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Raoul Berger (January 4, 1901 – September 23, 2000) "Berger, Raoul. Papers, 1921-2000: Finding Aid" Harvard Law School Library; retrieved March 8, 2016. "Raoul Berger, 99, an Expert On Constitution in 2nd Career" The New York Times, September 28, 2000; retrieved March 8, 2016 was an American legal scholar at the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard Law School. While at Harvard, he was the Charles Warren Senior Fellow in American Legal History. He is known for his role in the development of originalism.
His notable work was in the area of constitutional scholarship. Berger has written extensively about Impeachment, executive privilege, and the Fourteenth Amendment.
Berger was a popular academic critic of the doctrine of "executive privilege" and his writings, according to professor Vincent Crapanzano, played a role in undermining President Richard Nixon's constitutional arguments during the 1973–74 impeachment process.
In 1977, Berger unleashed a firestorm of controversy within the legal academy with his next book, Government by Judiciary. In it, Berger claimed that the Warren Court's expansive interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment alternately distorted and ignored the intentions of the framers of that amendment as disclosed by the historical record. Berger presented arguments that the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment did not intend it to forbid segregated schooling.
The book is widely credited as the first work of legal scholarship from an originalist perspective, although some originalists disagree with the conclusions Berger draws from the historical record. Berger further posited that the Warren Court expanded the authority of the judiciary without constitutional warrant.
Berger continued writing articles – often in response to his critics – until at least 1997. Berger died in 2000 at the age of 99.
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