George Washington Univ. Law School,
2000 H Street, N.W., Stockton Hall 402
Washington, DC 20052
(202) 994-7229 Fax: (202) 994-1684
SEND EMAIL: LINK
B.S.E.E., M.I.T.,
J.D., Columbia University,
Sc.D., Thomas Jefferson University
OTHER
LINKS:
Major Professional Accomplishments
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
Volleyball: Club, GWU IM, Cruises,
In
Wikipedia (contains errors)
Some
Press Releases (PR-Inside)
In Publications (Lexis)
in 2006
Among "Noted Faculty" at GWU Law
Role
in Supreme Court SCRAP Case
SOME STREAMING VIDEO:
Smokers' Rights, Civil Lights?,
The Daily Show, [06/06/02]
Why
Forcing Students Into Same Sex Dorms is Illegal Sex Discrimination, America
Live (Fox News) [06/23/11] and America's
News HQ (Fox News) [07/17/11]
Cavuto "Loses
It" Debating Banzhaf Over
McDonald's Fox
News [05/19/11]
Defending
Right of Companies Not to Hire Smokers, Fox
& Friends (on Fox News) [01/22/10]
Legislating
Lifestyles or Injecting Personal Responsibility into Health Care?, The
Dr. Nancy [Snyderman] Show on MSNBC [09/16/09]
Charging
Obese Workers More for Health Insurance, TODAY
SHOW [10/11/09]
Retire
Ronald McDonald, or Kill Him Like We Killed Joe Camel, Neil
Cavoto
Show, Fox News
The
"Food Police," "Stossel" on Fox Business News Segment 2 Segment 3
[01/28/10]
First
Lady's Obesity Plan is Weak, MSNBC-TV and NEWSY [02/11/10]
New
Nicotine Vaccine for Smokers, WUSA-TV,
Channel 9 in DC [11/24/09]
On-Air Water-Throwing Incident Seen Round the World Morton Downey Show
Why
There's No Such Thing As a Right to Smoke, Morton Downey
1988
The
Cheeseburger Bill, MSNBC
[9/4/08]
Potential
Potty Problems at Inauguration, "Morning
Joe" on MSNBC-TV[1/19/08]
Fat
Law Suits, Scarborough
Country on MSNBC-TV [9/7/08]
Government
Regulation of Smoking (on Airplanes), American Debate
[1984]
Banzhaf
in a New Movie - "Waiting For My Real Life" link
Tobacco
Debate, Charlie
Rose Show [7/13/94]
Debate on Cigarette Advertising Directed to Children,
20/20, 1983 ABC-TV
Evening News
Battle of the Widening Bulge, Eye on American, CBS-TV
Evening News, [08/08/02]
Lawyer Preps for Fast Food Fight, CBS-TV Evening News [11/03/03]
Smoking David Susskind Show
[1986]
Law Suit Against McDonald's, Canadian
TV [03/23/02] link
Protecting Children From
Secondhand Tobacco Smoke [11/29/06] TODAY Show, NBC-TV
Why Do We Crave Unhealthy
Foods?: Addiction [11/30/06] CBS-TV Evening News
Right of Companies
to Have a Smokefree Work Force FOX NEWS: Mike and
Juliet
Who's to blame for
overweight epidemic? [5/21/07] Channel 14
INTERESTING AUDIO
Banzhaf on the Mathematics of Voting and
Elections, [05/21/10] BBC's More or Less [time = 4;15-8:30]
Banzhaf on the Mathematics of Potty Parity, [06/25/10], BBC's More or Less [time = 20.50-26.00]
Check back soon for more links
John F. Banzhaf III [pronounced Banz-half] is a nationally-known professor and practitioner of public interest law, and a former scientist, engineer and inventor. [See links below and in left column]
Prof. John Banzhaf has been called the "Ralph Nader
of the Tobacco Industry," "the Ralph Nader of Junk Food," "The Man Who Is Taking Fat to
Court" [for using
legal action to fight OBESITY], "Mr. Anti-Smoking," "One of
the Most Vocal and Effective Anti-Tobacco Attorneys," a "Radical
Feminist," a "Man Who Lives by his Writs," the "Father of Potty Parity,"
"the Area's Best-Known 'Radical' Law Professor," and an "Entrepreneur of
Litigation, [and] a Trial Lawyer's Trial Lawyer."
He has also been
hailed as "one of the "100 Most Powerful People in
Washington," "The Man Big Tobacco and Now Fast Food Love to
Hate," the lawyer "Who's Leading the Battle Against Big Fat,"
"a
Driving Force Behind the Lawsuits That Have Cost Tobacco Companies
Billions of Dollars," "the Renowned and Often Flamboyant
Public-Interest Law Professor at George Washington University," "the
Fastest Legal Gun in the East," the "Dean
of Public Interest Lawyers," "a Major Crusader Against Big
Tobacco and Now Among Those Targeting the Food Industry," and "the law professor who
masterminded litigation against the tobacco industry." 
