William A. Jacobson

William A. Jacobson
EducationHamilton College (B.A.)
Harvard University (J.D.)
OccupationsLawyer
Law school professor
Blogger
EmployerCornell Law School
TitleProfessor

William A. Jacobson is an American lawyer, Cornell Law School clinical professor, and conservative blogger.[1] He is the president and founder of the Legal Insurrection Foundation, and founding director of Cornell’s Securities Law Clinic.[2]

Education

Jacobson is a 1981 summa cum laude graduate of Hamilton College.[3][4] He received his J.D. degree in 1984 from Harvard Law School.[3][4] During his time at Harvard Law School, Jacobson served as senior editor of the Harvard International Law Journal, for which he wrote a Case Comment entitled "Process Due Resident Aliens Upon Entering the United States," 24 Harv. Int’l Law J. 198, and as Director of Litigation for the Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project.[5][6]

Career

Early career

From 1984 to 1993, Jacobson practiced litigation with Cahill Gordon & Reindel and with Miller & Wrubel in New York City. From 1993 to 2007, he was a litigator in Providence, Rhode Island, with a civil litigation and arbitration practice.[7] His work was focused around investment, employment, and business disputes in the securities industry.[8]

Cornell Law School

In 2007, Jacobson joined Cornell Law School, where he is a Clinical Professor of Law. He is also the founding director of the law school's Securities Law Clinic, which provides legal services to small investors in upstate New York who have been the victims of investment fraud.[9][10]

Jacobson is author of the conservative law and politics blog, Legal Insurrection, which he launched in 2008.[11][12] As of 2011, Legal Insurrection was ranked number 24 in politics, and number 67 overall, by Technorati,[13] and number seven for top legal blogs by Avvo.[14] In 2014, the TaxProf blog ranked Legal Insurrection as the third most visited blog run by a law professor for the year prior.[15] According to Jacobson, Legal Insurrection attracts hundreds of thousands of readers.[16] It has been described as one of the "most popular blogs covering issues ranging from law, politics, to foreign policy.”[17]

Jacobson formed the Legal Insurrection Foundation (LIF), which launched in 2019.[18][19] He launched CriticalRace.org, the website compiles a list of U.S. universities that teach critical race theory and their diversity and inclusion initiatives.[20][21]"Law Professor Leads Project That Challenges DEI in Education". The Cornell Daily Sun. Retrieved 2025-12-08.</ref> Jacobson is also the founder of the Equal Protection Project, an LIF project which focuses litigation against organizations whose goals and policies allegedly violate civil rights laws.[22]

Author

Jacobson is co-author of the Securities Arbitration Desk Reference (Thomson-Reuters). He is also a regular op-ed columnist.[23]

Activities

Israel and Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS)

Jacobson has lobbied against the BDS movement.[24][25][26] He has participated in numerous speaking engagements on the matter, most notably events at Harvard Law School (hosted by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) in association with Alliance for Israel),[27][28][29] Cornell University (sponsored by Cornellians For Israel),[30] Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors,[31] and the Florida Region of CAMERA.[32]

When Palestinian activist Bassem Tamimi spoke to third graders at an elementary school in Ithaca, New York, in 2015, Jacobson covered the event on his blog.[33] Jacobson filed a Freedom of Information Law request with the Ithaca City School District (ICSD) to further investigate the circumstances surrounding the speaking event.[33] After a year-long court battle with the ICSD demanding that the ICSD remove extensive redactions in the documents provided,[34] a judge sided with Jacobson, after which the ICSD was ordered to release the video of the event.[35] That video included one of the speakers saying to the children, "You can defend us, you can be freedom fighters for Palestine, you can bring peace;"[36] a child is also heard saying, "When I grow up, I'm going to go to Palestine and protest."[35]

In 2019, Jacobson discussed the BDS movement on college campuses during a Department of Justice summit on combating anti-Semitism.[37]

YouTube

On January 13, 2017, Jacobson's YouTube channel was taken down, with YouTube citing copyright violations.[38] However, Jacobson stated that he was targeted for his conservative political views. His channel was restored on January 15, 2017.[39]

Race

In 2020, Jacobson authored two articles that criticized the history of Black Lives Matter. Jacobson described Black Lives Matter's founders as "anti-American, anti-capitalist activists, who want to destroy capitalism, in an act of revenge." This caused controversy and Cornell Law School students called for action against him.[40] Peter Wood, president of the National Scholars Association, came to Jacobson's defense.[41]

Federal COVID-19 lawsuit

In 2022, Jacobson filed a federal class-action lawsuit against Mary T. Bassett, Acting Commissioner of the New York Department of Health, challenging the constitutionality of a state health department directive that considered race as a risk factor in the distribution of COVID-19 treatments.[42] The lawsuit argued that the department directive was "patently unconstitutional" because it used racial preferences in determining whether someone qualified to receive medical treatment, violating the Fourteenth Amendment, the Civil Rights Act, and other federal statutes.[43]

