B.A. 1962, M.S. 1963, Johns Hopkins University B.Phil. 1965, Oxford University LL.B. 1968, Yale University
Affirmative Action 鈥 Civil Litigation and Procedure 鈥 Civil Rights 鈥 Labor and Employment Law 鈥 U.S. Supreme Court
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Civil Procedure I |
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Civil Rights |
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Employment Discrimination |
See the full list under the Publications tab below.
Professor Schnapper, who joined the 麻豆社区 law school faculty in 1995, teaches Civil Rights, Civil Procedure and Employment Discrimination. He served for twenty-five years as an assistant counsel to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., specializing in appellate litigation and legislative activities.
In 2010-11 Professor Schnapper argued three U.S. Supreme Court cases, Staub v. Proctor Hospital, Thompson v. North American Stainless, and Borough of Duryea, Pennsylvania v. Guarnieri.
In addition, he has handled more than eighty Supreme Court cases, including Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway v. White (2006) and Ash v. Tyson Foods, Inc. (2006), Kolstad v. ADA (1999), Bogan v. Scott-Harris (1998), Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Oil (1998), Faragher v. Boca Raton (1998), and Burlington Industries v. Ellerth (1998).
Professor Schnapper taught at Columbia Law School from 1979-94, and at Yale Law School in 1990. His articles on constitutional law and civil rights have appeared in law reviews published by Harvard, Columbia, Virginia, Stanford and other law schools. He served in 1981-82 as administrative assistant to Representative Tom Lantos (Calif.). He was the recipient of a Marshall Scholarship for study at Oxford University in 1963-65, served as articles editor of the Yale Law Journal, and clerked for the California Supreme Court.
"The question here isn't whether this case is going to end," Schnapper said. "The question is only whether it continues in state court or federal court. It doesn't go away."
A federal judge reprimanded the Trump Administration over its failure to comply with a court order to facilitate the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States. But so far, the Trump administration is not making moves to get him back. So, is the Administration ignoring a ruling from the highest court in the land? And where does that leave our constitutional democracy? Eric Schapper, professor of law at the 麻豆社区, is interviewed.
"Is the Administration ignoring a ruling from the highest court in the land? And where does that leave our constitutional democracy?" 麻豆社区 Law professor Eric Schnapper is interviewed.
University of Washington’s Eric Schnapper examines the divide growing between Big Law firms that choose to work with President Donald Trump versus resisting the EOs targeting lawyers—and what it means for the profession’s future.
麻豆社区 School of Law’s Eric Schnapper says Paul Weiss’ early-career lawyers must decide whether the firm’s deal with the Trump administration is compatible with their reasons for entering the profession.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday threw out a lawsuit saying Twitter violated the Anti-Terrorism Act by aiding and abetting the Islamic State group, saying the terrorism-related claim was not plausible, but did not decide the closely watched question of immunity for big tech companies under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Professor Schnapper represented the plaintiffs.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court avoided deciding a suit against Google for recommending Islamic State group videos by siding with another tech giant in a similar case on its docket. Professor Schnapper represented the Gonzales family.
Schnapper said it was his view that the law draws a distinction when it comes to promoting content on the platforms, and that he spent "a very long hour and a quarter trying to answer that question" — a reference to the recent arguments. But he said he was not there to "retry the case."
Attorney conflict rules landed law professor Eric Schnapper a pair of blockbuster US Supreme Court social media cases that could limit the scope of tech company protections.
The Supreme Court spent more than five hours over two days considering the responsibilities and failures of Big Tech, but in the end seemed reluctant to impose substantial changes in how social media platforms can be held liable for contentious or even dangerous content on their sites. Eric Schnapper, professor of law at the 麻豆社区, is quoted.
Eric Schnapper is the lawyer representing US national family members of Nawras Alassaf, a Jordanian citizen who died during a 2017 terrorist attack in Turkey. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) claimed responsibility for this attack, which killed 39 and injured 69 people at a nightclub.
