Former Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse [See Biography ] was kind enough to check in with Newspaper Alum to say since leaving The New York Times, she has taken her talents not to South Beach, but to New Haven, Connecticut on the northern shore of Long Island Sound, where she has been teaching at Yale Law School as the Knight Distinguished Journalist in Residence and the Joseph Goldstein Lecturer in Law. She teaches courses on the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 2008, soon after celebrating her 40-year anniversary with the Times, Ms. Greenhouse accepted a company buyout after having covered 29 sessions of the Supreme Court. Except for two years during the 1980’s when she reported on Congress, she covered the Supreme Court from 1978 through the summer of 2008.
Greenhouse first landed at the Times during the turbulent year of 1968 as a news clerk to James Reston, considered one of the most influential columnists of his generation. In 1969, she was promoted to general assignment reporter and year later became a Westchester County correspondent, a position she held for three years. Before moving to Albany to cover the New York State legislature and state government and eventually becoming the Times state bureau chief, she spent a short time on the night rewrite desk.
After taking time off from 1977 to 1978 to earn her Master of Studies in Law from Yale Law School which she attended on a Ford Foundation fellowship, Greenhouse joined the Times Washington Bureau in 1978.
She earned a Pulitzer Prize in 1998 in the category of “Beat Reporting’’ for “her consistently illuminating coverage of the United States Supreme Court’’ according to the Pulitzer committee. In 2002, the American Political Science Association bestowed on her their Carey McWilliams Award for “a major journalistic contribution to our understanding of politics.” In 2004, she received the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism and the John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism. In 2005, The Council of the American Philosophical Society awarded her its Henry Allen Moe Prize for writing in the humanities and jurisprudence; and in 2006, she became a Radcliffe Institute Medal winner.
Since leaving the Times, Greenhouse tells me she has written two books: “Before Roe v. Wade: Voices that Shaped the Abortion Debate Before the Supreme Court's Ruling’’ and “The U.S. Supreme Court: A Very Short Introduction ‘’ . In 2005, she wrote a biography of Justice Harry A. Blackmun: “Becoming Justice Blackmun: Harry Blackmun's Supreme Court Journey ''
Loyal readers to the Times’ pages know that Greenhouse still weighs in from time to time with her keen insight and analysis on the latest contentious issues facing the Court. She also regularly produces a biweekly column for the Times Opinionator, writing about the Supreme Court and law.
Greenhouse is a national board member of the American Constitution Society and a member of the Council of the American Philosophical Society.
She is a 1968 graduate of Radcliffe College (Harvard), where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
Born in New York City, Greenhouse grew up in Hamden, CT. She is married to Eugene R. Fidell, Florence Rogatz Lecturer in Law at Yale. Their daughter, Hannah, attends graduate school in New York.
-Bill Lucey
WPLucey@gmail.com
July 26, 2012
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