February 27, 2024
FSU Law students engaged in a lively and candid conversation with Alan Dershowitz in the seminar Civil Liberties in the Digital Age, an offering that is part of the seminar series by the new Institute for Law, Technology and Innovation.
Dershowitz, who is Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law Emeritus at Harvard Law School, discussed his forthcoming book on “the preventive state.” Students in the seminar had the opportunity to read a portion of Dershowitz’s unpublished manuscript.
Dershowitz also drew upon his six decades as an academic and attorney to answer class participants’ questions on free speech, social media censorship, discourse on campus, the intersection of law and psychiatry, the moral and ethical dimensions of representing certain clients, the courts’ handling of habeas corpus, and the role of scientific evidence in legal proceedings, among other subjects. Dershowitz put forward a number of provocative ideas and prompted the sort of animated conversation for which he is well-known.
FSU President Emeritus John Thrasher also participated in the seminar discussion. Dershowitz commended Thrasher on his tenure as university president, as well as FSU’s success protecting free speech on campus. FSU Law Visiting Professor Jules Coleman participated in the seminar as well, engaging in a spirited exchange with Dershowitz on some of the philosophical elements of free speech.
“We are so grateful that Professor Dershowitz came to speak to us about his new book on the preventive state,” says Dr. Aaron Voloj Dessauer, the seminar’s instructor and the executive director of the Institute for Law, Technology and Innovation. “While many know Professor Dershowitz as an eminent litigator and public intellectual, it is often forgotten that he was among the first legal academics to write about the challenge of predicting and preventing cataclysmic harms without granting too much power to government. His early scholarship dating back to the 1960s is still relevant in today’s time as we continue to seek a balance between safety and liberty. It was an honor that he would come to speak to our students today and share with us an unpublished manuscript of what will be his magnum opus on this important issue.”
Dershowitz’s visit is part of the new Civil Liberties in the Digital Age which features accomplished guest speakers and covers such topics as law and technology in the workplace, artificial intelligence and deepfakes, gene editing, and data and information privacy.