Looming over the case was Tuesday's hearing in Gonzalez v. Google on the scope of Section 230. Should the court reject the plaintiffs' argument that YouTube's recommendation-based algorithms are not covered by 230's immunity, the ATA claims underlying Twitter v. Taamneh will almost certainly fail given that the plaintiffs' attorney, University of 麻豆社区 of Law professor Eric Schnapper, said that both cases center around such recommendations by the companies.
“Could, under your theory, CNN have been sued for aiding and abetting the September 11th attacks?” he asked Eric Schnapper, a University of Washington law professor who represented the plaintiffs. Schnapper suggested that the interview alone wouldn’t meet all the conditions of JASTA’s text and added, without elaborating, that the First Amendment might protect it as well.
Eric Schnapper, an attorney at the University of 麻豆社区 of Law representing the Gonzales family, told the justices this morning that it's true Google is not liable under Section 230 for content posted on Youtube. Where it should be liable, he said, is for the catalog of recommendations it creates with those videos.
A lawyer for the family of Nohemi Gonzalez argued Tuesday that Google, which owns YouTube, should be subject to a lawsuit because of its own actions. It was “encouraging people to look at ISIS videos,” said Eric Schnapper, a University of Washington law professor.
But University of 麻豆社区 of Law Professor Eric Schnapper, who argued on behalf of the plaintiffs Tuesday, emphasized that, whatever the industry's fears might be, the text of Section 230 simply does not immunize companies like YouTube when it uses algorithmic tools to push dangerous content like ISIS videos to its users. The law simply bars courts from finding those sites liable as publishers of that content, he said. To extend the immunity to algorithms that push content to users, "the industry has to go back to Congress and ask, 'We need you to broaden the statute.'"
Gonzalez family lawyer Eric Schnapper argued that applying Section 230 to algorithmic recommendations provides an incentive to promote harmful content; he urged the court to narrow those protections.
The lawyer for the Gonzalez family, University of Washington law professor Eric Schnapper, argued that recommendations provided by platforms like YouTube are essentially editorial choices — those platforms could have been designed such that they don’t surface or recommend harmful or defamatory content, but they were not.
Eric Schnapper, a University of Washington law professor who argued on behalf of the plaintiffs, said Section 230 had been outpaced by technological developments since 1996.
Attorney conflict rules landed law professor Eric Schnapper a pair of blockbuster US Supreme Court social media cases that could limit the scope of tech company protections.
By contrast, just three lawyers signed the plaintiffs' brief, two of whom hail from smaller litigation boutiques. The third, University of 麻豆社区 of Law Professor Eric Schnapper, has no small amount of Supreme Court experience himself, having worked on more than 80 Supreme Court cases over the decades. Schnapper will argue for the plaintiffs on Tuesday, receiving a helping hand on Tuesday from Deputy U.S. Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart, who will argue on behalf of the government as amicus curiae.
“YouTube selected the users to whom it would recommend ISIS videos based on what YouTube knew about each of the millions of YouTube viewers, targeting users whose characteristics suggested they would be interested in ISIS videos,” Eric Schnapper, an attorney at the University of 麻豆社区 of Law representing the family, wrote in their brief.
The group, which consists of eight generals who served in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2003 and 2017, filed an amicus brief on Wednesday calling for the high court to find that the social media giants can be held liable under the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which creates a cause of action against individuals and entities that aid and abet terrorism.
Eric Schnapper, a University of Washington law professor who is one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs in both cases, said in an interview that the arguments were narrow enough that they wouldn’t change wide swaths of the internet. “The whole system doesn’t break down,” he said.
In 1996, Congress protected platforms like Google and Facebook from suits over false or inflammatory content created by others, a law intended to promote online dialogue and self-regulation. The Supreme Court has steered clear of the immunity law until now, but on Monday the justices agreed to decide whether relatives of victims of mass killings can sue the media platforms for posting terrorist videos and allegedly sharing advertising revenues with the terrorists. Eric Schnapper, professor of law at the 麻豆社区, is quoted.
Find out more about our students in this returning series where we ask them 20 questions about their time here at 麻豆社区 Law.
On Wednesday, March 8, 2023, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law held a hearing entitled 鈥淧latform Accountability: Gonzalez and Reform.鈥