Awards

References

  1. ^ Smith, Jasper (2025-03-06). "This Cornell Professor Is Committed to Rooting Out DEI One Program at a Time". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 2025-12-05.
  2. ^ "William A. Jacobson, Author at The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal". The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. Retrieved 2025-12-05.
  3. ^ a b "Jacobson, William A." vivo.cornell.edu. Retrieved 2017-06-23.
  4. ^ a b "William A. Jacobson". lawschool.cornell.edu.
  5. ^ "Editorial Board, 25 Harvard International Law Journal, 1984". Harvard International Law Journal. 25: 81. 1984. Retrieved 2017-06-23.
  6. ^ "Cornell Law Professor to Discuss Academic Freedom - Hamilton College". www.hamilton.edu. Retrieved 2017-06-23.
  7. ^ "William A Jacobson, JD - SPME". SPME. Retrieved 2017-09-21.
  8. ^ "Faculty: Jacobson" (PDF). lawschool.cornell.edu.
  9. ^ "William A. Jacobson". cornell.edu.
  10. ^ "Securities Law Clinic". lawschool.cornell.edu.
  11. ^ "Blogger: User Profile: William A. Jacobson". blogger.com.
  12. ^ "About". Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion |. 2012-08-21. Retrieved 2024-02-03.
  13. ^ "Legal Insurrection". technorati.com. Archived from the original on 2011-01-12. Retrieved 2011-01-27.
  14. ^ "Top Legal Blogs". www.avvo.com.
  15. ^ "TaxProf Blog: Law Prof Blog Traffic Rankings". taxprof.typepad.com. Retrieved 2022-02-06.
  16. ^ Rodriguez, Richard (2023-11-01). "Legal Insurrection Foundation Fights for Free Speech and Equality". Philanthropy Roundtable. Retrieved 2025-12-05.
  17. ^ "Legal Insurrection's William A. Jacobson on Pundit Review Radio | Pundit Review". Retrieved 2025-12-05.
  18. ^ Gus Chan (7 June 2022). "Legal education could take a hit from critical race theory controversy". Crain Communications. Archived from the original on 9 June 2022. Retrieved 7 June 2023. William Jacobson, a clinical professor of law at Cornell Law School and president of the Legal Insurrection Foundation
  19. ^ "Legal Insurrection Foundation". Cause IQ.
  20. ^ Ana Radelat (5 June 2023). "U of M summer internship program was targeted by outside conservative activists". MinnPost. Archived from the original on 6 June 2023. Retrieved 7 June 2023. Another project of the Legal Insurrection Foundation, called CriticalRace.org, has compiled a database of universities that it says teach critical race theory, but also details all efforts at diversity and inclusion at a school
  21. ^ Jonathan Friedman; James Tager. "Educational Gag Orders". PEN America. Archived from the original on 9 November 2021. Retrieved 7 June 2023. the conservative Legal Insurrection Foundation, has created CriticalRace.org, which attempts to document colleges and universities that teach CRT in trainings and programming
  22. ^ "WSBT News: Indiana University Accused". Retrieved 2025-04-18.
  23. ^ Tobin, Jonathan S. (2024-05-16). "William Jacobson: Defund universities that promote hatred of Jews". JNS.org. Retrieved 2025-12-05.
  24. ^ "When Students Vote on Israel's Demise - Commentary Magazine". Commentary Magazine. 2015-05-03. Retrieved 2017-09-12.
  25. ^ "Anti-Semitism at CU Gets Response". Ithaca Times. Retrieved 2017-09-12.
  26. ^ "Cornell student government tables Israel divestment, averting Passover vote". JNS.org. Archived from the original on 2017-09-12. Retrieved 2017-09-12.
  27. ^ "Academics unpack BDS, anti–Semitism at media watchdog's national conference". American Israelite. Retrieved 2017-09-12.
  28. ^ "War by Other Means: Israel, BDS and the Campus". JewishBoston. Retrieved 2017-09-12.
  29. ^ "The REAL History of BDS Movement, by Prof. William Jacobson (Legal Insurrection via EoZ)". Israel Activist Alliance. 2016-12-30. Retrieved 2017-09-12.
  30. ^ "Cornell Prof. Lectures on Ithaca Elementary School Anti-Israel Event". The Cornell Review. 2015-11-02. Retrieved 2017-09-12.
  31. ^ How the Academic Boycott of Israel Hurts American Students with Professor William Jacobson, Esq., 2014-06-29, archived from the original on 2021-12-15, retrieved 2017-09-12
  32. ^ "CAMERA on campus". Jewish Journal. Retrieved 2017-09-12.
  33. ^ a b "Judge sends Ithaca schools a message over pro-Palestinian speaker". The Ithaca Voice. Retrieved 2017-09-12.
  34. ^ "ICSD to release video of controversial talk". Ithaca Journal. Retrieved 2017-09-12.
  35. ^ a b "Video shows pro-Palestinian indoctrination of 3rd graders in NY school". The Jerusalem Post. ISSN 0792-822X. Retrieved 2017-09-12.
  36. ^ "New York schoolchildren outrageously shown anti-Israel propaganda during presentation". Express.co.uk. 2016-12-16. Retrieved 2017-09-12.
  37. ^ "User Clip: Professor William Jacobson at the Justice Department". C-SPAN.org. Archived from the original on 2025-02-22. Retrieved 2025-12-08.
  38. ^ Rogers, James (January 13, 2017). "YouTube removes influential conservative website's channel". Fox News. Retrieved January 13, 2017.
  39. ^ Rogers, James (January 16, 2017). "YouTube restores influential conservative website's channel". Fox News. Retrieved January 17, 2017.
  40. ^ "Cornell professor who criticized Black Lives Matter faces student boycott". Foxnews.com. Retrieved 1 May 2021.
  41. ^ "An Open Letter to Eduardo M. Peñalver, Dean of Cornell Law School by Peter Wood | NAS". www.nas.org. Retrieved 2025-12-08.
  42. ^ Lyons, Brendan J. (2022-01-17). "Lawsuit challenges 'non-white' prioritization of COVID-19 drugs". Times Union. Retrieved 2022-02-06.
  43. ^ "Law professor suing NYSDOH over directive to prioritize non-whites for COVID-19 drugs". WHEC News10NBC. 2022-01-18. Retrieved 2022-02-06.
  44. ^ "Covering CPAC 2014: What the mainstream media got wrong". The Jewish Star. Retrieved 2017-09-21.
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