Alfred Avins

Alfred Avins (1935–1999) was an American lawyer, law professor, and dean. He was educated at Columbia Law School, LLB, 1956, and the University of Chicago. His first book was The Law of AWOL (1957). He was best known as a staunch opponent of Civil Rights legislation; he was the author of numerous articles that criticized anti-discrimination legislation or sought to limit its scope. He was also the author of The Reconstruction Amendments' Debates: The Legislative History and Contemporary Debates in Congress on the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments (Virginia Commission on Constitutional Government, 1967), which was designed to show the limited scope of the Reconstruction Amendments to support federal anti-discrimination legislation. It has proven a useful resource for some scholars looking into the history of the Reconstruction Amendments. In the 1970s he was a co-founder of the Delaware Law School. He unsuccessfully sued Delaware Law School in the 1980s. In the 1980s a co-founder of the Northern Virginia Law School. That also resulted in unsuccessful litigation in federal court.