Peter Irons

He is an Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego and an author on legal history. He retired from the university in 2004 and now devotes some of his time to causes that interest him. He has undertaken some legal work in issues of the separation of church and state and written some articles for the Montana Law Review.

Starting in 1989, Irons represented the plaintiffs in the Mount Soledad case in San Diego, pro bono. He discontinued his involvement in the case in 1998 when threats made him fear for the safety of his two daughters.

Upon graduating, he taught at Boston College Law School and the University of Massachusetts before moving to the University of California, San Diego. There in 1982 he established the Earl Warren Bill of Rights Project, of which he is the director. He was chosen in 1988 as the first Raoul Wallenberg Distinguished Visiting Professor of Human Rights at Rutgers University. He has lectured on constitutional law and civil liberties at the law schools of Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, Stanford, and more than 20 other schools.

Irons completed a PhD at Boston University in 1973. Afterwards, Zinn helped arrange for him to work at a law firm defending Daniel Ellsberg, who was under federal prosecution at the time for stealing the Pentagon Papers. His work at the law firm would later serve as motivation for him to pursue a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School, which he received in 1978.

He embarked on his current path in 1963 when he was sentenced to three years imprisonment at the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut for refusing military induction on the ground that the Federal government perpetuated racial discrimination. While serving most of that sentence, he began corresponding with Howard Zinn, who sent him books on civil liberties and American politics. His conviction was ultimately reversed by a federal judge on the ground of prosecutorial misconduct. Later, President Gerald Ford granted him a pardon for refusing induction.

Peter H. Irons (born August 11, 1940) is an American political activist, civil rights attorney, legal scholar, and professor emeritus of political science. He has written many books on the U.S. Supreme Court and constitutional litigation.