Article by J. Skelly Wright
I am honored indeed to appear before you this afternoon as the 1981 George Dreyfous lecturer. The name Dreyfous has fascinated me since I first studied the Alfred Dreyfus affair in French history. While the Dreyfous family here makes no claim of relationship to Alfred Dreyfus, there is a certain parallelism in the careers of Alfred and George Dreyfous. At the turn of this century Captain Alfred Dreyfus refused to be intimidated by the racism in the hierarchy of the then all-powerful French Army, while George Dreyfous, fifty years later, confounded his racist critics, here in New Orleans and elsewhere, by starting the first chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union in Louisiana. George Dreyfous was a quiet, self-effacing man. But when the going was tough—before many of us fully appreciated the injustice of some of our social policies—he raised his voice. That is why we honor him today.
The broad theme of this series of Dreyfous lectures concerns the rights of the individual as against the natural inclination of governments—federal, state, and local—to infringe personal freedom or to resort to shortcuts in the name of the "public interest." Previous Dreyfous lecturers have developed the theme in different ways and in different areas of civil liberties or civil rights. While those excellent and scholarly lectures certainly have in no way exhausted the subject for this country, I thought it might be appropriate to introduce some comparative law into our discussion. Perhaps I can invoke George Dreyfous's special interest in our transatlantic heritage. In any event, the tradition of the Tulane Law School in comparative studies is sufficient excuse for looking across the ocean.
About the Author
J. Skelly Wright. Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Citation
55 Tul. L. Rev. 291 (1981)