Stern is an American defense attorney and an author.
He is director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, a program of the Human Rights Project at Bard College.
From 2014 to 2018 he was executive director of the Justus & Karin Rosenberg Foundation.
From 1989 to 2014 he was director on antisemitism, hate studies and extremism for the American Jewish Committee.
In 2000, Stern was a special advisor to the defense in the David Irving v.
Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt trial.
His forthcoming book, The Conflict Over the Conflict: The Israel/Palestine Campus Debate, examines attempts of partisans of each side to censor the other, and the resulting damage to the academy.