He's also been called — often
by his enemies — a "Legal Terrorist," the
"Osama
bin Laden of Torts," a "Legal Bomb-Thrower," and a
"Legal Flamethrower,"
and he has frequently been attacked on web sites (which are often
inaccurate) [see, e.g., BanzhafWatch.com]
by those who opposed his activities — clear indications,
he says, that his many targets fear him and his legal actions.
As a young lawyer, John Banzhaf brought a legal
action which required broadcast stations to provide hundreds of
millions of dollars of free broadcast time for anti-smoking messages —
an action which resulted in the first ever decline in cigarette
consumption, something even the 1964
Surgeon General's Report was not able to achieve.
Subsequently, after founding Action on Smoking and
Health (ASH) to serve as the legal-action arm of the antismoking
community [ About ASH ], he
helped drive cigarette commercials off the air, and started the
nonsmokers' rights movement by first getting no-smoking sections —
and then smoking bans — on airplanes and in many other
public places.
Banzhaf and ASH have played a major role in the war
on smoking and for nonsmokers' rights, including promoting and helping
to mastermind law suits against the tobacco industry, in defending the
legal rights of nonsmokers in hundreds of legislative, administrative,
and judicial proceedings, and in helping to pass, implement, and
enforce the first world antismoking and nonsmokers' rights treaty [nosmoking.ws].
More recently he helped ban cigarette
advertising in several European countries, and to ban smoking outdoors,
in homes and cars where foster children are present, to protect
children involved in custody disputes, etc. [New Frontiers For
Nonsmokers]. His contributions to the war on smoking have
been very widely recognized [ What Others Have Said About ASH]
He and his students are widely known for bringing hundreds of innovative public interest legal actions including one of the leading Supreme Court environmental law suits, persuading the F.T.C. to require "corrective advertising," preventing dry cleaners from charging women more to launder their shirts ," suing former Vice President Spiro T. Agnew to recover the bribes he received, safety standards for school buses, clearer warnings on birth control pills, smoke detectors in airplane lavatories, auto bumper standards, new police procedures for dealing with spousal abuse, the end to a scheme to defraud veterans, greater roles for blacks on television, clearer labeling of foods, and many other victories.
Prof. Banzhaf has also achieved many additional
public interest legal victories, including: forcing the Cosmos
Club to admit women, using the threat of a civil law suit to pressure
Durham County DA Mike Nifong to step down and drop rape charges against
three Duke lacrosse players, helping to get the first woman admitted to
formerly all-male state-supported military academies, etc.
John Banzhaf has discussed and/or debated smoking and obesity — as well a wide variety of legal issues, including self defense, governmental corruption, sex discrimination, auto and food safety, jury nullification, Potty Parity, drug testing, various constitutional issues, etc. — on all of the major television network news programs, as well as on Face the Nation, McNeil Lehrer, Nightline, Oprah Winfrey, Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, The O'Reilly Factor, Nightwatch, Crossfire, Fox & Friends, Technopolitics, CNN News, Larry King, Hannity & Colmes, Phil Donohue, the Abrams Report, American Morning With Paula Zahn, Morning Joe, DaySide with Linda Vester, Lou Dobbs Tonight, Tucker, and many other national programs both here and in other countries, in Op-Ed pieces, and in numerous programs and publications both here and around the world. More recently he appeared on The Daily Show, and the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.
After graduating from Stuyvesant
High School in New York City, link2,
Professor Banzhaf received his undergraduate degree in Electrical
Engineering from M.I.T. For a time before entering law school he
worked as a scientist and engineer, writing several published technical
papers, and obtaining two U.S. patents; one on a Directional
Antenna for Space Satellites, and another (for which he wrote the
patent application) on an Electronic
Multiplying System. At the Columbia University Law School, he
was an Editor of the Law Review, obtained the first copyright ever
registered on a computer program [link],
helped
persuade
Congress
to
amend
the
copyright
statute
to
include
data
processing,
and
developed
a
new
mathematical
technique
— now termed the "Banzhaf Power
Index" — used by Banzhaf and others for determining
voting power in complex
voting
systems including weighted
voting, multi-member electoral districts, the Electoral College, the EU Constitution1, EU
Constitution2, and in other situations (e.g., convex geometries, on
SSRN)
Professor Banzhaf serves as the Faculty Advisor for the GWU
Volleyball Club/Teams [ Club, GWU IM, Cruises,] and is a member
of the World Technology Network [http://www.wtn.net].
On campus, he played a role in forcing George Washington
University to discontinue its Pinkerton-operated anonymous hotline [link], to revise its
sexual harassment policy, and to
limit smoking on campus. Link1, Link2 .
