Peter Gabel

Gabel is the only child of actress, radio and television talk show host, and television game show personality Arlene Francis and actor and director Martin Gabel. He graduated from Deerfield Academy, received his B.A. (1968) and J.D. (1972) from Harvard University, where he served as editor for the Harvard Lampoon, and received his Ph.D. from the Wright Institute in 1981.

As a teenager he worked as a guide for the 1964 New York World's Fair, a fact he revealed on the game show What's My Line?, where he appeared as a guest and stumped the panel, which included his mother.[2][3][4] He appeared a second time in 1967 along with Jonathan Cerf as the Editors of the Harvard Lampoon, once again stumping the panel which included both his mother and father, plus Cerf's father Bennett Cerf although Bennett disqualified himself at the beginning of the segment, because he revealed later that he'd been tipped off the two would appear on the show. Gabel appeared again in a 1973 syndicated episode but was guessed by Soupy Sales. [5]

Gabel taught law at Boalt Hall (the law school of the University of California, Berkeley) and at the University of Minnesota before becoming a law professor for 30 years at the New College of California School of Law.[6] He also served as New College's president for 20 years. The college, founded in 1971, was an alternative school in the Mission District that offered undergraduate degrees as well as graduate degrees in psychology and law before its accreditation was revoked and the school was forced to close in June 2008.

Gabel is active in the Project for Integrating Spirituality, Law, and Politics, a group in the San Francisco Bay Area that: "will bring together law teachers, lawyers, and law students in the Bay Area who share our group's aspiration to connect the inner and the outer in a fundamental transformation of legal culture."[7] He is also strongly focused on communalizing the neighborhood in Noe Valley, San Francisco.[8] One of the group's successful actions was to save a small independent bookstore, Cover to Cover, which was hurt by a publishing slump. Gabel created a group email for neighbors who wanted to help and distributed fliers in the neighborhood, asking neighbors to sign a list pledging to buy a hardback book every month.[9]

Gabel is the bassist in Central Park Zoo, a dance band.[10]

Gabel has a son, Samuel, with his long-time partner, Unite Here union organizer Lisa Jaicks.[11]

Since 1968, Gabel has been an outspoken supporter of multiple social causes including women's rights, LGBTQ+ rights and the environmental movement.

In 2015, when receiving his honorary doctorate, he commented how "in 1968 there was a radiant spirit of idealism in the air that drew me into the great social movements of that time—the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam war movement, the women’s movement, the environmental movement, the gay and lesbian movement, all movements that sought to transform the world in a more loving and just direction."[12]