Edward Herbert Greer

Edward Greer (January 28,1943 – December 13, 2025) of Brookline MA, activist and lawyer, devoted father, grandfather and husband, dedicated his life to building a more just society, protecting civil liberties, civil rights, and those exposed to toxic chemicals or environmental hazards. He died of a neurodegenerative disease.

Greer grew up in Brooklyn, NY. His father Paul and mother Ruth were public school teachers. He was educated at Erasmus Hall High School, Columbia College, Yale Law School and the Harvard School of Public Health. He was active in campaigns for civil rights and nuclear disarmament and opposition to the war in Vietnam and cofounded Columbia Action and the New Haven-Yale Committee for Peace in Vietnam, and was active in the National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam, the New University Conference, and was a board member of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL). He was a special assistant to the first black mayor (Richard Hatcher, Gary, IN), taught at Skidmore College, Wheaton College, Princeton University, Northeastern School of Law and Southern New England School of Law (now UMass Law), was a special fellow of the ACLU and maintained a solo legal practice representing people who were discriminated against or exposed to toxic chemicals. He won the first anti-smoking cases in the US, which protected employees from exposure to cigarette smoke in the workplace and enforced rules against selling cigarettes to minors.

He married Judy Lieberman in 1970 and they had two sons Paul and Eric, who are now Assoc. Professors of molecular medicine at U Mass Chan Medical School and of genetics and pediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine, respectively. Besides his wife, and 2 sons, Greer is survived by his sister Helen Greer; daughters-in law, Helen MacDonald and Elizabeth Pollina; grandchildren, Hannah, Jacob, Charlotte, Aaron and Aviva Greer; sisters and brothers-in-law, Donna Lieberman and Bill Stampur and Phyllis and Maurice Michelson; and nieces and nephews, Leslie, Beth, Elyse, Gui and Liana.

A memorial celebration of Ed’s life will be held at the American Academy of Art and Sciences in Cambridge at 2 pm on January 24, 2026.