Up in Smoke: Failed U.S. Supreme Court Nominee Douglas Ginsburg to Join Faculty at New York University School of Law

In 1986, D. C. Circuit Court Judge Douglas Ginsburg was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan. He would have replaced retiring Justice Lewis Powell, except that President Reagan withdrew Ginsburg's nomination after revelations emerged that he'd smoked marijuana as a faculty member at Harvard Law. (NPR's hatchet-woman Nina Totenberg revealed the information, of course, and Ginsburg confessed.)

I discuss Ginsburg's failed nomination every semester during coverage of Supreme Court nominations. Ginsburg was selected by Reagan after Robert Bork was rejected in his Senate confirmation vote. And I can never forget the Newsweek cover story from back in the day, "The Ginsburg Fiasco: Up in Smoke."



In any case, he's in the news, at BLT, "D.C. Circuit Judge Ginsburg to Join NYU Law Faculty." (At Memeorandum and Volokh.)