Arthur Kinoy

Arthur Kinoy, a law professor and veteran civil rights lawyer, died on Sept. 19 of a heart attack. He was 82.
Kinoy graduated from Harvard University and served in the U.S. Army in north Africa and Italy during World War II. When he returned to the states, he received his law degree from Columbia University and set out to establish voting privileges, integration and civil rights for African-Americans.
In 1965, Kinoy was investigated by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee for representing the International Workers Order and the United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers Union of America, both of which the government considered to be fronts for the Communist Party. When he was called to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Kinoy caused such a ruckus that he was ejected from the hearing room and convicted of disorderly conduct. Three years later, the U.S. Court of Appeals overturned the conviction.
Known as “The People’s Lawyer,” Kinoy worked on the appeal of the 1950s espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and on the trial of the Chicago Seven, a group of anti-war activists who were charged with conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention. He also co-founded the Center for Constitutional Rights, an organization dedicated to using the law to advance human rights and fight oppression.
In 1972, Kinoy argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that President Richard Nixon’s use of wiretaps was a violation of constitutional protections against unreasonable searches. He won that case and four others before the highest court in the land.
For more than a quarter of a century, Kinoy taught at Rutgers University Law School. An autographed copy of his memoirs, “Rights on Trial: The Odyssey of a People’s Lawyer,” is available in the Rutgers Law Library.