I had no idea that "McCarthyism" meant "not wanting to meet Alan Dershowitz for a glass of Crémant Rosé on Martha's Vineyard." My sympathies.

— Laila Lalami (@LailaLalami) July 2, 2018

For at least one peer, the feeling is mutual. According to Mr. Dershowitz’s op-ed in The Hill, an unnamed “academic at a distinguished university” has refused to attend any dinner or party where he is present. That appears to be his main example of McCarthyism.

Socrates was forced to eat hemlock. Ovid, Dante, & Emma Goldman were sent into exile. Margaret Sanger was jailed. Rosa Luxemburg, Gandhi and Martin Luther King were killed. Spinoza was excommunicated. Alan Dershowitz can't find anyone to dine with at Martha's Vineyard.

— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) July 2, 2018

Walter Teller, a prominent Los Angeles entertainment lawyer and longtime Vineyard resident, sent Dershowitz and others in their circle an e-mail explaining the sudden estrangement:

“You thereby gave Trump an opportunity to use you and your positions in his own defense, to wave you like his pom-pom. How unfortunate for all of us,” wrote Teller, a partner in a Beverly Hills law firm. “You defended and gave cover to this president who relentlessly disrupts and destroys all that we value and causes massive and lasting damage to our political system, our courts, our standing in the world, the environment and more. In all of that you are complicit.”

Teller’s e-mail, shared with the Globe by one of the many island residents to whom it was forwarded, also attacked Dershowitz personally, saying he has a quenchless appetite “to be in the public eye, to have a seat at the table, even if the table is at Fox News, Mar-a-Lago, the White House, with Bibi (Netanyahu).”

“You proudly announce where you have dined and with whom, going so far as to send out pictures of the menu of your meal with Trump at the White House,” Teller wrote. “And then you complain publicly when you are not invited to dinner.”

Dershowitz has represented many controversial characters, people like televangelist Jim Bakker, socialite Claus von Bulow, and, of course, O.J. Simpson.