Among the best known attorney license plates in the U.S. are
those which belong to public interest law professor John Banzhaf.
They have gone through a
wide variety of different iterations - e.g., "Sue Bast," "Su
Bastrds," etc. - which all stand for “Sue the Bastards.”
Not only have they appeared in
many media reports, but they were brought up on CNN, in a Congressional
Hearing, and in the official Congressional Committee Report, all in an
effort to embarrass him. P.S.: it didn’t work, and the
“cheeseburger bill” against which he testified never passed. SEE:
Law Professor John Banzhaf's "SUE THE
BASTARDS" License Plates Link
■ Legal Threat Bubbling
Beneath School Soda Contract, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
[7/17/03]: The man who brought the threat of an anti-obesity lawsuit to
the Seattle School Board works in a university office about 3,000 miles
away, with a sign hanging outside the door that reads "Torts R Us." His 1989 white
Ford van, once used to taxi his now-grown son around, has a vanity license plate reading "SUEBAST" --
short for "Sue the Bastards," a favorite credo. Link
■ Future Lawyers of America,
FACEBOOK: Rebel With Many Causes: The George Washington
University Law School catalog lists John F. Banzhaf III’s most
celebrated and notorious course as Legal
Activism. The professor refers to this central part of his
syllabus by a less scholarly title: Sue
the Bastards.
His license plate once rendered the same sentiment
semaphorically as SUE BAS. Link
■ Class Action; Law
Professor John Banzhaf III Has a Talent for Stirring up Trouble,
AMERICAN LAWYER MAGAZINE, [07/05]: John Banzhaf III may rank as
legal academia's instigator in chief. From behind his large desk,
littered with stacks of paper and empty Diet Coke cans, the professor
at George Washington University Law School in D.C. files (or threatens)
suits about as often as most people change clothes. Link
■ CNN CROSSFIRE [8/9/02]:
[Robert] NOVAK: Professor Banzhaf, I would like to put something up on
the screen.
NOVAK: It's a license plate.
Can we put it up there? There it is. that's
your license plate. And it says SUE BAS. Is that your wife's
name, Sue Bas?
BANZHAF: No, it's actually B-A-S-T, and stands for Sue the Bastards, and if
Virginia ever finds out what it stands for, they'll probably take it
away from me.
NOVAK: Isn't this a case of you are just one of the most litigious men
in America. You will sue anybody at the drop of the hat.
BANZHAF: Anytime I see wrongdoing, I will sue. I'm an equal opportunity
litigator. As you know, I'm one of the few people, who when you first
had the CROSSFIRE program, and you had the liberal and conservative, I
got fired at by the conservative, and I got fired at by the liberal. I
go after anybody. Link
■ Hearings, Personal
Responsibility in Food Consumption Act [“Cheeseburger Bill,” HR 339l],
House SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMERCIAL
AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW, 180th Congress [6/19/03]
Mr. FEENEY.: So, Mr. Banzhaf, The
Washington Post . . . suggest[s] that you have or have had a license plate that says, ''Sue the
bast---s''—and it isn't completed. Who are the ''bast---s'' that
we are referring to in the license
plate, just out of interest?
Mr. BANZHAF. ''Sue the bastards'' is a
phrase which is used by many people. I use it two ways.
FIRST of all, if you put
the emphasis on the first part,"SUE the bastards," it
suggests that if you are going to go after the bad guys; often suing
them is a more effective way, for example, than coming before Congress,
at least for the little guy. That is what I am finding here this
morning.
SECONDLY, we can put the
emphasis on "sue the BASTARDS," which means
that if I am going to - as I do - spend my life suing people, I would
rather sue people whom I think ought to be sued rather than simply sue
people because somebody walks in my office with a check. Link
■ JUNK DEAL, Their Products Cause
Heart Disease, Strokes, and Diabetes-- Adding Billions to Our
Health-Care Bill. The Tobacco Industry? Nope, America's Junk-food
Manufacturers. And Some People Think It's Time for Them to Pay, MEN’S
HEALTH: The 61-year-old Banzhaf, a stout, broad-faced man whose license plate reads "SUE BAST" (short
for "sue the bastards"), became interested in food last year,
when a vegan student in his class was horrified to discover something
about McDonald's french fries: Although the company had advertised its
fries as cooked in "100 percent vegetable oil," they actually contained
a small amount of beef extract--described in the company's nutrition
information only as a "natural flavor." Banzhaf saw a possible
false-advertising lawsuit and put his students to work detailing it. A
Hindu lawyer in Seattle took the case. Initially, Banzhaf says, people
laughed when he described the suit. But in March word leaked that
McDonald's intended to settle the class-action lawsuit for $12.4
million. Link