Bruce Allen Murphy is a judicial biographer and scholar of American Constitutional law and politics. He is the Fred Morgan Kirby Professor of Civil Rights at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, a position he has held since 1998. Prior to that appointment, he was a professor of Political Science and a professor of American History and Politics at Pennsylvania State University. Early life and education Born and raised in Abington, Massachusetts, Murphy is a 1973 summa cum laude graduate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. While there, he was a student of Professors Dean Alfange, Jr. and Sheldon Goldman. In 1978, Murphy received his Ph.D. in Government and Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia where he studied with Professors Henry J. Abraham and Robert J. Harris. Book publications Professor Murphy is the author of four judicial biographies, the co-author of a text book, and the editor of a reader. In addition, he is the author of many book chapters, speeches, and articles in professional journals. Professor Murphy's first book, The Brandeis/Frankfurter Connection: The Secret Political Activities of Two Supreme Court Justices, published in 1982 by Oxford University Press, was the subject of a front-page story in the Sunday New York Times. The book contained details about the financial relationship between Justice Louis D. Brandeis and then-Harvard law professor Felix Frankfurter. While on the Court, Brandeis provided Frankfurter with funds to promote a variety of political reforms. The book sparked a national debate about the ethics of extrajudicial activities by Supreme Court justices. In 1988, Murphy's second book, Fortas: The Rise and Ruin of a Supreme Court Justice, followed the life and career of Abe Fortas who resigned from the U.S. Supreme Court after his close political ties to President Lyndon B. Johnson and his financial relationship with Louis Wolfson, a potential litigant before the Court, came to light. A later biography, Wild Bill: The Legend and Life of William O. Douglas, was published in 2003 by Random House, and examines the life and work of the longest-serving Supreme Court justice in U.S. history. This biography describes, "the genius and warts of William O. Douglas, arguably the greatest influence on American jurisprudence." Although Douglas served as a justice for over thirty-six years, his life was, "largely about political intrigue, because, as Murphy documents, Bill Douglas was, at his core, an ambitious politician.