James Whitman

Whitman is the son of investor and philanthropist Martin J. Whitman.{{Cite web |title=MARTIN WHITMAN Obituary (2018) New York Times |url=https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/nytimes/name/martin-whitman-obituary?id=33140866 |access-date=2022-06-20 |website=Legacy.com}} He also has a sister, Tony Award-winning producer Barbara Whitman.{{Cite web |date=2018-04-17 |title=Syracuse University Celebrates Life of Honorary Trustee Martin J. Whitman '49, H'08 {{!}} Syracuse University News |url=https://news.syr.edu/blog/2018/04/17/syracuse-university-celebrates-life-of-honorary-trustee-martin-j-whitman-49-h08/ |access-date=2022-06-20 |language=en-US}}

He graduated from Yale University with a BA in 1980 and a JD in 1988, from Columbia University with a MA in 1982, and from the University of Chicago with a PhD in 1987. He was a Guggenheim Fellow.[https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/james-q-whitman/ James Q. Whitman Page]. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Website.[https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/news/professors-james-whitman-88-and-john-witt-99-win-guggenheim-fellowships Professors James Whitman '88 and John Witt '99 Win Guggenheim Fellowships] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230320200113/https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/news/professors-james-whitman-88-and-john-witt-99-win-guggenheim-fellowships |date=2023-03-20 }}. April 19, 2010. In 2015, he was awarded a doctorate honoris causa by the Catholic University of Leuven

Whitman's 2017 book, Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law, received wide coverage in the news and academia.{{cite news|last=McLemee |first=Scott |title=Taking on the Alt-Reich |newspaper=Inside Higher Ed |date = March 8, 2017 |url=https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2017/03/08/review-james-q-whitman-hitlers-american-model-united-states-and-making-nazi-race |access-date=2017-05-21}}{{cite news |last=Guo |first=Jeff |title=The Nazis as students of America's worst racial atrocities |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=May 19, 2017 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-nazis-as-students-of-americas-worst-racial-atrocities/2017/05/19/fdbcd258-1ef9-11e7-a0a7-8b2a45e3dc84_story.html |access-date=2017-05-21 }}{{Cite magazine |date=2018-04-23 |title=How American Racism Influenced Hitler |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/how-american-racism-influenced-hitler |access-date=2023-03-02 |magazine=The New Yorker |language=en-US}}{{Cite journal |last=Möschel |first=Mathias |date=June 24, 2019 |title=James Whitman's, Hitler's American Model. The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/german-law-journal/article/james-whitmans-hitlers-american-model-the-united-states-and-the-making-of-nazi-race-law/926EEF5C757E891802C445D9AC9584C3 |journal=German Law Journal |language=en |volume=20 |issue=4 |pages=510–513 |doi=10.1017/glj.2019.34 |s2cid=198622125 |issn=2071-8322|doi-access=free }}{{cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/11/what-america-taught-the-nazis/540630/ |title=What America Taught the Nazis; In the 1930s, the Germans were fascinated by the global leader in codified racism—the United States. |author=Ira Katznelson |date= 3 October 2017|website=Theatlantic.com |access-date=22 October 2017 |quote=November 2017 Issue|author-link=Ira Katznelson }} Whitman demonstrates the extent to which US racial laws (Jim Crow laws, separate but equal legal doctrine) influenced the Nazi Regime in formulating the Nuremberg Laws of September 1935. The leading Nazi student of US racial laws was Heinrich Krieger, a jurist who studied at the University of Arkansas School of Law in 1933–34. There, he researched how laws across the US segregated and disenfranchised Native Americans, African Americans, and other disfavored groups like including Asians, Filipinos and Puerto Ricans. Krieger wrote the memorandum relied upon at the meeting June 1934 in which the Nazi racial laws, known as the Nuremberg Laws, were hashed out. Just as the Jim Crow Laws prohibited and criminalized intermarriage between Whites and Blacks, though as his book points out these types of laws existed in 30 states, many outside of the Jim Crow south. So the Nuremberg Laws prohibited marriages with Jews and threatened punishment. The Nazis departed little from their US model except insofar as that they found it too severe.{{cite news|last1=Muravchik|first1=Joshua|title=Did American Racism Inspire the Nazis?|url=https://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/2017/03/did-american-racism-inspire-the-nazis/|access-date=9 March 2017|publisher=Mosaic Magazine|date=9 March 2017}} The so-called one-drop rule, classified as non-white anyone with even a single ″Negro″ ancestor. This was disturbing even to National Socialist policymaker, who shuddered at the ‘human hardness’ it entailed. According to the Nuremberg Race Laws, a ″full Jew″ was only someone who had three or four Jewish grandparents; there were also – in National Socialist terminology – ″half Jews″ and ″quarter Jews″, but they were not affected by the same discrimination.

In 2017, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AASS).{{Cite web|url=http://news.yale.edu/2017/04/11/five-professors-elected-american-academy-arts-and-sciences|title=Five professors elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences|website=Yale News|date=11 April 2017 |access-date=2017-04-18}}

• {{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1XqRYtfHta4C&q=the+verdict+of+battle| title=The Verdict of Battle: The Law of Victory and the Making of Modern War| publisher= Harvard University Press| year= 2012| isbn= 978-0-674-06714-1 }}
• {{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3gwVwl04y7MC&q=james+whitman| title=The Origins of Reasonable Doubt: Theological Roots of the Criminal Trial| publisher= Yale University Press| year= 2008| isbn= 978-0-300-11600-7 }}
• {{cite book| url= https://books.google.com/books?id=78BwtQWTxT8C&q=james+whitman| title= Harsh Justice: Criminal Punishment and the Widening Divide Between America and Europe| publisher= Oxford University Press| year= 2005| isbn= 978-0-19-518260-6 }}
• [https://ssrn.com/abstract=476041 "The Two Western Cultures of Privacy: Dignity versus Liberty"], Yale Law Journal, Vol. 113, April 2004
• The Legacy of Roman Law in the German Romantic Era: Historical Vision and Legal Change, Princeton University Press, 1990, {{ISBN|978-0-691-05560-2}}
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=pQZpDQAAQBAJ Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law]. Princeton University Press, 2017, {{ISBN|978-0691172422}}
• [https://aeon.co/ideas/why-the-nazis-studied-american-race-laws-for-inspiration Why the Nazis studied American race laws for inspiration]. Aeon, 13 December 2016

{{Reflist|2}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Whitman, James}}

Category:American lawyers

Category:Yale University faculty

Category:Stanford Law School faculty

Category:Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni

Category:University of Chicago alumni

Category:Yale Law School alumni

Category:Living people

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)