Obituaries

Henry J. Abraham, U-Va. professor, scholar of Supreme Court history, dies at 98

By Matt Schudel
March 4, 2020 at 3:01 p.m. EST

Henry J. Abraham, a Holocaust refugee who became a leading historian of the U.S. Supreme Court and was an inspiring teacher during nearly 50 years on the faculties of the University of Pennsylvania and later the University of Virginia, died Feb. 26 at a hospital in Charlottesville. He was 98. ... The death was confirmed by a son, Peter Abraham, who said a specific cause had not been determined.

Dr. Abraham was 15 came to the United States from his native Germany in 1937, without speaking a word of English. As a U.S. Army intelligence officer during World War II, he helped uncover documents used to prosecute Nazi war criminals during the postwar Nuremberg trials.

Driven by a deep appreciation for the rule of law in society, he became a scholar of U.S. legal history, writing authoritative books on Supreme Court appointments, the history of civil rights law and a comparison of the judicial systems of England, France and the United States. His books were continually updated in new editions and came to be seen as classics by legal scholars.

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His scholarly work brought Dr. Abraham in close contact with about 25 Supreme Court justices, and he formed close friendships with several, including William J. Brennan Jr., Lewis F. Powell Jr., Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

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In 2004, the conservative Weekly Standard magazine revealed that Harvard Law School professor Laurence H. Tribe’s 1985 book about the selection of Supreme Court justices, “God Save This Honorable Court,” included numerous passages taken without attribution from Dr. Abraham’s 1974 edition of “Justices & Presidents” — sometimes word for word.

Much of Tribe’s book reflected the conclusions and interpretations of Dr. Abraham, but the plagiarism scandal did not come to light until almost 20 years after Tribe’s books was published. At the time, Harvard Law professor Alan M. Dershowitz defended his colleague, calling the Weekly Standard article a right-wing attack on Tribe.

“Abraham sat on this story for 20 years,” Dershowitz said in 2004. “If he had a gripe, he should have written to Larry 20 years ago.”

Dr. Abraham told the Weekly Standard, “I was aware of what Tribe was doing when I first read his book. But I chose not to do anything at the time. I’ve never confronted him — and I was wrong in not following it up. I should have done something about it.”

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He used the G.I. Bill to return to Kenyon and was roommates for a time with future movie star Paul Newman, whose “major interest was applied anatomy,” Dr. Abraham later quipped.

[Academy Award-Winning Actor Paul Newman Dies at 83]

He also formed a soccer team at Kenyon with another student, Olof Palme, who later became prime minister of Sweden and was assassinated in 1986.

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In 2017, Dr. Abraham was living in Charlottesville during the violent rallies of white supremacist groups whose chants included, “Jews will not replace us.”

“To be attacked again all over again was painful,” Dr. Abraham told the Kenyon alumni magazine, in an article published this year. “There’s so much hatred, so much misunderstanding still, so much anger in people.”

He said he hadn’t seen anything like the Charlottesville rally — “these miserable creatures with their flags” — since leaving Germany 80 years earlier.

Matt Schudel
Matt Schudel has been an obituary writer at The Washington Post since 2004. He previously worked for publications in Washington, New York, North Carolina and Florida. Follow https://twitter.com/MattSchudel