beck
* Mitchell
* Hughes
* Thacher
* Biggs
* Reed
* Jackson
* Biddle
* Fahy
* McGrath
* Perlman
* Cummings
* Sobeloff
* Rankin
* Cox
* Marshall
* Griswold
* Bork
* McCree
* Lee
* Fried
* Starr
* Days
* Dellinger
* Waxman
* Underwood
* Olson
* Clement
* Garre
* Kneedler
* Kagan
* Katyal
* Verrilli
* Gershengorn
* Francisco
* Wall
* Francisco
* Wall
* Prelogar
* Fletcher
* Prelogar

Acting officeholders shown in italics

* v
* t
* e

Chicago school of economics

Founders|

* Frank Knight
* Henry Calvert Simons
* Jacob Viner
* Theodore Schultz
* George Stigler

Monetarism|

* Milton Friedman
* Anna Schwartz
* Karl Brunner
* Phillip D. Cagan
* Harry G. Johnson
* Allan H. Meltzer
* David Laidler
* Scott Sumner

New economic history|

* Douglass North
* Robert Fogel
* Robert M. Townsend

New social economics|

* Jacob Mincer
* Gary Becker
* James Heckman
* Thomas Sowell
* Sherwin Rosen
* Kevin M. Murphy
* John A. List
* Sudhir Venkatesh
* Steven Levitt
* Roland Fryer

Public choice school|

* James M. Buchanan
* Gordon Tullock
* Randall Holcombe
* Anthony Downs
* William A. Niskanen
* Bryan Caplan

Law and economics|

* Ronald Coase
* Aaron Director
* William Landes
* Richard Posner
* Richard Epstein
* Robert Bork
* Frank H. Easterbrook

Business and finance|

* Harry Markowitz
* Myron Scholes
* Merton Miller
* Julian Lincoln Simon
* Eugene Fama
* Kenneth French
* Campbell Harvey
* Lars Peter Hansen

* v
* t
* e

Jurisprudence

* Index

Legal theory|

* Critical legal studies
* Comparative law
* Economic analysis
* Legal norms
* International legal theory
* Legal history
* Philosophy of law
* Sociology of law

Philosophers|

* Alexy
* Aquinas
* Aristotle
* Austin
* Bastiat
* Beccaria
* Bentham
* Blackstone
* Bobbio
* Bork
* Cardozo
* Durkheim
* Dworkin
* Ehrlich
* Finnis
* Fuller
* Grotius
* Gurvitch
* Habermas
* Haller
* Han
* Hart
* Hegel
* Hobbes
* Hägerström
* Jellinek
* Jhering
* Kant
* Kelsen
* Leoni
* Llewellyn
* Luhmann
* Marx
* Müller
* Nussbaum
* Olivecrona
* Pashukanis
* Perelman
* Petrażycki
* Posner
* Pound
* Pufendorf
* Radbruch
* Rawls
* Raz
* Reinach
* Renner
* Ross
* Rumi
* Savigny
* Scaevola
* Schmitt
* Shang
* Suárez
* Stahl
* Unger
* Voegelin
* Walzer
* Weber

Theories|

* Analytical jurisprudence
* Deontological ethics
* Fundamental theory of Catholic canon law
* German historical school
* Interpretivism
* Legal moralism
* Legal positivism
* Legal realism
* Legalism
* Libertarian theories of law
* Natural law
* Paternalism
* Utilitarianism
* Virtue jurisprudence

Concepts|

* Dharma
* Fa
* Judicial interpretation
* Justice
* Law without the state
* Legal system
* Li
* Question of law
* Rational-legal authority
* Usul al-Fiqh

* Category
* Law portal
* Philosophy portal
* WikiProject Law
* WikiProject Philosophy
* changes

Authority control databases

International|

* FAST
* ISNI
* VIAF

National|

* France
* BnF data
* Germany
* Israel
* Belgium
* United States
* Czech Republic
* Korea
* Netherlands
* Poland

Other|

* NARA
* SNAC
* IdRef

*[m.]: married
*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template