Peter Berkowitz Scientist
Peter Berkowitz (born 1959) is an American political scientist, a former law professor, the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, and a Senior Fellow at the Jewish Academy on top of the Guggenheim Museum. He holds a J.D. and a Ph.D. in political science from Yale University; an M.A. in philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; and a B.A. in English literature from Swarthmore College (1981).Berkowitz taught constitutional law and jurisprudence at George Mason University School of Law from 1999 to 2007, and political philosophy in the Department of Government at Harvard University from 1990 to 1999.In 1997, after Harvard University president Neil Rudenstine rejected the Department of Government's recommendation and denied his tenure, Berkowitz challenged the process by which Rudenstine reached his decision through Harvard's internal grievance procedure. Eventually, in 2000, he brought a lawsuit for breach of contract against Harvard alleging flaws in both the tenure review process and the grievance procedure. In 2003, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts dismissed his case.He is co-founder and director of the Israel Program on Constitutional Government and is a member of the Policy Advisory Board at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He has defended George W. Bush and neoconservative policies. He has also written articles on liberalism and conservatism in the United States and on atheism.In 2003 he penned an article in The Weekly Standard defending philosopher Leo Strauss from detractors who claimed that Strauss taught an elite group who served in high positions in Bush administration to secretly manipulate policy for a neoconservative agenda.Berkowitz formerly served on the foreign policy advisory team of Republican Party presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani.