Marver Bernstein

Bernstein was born in Mankato, Minnesota and completed his BA and MA at the University of Wisconsin, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He earned a doctorate at Princeton.

Bernstein served as a budget examiner for the federal government at the US Bureau of the Budget from 1942 until 1946.

Bernstein was a professor at Princeton University for 26 years and was the first dean of Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs from 1964 to 1969,{{Cite news |date=1990-03-06 |title=Marver Bernstein Is Fire Victim; Former Brandeis Leader Was 71 (Published 1990) |language=en |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1990/03/06/obituaries/marver-bernstein-is-fire-victim-former-brandeis-leader-was-71.html |access-date=2023-08-15}} as well as being influential in the selection of the design of Robertson Hall, the school's iconic building.{{Cite web |title=Bernstein, Marver H. |url=https://press.princeton.edu/our-authors/bernstein-marver-h |access-date=2023-08-15 |website=press.princeton.edu |language=en}}

As a young professor at Princeton in the immediate post-war era, Bernstein served as one of the informal faculty advisors to Princeton's Liberal Union,{{cite web |title=Debating Race at Princeton in the 1940s, Part II: Roundtable News and the Liberal Union |date=11 December 2019 |url=https://blogs.princeton.edu/mudd/2019/12/debating-race-at-princeton-in-the-1940s-part-ii-roundtable-news-and-the-liberal-union/ |access-date=7 September 2020}} an unaffiliated student group active from 1946 to 1951 that sought to end racial and religious discrimination at Princeton, particularly in admissions. The group acted to end Princeton's de facto exclusion of African Americans by mailing recruiting solicitations to over five hundred {{efn| An LU member recalled the number being 1000 schools but the Daily Princetonian on references the 500 figure}} historically black high schools. (New Jersey law banned discrimination, but Princeton was known to be inhospitable.){{Cite web |last=Unknown |date=1985 |title=Marver H. Bernstein |url=https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/554651 |access-date=2023-08-15 |website=repository.library.georgetown.edu |language=en}} The Liberal Union also advocated for the establishment of a campus student union and dining facility that would serve all students, as the existing eating club system was seen as elitist and selected members in a manner similar to fraternities. Thus, Bernstein, along with other faculty advisors,{{efn|Collaborating advisors to the Liberal Student Union were Prof. Willard Thorp and Prof. H. Hubert Wilson, a civil rights activist and noted antagonist of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.}} played an important if little-recognized role in reshaping Princeton into a more racially, religiously, and socially inclusive institution.

Bernstein's 1955 influential book, Regulating Business By Independent Commission was the first in a series of publications by scholars of regulation who posited what became known as the "captive agency theory."{{cite journal

|last= Mintz |first=Joel A. |title=Has Industry Captured The EPA?: Appraising Marver Bernstein's Captive Agency Theory After Fifty Years |journal= Fordham Environmental Law Review |volume=17 |issue=1 |year=2005 |pages= 1–36 |jstor=44175806 |access-date= 29 October 2020 |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/44175806 }} More broadly, the concept is referred to as regulatory capture.

In 1972 Bernstein became Brandeis' fourth president where he served in that position for eleven years. After leaving Brandeis, he became a professor of politics and philosophy at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service where he taught until just before his death. Bernstein was very active in Jewish organizations and served on the boards of the B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundation,{{citation |title=Hillel Directors' Duty to Counsel Youth on Draft Problems Stressed as Policy |url= https://digital.bentley.umich.edu/djnews/djn.1969.12.12.001/47 |publisher=Detroit Jewish News |date=12 December 1969 |pages=48 |access-date=1 October 2020}} the National Federation for Jewish Culture, American Professors for Peace in the Middle East, and numerous civic groups.{{Cite web |title=Marver Hillel Bernstein |url=https://www.brandeis.edu/president/past/bernstein.html |access-date=2023-08-15 |website=www.brandeis.edu |language=en}}

