Edward de Grazia
Edward Richard de Grazia (February 5, 1927 – April 11, 2013) was an American lawyer, writer, and free speech activist.[1]
Edward Richard de Grazia was born in Chicago.[1] He served in the U.S. Army during World War II, before returning to the United States. He graduated from the University of Chicago with a Bachelor's in 1948, and earned his law degree from the University of Chicago in 1951.[2] He practiced law in Washington, D.C., and then worked for a time with UNESCO in Paris (1956 to 1959).[2] After teaching at a variety of Washington, D.C., area law schools, in 1976 he became a founding member of the faculty at Benjamin Cardozo School of Law, where he remained for the next three decades.[2]
De Grazia was married three times, to Ellen O'Connor, Liz Goode, and Lora Price.[1] He had several children, including Augustus de Grazia (d.2011),[2] David de Grazia, Christophe de Grazia, Belinda de Grazia Holtzclaw, and Elizabeth de Grazia Blumenfeld.[1]
De Grazia was involved in numerous high-profile cases of literary and artistic censorship in the 1960s, including several on behalf of the publisher Barney Rossett, who published works by Henry Miller and William Burroughs, among others.[2] de Grazia was also involved in efforts to protect the speech rights of antiwar demonstrators, as described by Norman Mailer in Armies of the Night.[2] In 1991 he published Girls Lean Back Everywhere, a lengthy and "authoritative" history of the struggle against literary censorship.[2]
Significant cases litigated
- Postal Service censorship of Lysistrata (1955)[3]
- Grove Press v. Gerstein (1964), censorship of Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, decided with Jacobellis v. Ohio
- 1965 - censorship of William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch
- 1967 censorship of film "I Am Curious (Yellow)"
- defense of Lenny Bruce
Bibliography
- Girls Lean Back Everywhere: The Law of Obscenity and the Assault on Genius (1991)
- Banned Films (with Roger Newman) (1982)
- Censorship Landmarks (1969)
Notes
- 1 2 3 4 Douglas Martin, "Edward de Grazia, Lawyer Who Fought Censorship of Books, Is Dead at 86" (obituary), New York Times, April 24, 2013.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Matt Schudel, "Edward de Grazia, lawyer and free-speech advocate, dies at 86" (obituary), Washington Post, April 20, 2013
- ↑ "Suit Asks U.S. Lift 'Lysistrata' Ban", New York Times, March 6, 1955.