Former '60s Radical, Now a N.Y. Judge, Still a Magnet for Trouble
Notorious as a law student in the late 1960s for his role in Columbia University campus protests, Gustin Reichbach is now a New York Supreme Court judge.
But his long-ago days as a long-hair in bell-bottom pants didn’t seem so far away recently, when the judge returned to Columbia at the law school’s invitation, in a pinstriped suit, to speak about his experiences as a radical and how they have affected his legal career. As the judge was being interviewed outside by a reporter for the New York Times and talking with some student activists, a campus security officer stopped to weigh in on the “unauthorized interview,” checking the reporter’s press credentials and asking Reichbach to break out some ID, too, the newspaper recounts in its City Room blog.
“Justice Reichbach told the sergeant he was being interviewed by a reporter from The Times. The sergeant responded: Not without university permission,” the article recounts. Said the judge to the sergeant: “I didn’t realize Columbia had an exception to the First Amendment.”
The incident concluded without any arrests, the newspaper notes.
