Arthur Kinoy

Arthur Kinoy (September 20, 1920-September 28, 2003), was a progressive civil rights leader who went on to become a [law [professor] at the Rutgers School of Law—Newark. He was one of the founders of the Center for Constitutional Rights and successfully argued before the Supreme Court of the United States. He died on September 28, 2003 at the age of 83 at his home in New Jersey.
Arthur Kinoy was born on September 20, 1920 in New York City. He married Susan Knopf. He is an alumnus of Harvard University (A.B., 1941) and Columbia University (LL.B., 1947).

On February 3, 1965, U.S. Senator James O. Eastland (D-MS), chairman of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS), recited Kinoy's record on the floor of the Senate:

"In his student days at Harvard, Arthur Kinoy was a member of the national executive committee of the American Student Union, an organization cited as Communist by five different investigating committees. In 1945, he was registered as a member of the American Labor Party ["Communist political front"] .

"Later, Kinoy was a representative of the International Workers Order ["subversive and Communist"] . He was attorney for the United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers Union of America, a communist-controlled union. He has been connected with various other front groups.

"During the investigation by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee of Communist infiltration among American citizens employed by the United Nations, Mr. Kinoy appeared as counsel for one Alfred J. Van Tassel who claimed his fifth amendment privilege in refusing to testify about his Communist Party affiliations.

"Arthur Kinoy took an active part in the defense of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who were executed on June 19, 1953, after conviction of atomic espionage. Kinoy made two last-minute efforts to save the Rosenbergs from execution. Another motion to stay the execution pending appeal of the decision was likewise denied.

"Arthur Kinoy was honored by the New York Committee for Protection of Foreign Born at a banquet advertised as salute to attorneys. The New York Committee for Protection of Foreign Born is an affiliate of the American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born ["subversive and Communist" - "one of the oldest auxiliaries of the Communist Party in the United States" - under the "complete domination" of the Communist Party] .

"In 1958, Arthur Kinoy was associated with the law firm of Donner, Kinoy & Perlin, a firm which received payments from various Communist groups in the 1950s, including the Committee for Justice for Morton Sobell and Labor Youth League.

"Kinoy has been associated with the National Lawyers Guild ["the foremost legal bulwark of the Communist Party, its front organizations, and controlled unions"] for a long time. He was national vice president of that organization in 1954. Ten years later, he was still active in the work of the National Lawyers Guild. The June 13, 1964 issue of the Michigan Chronicle, a weekly Detroit newspaper in the Negro community, reported Kinoy as having participated in a conference sponsored by the National Lawyers Guild Committee for Legal Assistance in the South, the purpose of the conference being to brief attorneys on legal problems confronting civil rights demonstrators in Mississippi."

Kinoy took it as a point of honor to be so vociferously attacked by the segregationist senator from Mississippi who always charged integrationists with being communists. He also won a landmark case against Senator Eastland.In 1964, Kinoy became a professor of law at Rutgers University. From 1964 until 1967, he was a partner in the law firm of Kunstler, Kunstler & Kinoy of New York City. He has been counsel for the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Southern Conference Educational Fund. He has been affiliated with the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee . In 1966, he was a speaker at the annual dinner of the [ National Guardian] newspaper] . He has done legal work for the American Civil Liberties Union.

In 1966, Kinoy was removed from a hearing of the House Committee on Un-American Activities and subsequently convicted of disorderly conduct. In 1968, the U.S. Court of Appeals overturned the conviction.

As the New York Times stated in its obituary published on September 20, 2003, "Mr. Kinoy was involved in a number of landmark legal verdicts. In 1965, he successfully argued the case of "Dombrowski v. Pfister" before the Supreme Court, which empowered federal district court judges to stop enforcement of laws that had ‘a chilling effect’ on free speech. In a subsequent case, Dombrowski v. Senator Eastland, he established that the Counsel of the Senate Internal Security Committee was not immune from suits for violations of citizens’ civil rights. In 1972, the Supreme Court upheld his contention that President Richard M. Nixon had no ‘inherent power’ to wiretap domestic political organizations."

"The test for a “people’s lawyer” is not always the technical winning or losing of the formal proceedings. The real test is the impact of the legal activities on the morale and understanding of the people involved in the struggle."

Kinoy was one of the founders of the the "Women's Rights Law Reporter", the first legal periodical to focus exclusively on women's rights.