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Brandeis University had been founded in 1948 as a Jewish-sponsored secular university largely in response to discriminatory quotas Jews had faced entering existing private universities, particularly medical schools; as such it was committed to being "open to students and faculty of all races and religions."{{cite news |title= New Jewish Unit Plans University |work= The New York Times |date= August 20, 1946 |page= 10 |id= {{ProQuest|107605957}} }} In that context, Bernstein expressed concern for ensuring Brandeis pursued an open dialog and process with students on improving the quality of the college.{{Cite journal |last=Mintz |first=Joel A. |date=2005 |title=Has Industry Captured the Epa?: Appraising Marver Bernstein's Captive Agency Theory After Fifty Years |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44175806 |journal=Fordham Environmental Law Review |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=1–36 |issn=1559-4785}}{{Cite journal |last=Gilbert |first=Charles E. |date=September 1959 |title=The Job of the Federal Executive. By Marver H. Bernstein. (Washington, D. C.: The Brookings Institution. 1958. Pp. x, 241. $3.50.) |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/abs/job-of-the-federal-executive-by-marver-h-bernstein-washington-d-c-the-brookings-institution-1958-pp-x-241-350/48F05D9E4BE3CF2E6EB21433CC36FA9C |journal=American Political Science Review |language=en |volume=53 |issue=3 |pages=833–833 |doi=10.2307/1951960 |issn=1537-5943|url-access=subscription }}

In his inaugural address on Oct 5, 1972 Bernstein stated:

“The university not only undertakes a unique function in society; it also has a fascinating organizational character that differentiates it from other institutions. ...It depends more strongly on shared values and mutual understandings than any other human organization."

His goal for Brandeis in 1972 was to strengthen “the quality of education,” which “requires a process of full communication and meaningful participation in making difficult choices.”

Urging students, faculty and trustees to participate in Brandeis as an organization, Bernstein admitted that making decisions to build and grow a university requires disagreement and compromise. “Sharing in the responsibility for governing, however, is sobering. It requires hard, continuing effort,”{{citation |title=Hail to the chief: A Brandeis history of inaugurations |last=Ostrowsky |first=Jon |journal=The Brandeis Hoot |date=25 March 2011 |access-date= 3 October 2020 |url=http://www.thebrandeishoot.com/articles/10059 }}

{{citation |title=The American Jewish Year Book, Obituaries |volume=92 |date= 1992 |pages=590–591 |publisher= American Jewish Committee |website=www.jstor.org |jstor=23605986 |url= https://www.jstor.org/stable/23605986}}

Bernstein joined the faculty of Princeton University in 1946 and taught for approximately 25 years.

• 1946 Research Associate in Politics
• 1948 Assistant Professor
• 1954 Associate Professor
• 1958–72 Professor
• 1961–64 Chmn. Dept. of Politics
• 1964–69 Associate director; Dean, Woodrow Wilson School
• 1972–83 President, Brandeis University
• 1983–90 Professor, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service

From 1969 to 1975, Bernstein was chairman of the national commission of B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundations, the policy body for the Hillel centers on 284 college campuses.

He was a former president of the National Federation for Jewish Culture, at the time, the leading advocate for Jewish cultural life and creativity in the United States, and the American Professors for Peace in the Middle East (APPME).{{cite journal |title=American Professors for Peace in the Middle East |journal= Review of Middle East Studies |date= December 1980 |volume= 14 |issue= 2 |pages= 91 |doi= 10.1017/S0026318400009019 |last1= Curtis |first1= Michael |last2= Gottheil |first2= Fred |s2cid= 164651938 |doi-access= free }}

He belonged to many civic groups, including the Massachusetts Ethics Commission and the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, and was an honorary trustee of the American Jewish Historical Society and the Foundation for Jewish Studies. He earned many honorary degrees.

Bernstein was sought as an advisor to local, state, and federal agencies and in 1967 brokered a deadlock over the reapportionment of New Jersey's legislative districts.{{citation |title=Bernstein Thinks Policy, Turns To Details Later |publisher=The Record |location=Hackensack, NJ |date= 8 February 1967 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/491319870/ |pages=10 |access-date=1 Oct 2020}} Bernstein's negotiations represented an important chapter in the history of efforts to achieve bipartisan state redistricting. In 1966, New Jersey, amongst five other states, had proposed constitutional amendments to formalize bipartisan reapportionment provisions, with three, including New Jersey, achieving ratification. In New Jersey, apportionment was transferred to a commission, whose by-laws included a tie-breaker provision, a position to be appointed by the Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court.

:Vindication of the convention's decision to provide for a tie breaker was not long coming. The Commission deadlocked, Professor Marver H. Bernstein, Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs of Princeton University, was appointed by the New Jersey Chief Justice, and a plan was soon announced. ...Professor Bernstein's plan, adopted by an eight to three vote, effected a compromise between the interests of the parties in two of the large counties.{{citation |last1=Dixon |first1=Robert |last2= Hatheway |first2= Gordon |title=The Seminal Issue in State Constitutional Revision: Reapportionment Method and Standards: Recent Attempts at Bipartisanship in Apportionment: New Jersey |pages=890–893 |journal=William and Mary Law Review |volume=10 |date=May 1969 |url=https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=2914&context=wmlr }}

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The Bernsteins maintained a residence in Jerusalem where they often lived outside of the academic year.

"Shortly after the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Bernstein was invited by the new government to advise it on the establishment of its public services and to draw up plans for the office of state comptroller."{{cite web |work=Jewish Telegraph Agency |title= Ex-president of Brandeis and Wife Reported Dead in Cairo Hotel Fire

|url=https://www.jta.org/1990/03/05/archive/ex-president-of-brandeis-and-wife-reported-dead-in-cairo-hotel-fire |date= 5 March 1990 |access-date=6 November 2020 }} Colleagues have commented that he was known to have later been frequently sought for advice on the structuring of Israel's growing administrative organizations.{{Cite journal |last=Bernstein |first=Marver H. |date=March 1952 |title=The Scope of Public Administration |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/106591295200500109 |journal=Western Political Quarterly |language=en |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=124–137 |doi=10.1177/106591295200500109 |issn=0043-4078|url-access=subscription }}

In July 1959, at an American national exhibition in Moscow, Soviet authorities removed three books on Israel and Jewish subjects, including Bernstein's 1957 text The Politics of Israel: The First Decade of Statehood.{{cite web |title= Soviet Inspectors Remove Books on Jews and Israel from U.S. Exhibition |url=https://www.jta.org/1959/07/27/archive/soviet-inspectors-remove-books-on-jews-and-israel-from-u-s-exhibition |access-date=7 September 2020 }}

Bernstein and his wife, Sheva, died in the Helioplis Sheraton hotel fire, in Cairo, Egypt on March 1, 1990. The two had arrived in Cairo after his recent retirement from Georgetown University, planning to join a Smithsonian Institution-sponsored tour of the Red Sea the next day. They stayed on an upper floor of the luxury hotel. A fire starting in an attached tented restaurant and fanned by high winds consumed much of the 630 room hotel which had no fire alarms or sprinklers. It was later reported that they were overcome by smoke in an interior hallway.{{ Cite news |title=Georgetown Professor, Wife Missing in Egyptian Hotel Fire |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1990/03/05/georgetown-professor-wife-missing-in-egyptian-hotel-fire/e1128a4f-faa0-4eb9-b60b-1da7ea6d5abb/ |access-date=7 September 2020}}

• {{cite journal |title=Loyalty of Federal Employees in the United States |journal=Public Administration |year=1949 |volume=27 |issue=2 |pages=100–107 | doi=10.1111/j.1467-9299.1949.tb02674.x |last1=Bernstein |first1=Marver H. }}
• {{cite book |title=American Democracy in Theory and Practice |publisher=Rinehart and Co. |location=New York |year=1951 |doi=10.1017/S0003055400301654}} (co-author)
• {{cite journal |title=The Scope of Public Administration |journal=Political Research Quarterly |date= 1 March 1952 |doi=10.1177/106591295200500109|last1=Bernstein |first1=M. H. |volume=5 |pages=124–137 |s2cid=153333759 }}
• {{cite journal |title=Political Ideas of Selected American Business Journals |journal=The Public Opinion Quarterly|volume=17 |issue=2 |pages=258–267 |location=United States |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1953 |jstor=2746280|last1=Bernstein|first1=Marver H.|doi=10.1086/266459}}
• {{cite journal |title=The Politics of Adjudication |last=Bernstein |first=Marver H. |journal= The Journal of Politics |volume=16 |issue=2 |date= May 1954 |pages=299–323 |url= https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.2307/2126030?journalCode=jop |access-date=3 March 2021 |doi=10.2307/2126030 |jstor=2126030 |s2cid=153802913 |url-access=subscription }}
• {{cite book |title=Regulating Business by Independent Commission |last1=Bernstein |first1=M. H. |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=1955 |isbn=0691650381 }}
• {{cite book |title=The Politics of Israel: The First Decade of Statehood |year=1957 |publisher=Greenwood Press |isbn=0837120365 }}
• {{cite book |title=The Job of the Federal Executive |publisher=Brookings Institution |year=1958 |isbn=0313252734}}
• {{cite journal |title=Israel's Capacity to Govern |journal=World Politics |year=1959 |volume=11 |issue=3 |pages=399–417 |doi=10.2307/2009200 |jstor=2009200 |last1=Bernstein |first1=Marver H. |s2cid=153610997 }}
• {{cite book |title=Essentials of American Democracy |publisher=Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. |edition=6th |date= 1 Jan 1971|isbn=0030857333 }} (Co-author)
• {{cite journal |title=Ethics in government: The problems in perspective |journal=National Civic Review |date=July 1972 |volume=61 |issue=7 |pages=341–347 |doi=10.1002/ncr.4100610707 |last1=Bernstein |first1=Marver H. }}
• {{cite book |title=American Democracy |date=1 January 1977 |publisher=Dryden Press |edition=8th |isbn= 0030894905 }} (co-author)
• {{cite journal |title=Coping with Turbulence: The First Two Years of the National Unity Government under Peres |journal=Israeli National Security: Political Actors and Perspectives |location=New York |publisher=Greenwood Press |year=1988 }} ed. Bernard Reich and Gershon R. Kieval

Bernstein was married in 1944 to the former Sheva Rosenthal, a native of St. Paul, Minnesota, and graduate of the University of Minnesota. Ms. Rosenthal was an economist who was active in Hadassah, the League of Women Voters and other social services organizations.

After his death, Georgetown University established the Marver H. Bernstein Symposium on Governmental Reform, which took place annually until 2017. It began again in 2023. The Symposium has drawn some of the most prominent figures in American politics, government, and journalism.

• The first symposium speaker in 1994 was then Vice President Al Gore, who spoke on “The new job of the Federal Executive” and directly referenced Bernstein's important research on this topic.{{cite book |title=The new job of the federal executive |oclc=62121842 |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/62121842 |access-date=27 October 2020}}{{cite web |title= The new job of the federal executive |last= Gore |first=Al |url=https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/npr/library/speeches/032994sp.html |website=Govinfo.libraryunt.edu |access-date=27 October 2020 }}
• In 1997, United States Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan spoke on Secrecy as Government Regulation.{{cite journal |title=Secrecy as Government Regulation |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/420484 |publisher=Political Science and Politics |volume=30 |issue=2 |date=June 1997 |pages=160–165 |doi= 10.2307/420484 |jstor = 420484|last1 = Moynihan|first1 = Daniel Patrick|journal = PS: Political Science and Politics|s2cid=154694174 |url-access=subscription }}
• In 1998, the speaker was American journalist, lawyer, and TV moderator Tim Russert.
• In 2014, the speaker was United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor.{{cite web |title=Sotomayor Details Challenges in the Law |url=https://thehoya.com/sotomayor-details-challenges-in-law/ |website=thehoya.com |date=4 April 2014 |access-date=27 October 2020 }}
• In 2017, United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg spoke on the need for improving the confirmation process, “recall[ing] the ‘collegiality’ and ‘civility’ of her own nomination and confirmation...”{{cite web |title=Ginsburg pines for more collegial court confirmations |url= https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/330981-ginsburg-pines-for-more-collegial-court-confirmations |last=Wheeler |first=Lydia |access-date=27 October 2020 |website=www.thehill.com |date=27 April 2017}}
• In 2023, United States Senator Jon Ossoff, an alumnus of Georgetown, discussed the importance of bipartisanship in the legislative branch.{{cite web |title=Sen. Jon Ossoff (SFS’09) Delivers Department of Government’s Bernstein Lecture |url=https://college.georgetown.edu/news-story/ossoff-bernstein/ |last=Frye |first=Hayden |access-date=14 May 2023 |website=www.college.georgetown.edu |date=4 May 2023}}

As a bequeath:

[the Georgetown University] library received from his estate...2,700 volumes and 1,000 unbound journals and government documents. The books represent a scholarly library of works on Israel and the Middle East, political science, government, economics, urban studies, history and biography, many of them now out of print. The Middle East collection contains most of the significant scholarly works in the field published in the English language during the past thirty years.{{cite web |title=Marver Bernstein Estate |work=Georgetown University Library Associates Newsletter |date= August 1990 |issue=27 |url=https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/551003/LibraryAssociatesNewsletter27.pdf |access-date= 3 March 2021}}

In approximately 2005, the Princeton University School of International and Public Affairs (SPIA) (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School) established the Bernstein Gallery in Robertson Hall. The gallery “presents art exhibitions to stimulate thinking about contemporary policy issues and to enable understanding the world beyond the power of words. Each year, six curated shows are presented... and...are complemented by ...panel discussions with experts from Princeton University, the School and outside organizations." The exhibits are "...Integrated with the School's multidisciplinary approach...to enhance the impact of the course curriculum and to deepen people's commitment to the ideals of public service."{{cite web |title=Bernstein Gallery |url=https://spia.princeton.edu/about/bernstein-gallery |website=spia.princeton.edu |access-date= 27 October 2020 }}

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Category:20th-century American Jews