Eugene Volokh

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Eugene Volokh
Eugene Volokh.jpg
Born
Yevhen Volodymyrovych Volokh
Євге́н Володимирович Волох

(1968-02-29) February 29, 1968 (age 53)
Kyiv, Ukrainian SSR
Alma materUniversity of California, Los Angeles (BS, JD)
OccupationLaw professor, legal commentator
Known forThe Volokh Conspiracy
Spouse(s)Leslie Pereira[1]

Eugene Volokh (/ˈvɒlək/;[2][3] born February 29, 1968 as Yevhen Volodymyrovych Volokh (Ukrainian: Євге́н Володимирович Волох;[4] Russian: Евге́ний Влади́мирович Во́лох)) is a Ukrainian-American legal scholar known for his scholarship in American constitutional law and libertarianism as well as his prominent legal blog The Volokh Conspiracy. He is the Gary T. Schwartz Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law, and is an academic affiliate at the law firm Mayer Brown.[5]

Early life, education, and teaching[]

Volokh was born to a Jewish family residing in Kyiv, Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union.[6][7] He emigrated with his family to the United States at the age of seven.[8] Volokh exhibited extraordinary mathematical abilities from an early age. At the age of 9, he was attending university-level mathematics and calculus courses after he was found studying differential equations on his own.[9][10] When only 10 years 1 month old, he earned a 780 out of a possible 800 on the math portion of what is now called the SAT-I.[11] He is one of the youngest children to have achieved this feat.

At the age of 12, he began working as a computer programmer and was enrolled as a sophomore at UCLA.[12] He attended the Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics.[13] As a junior at UCLA, he earned $480 a week as a programmer for 20th Century Fox.[14] During this period, Volokh's achievements were featured in an episode of OMNI: The New Frontier, a television series hosted by Peter Ustinov.[15] He graduated from UCLA at age 15 with a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics and computer science.[16]

In 1989, Volokh entered the UCLA Law School, graduating first in his class in 1992 with a Juris Doctor[16] After law school, he clerked for Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, then for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court.[17] Upon completing his Supreme Court clerkship in 1994, UCLA hired Volokh as a professor of law. He has remained there ever since, and currently holds the position of Gary T. Schwartz Professor of Law.[18]

Politics[]

Volokh is commonly described as politically conservative or libertarian.[19][20] In 2012, one commentator described Volokh's politics as "soft libertarian", and Volokh as an "unpredictable libertarian-leaning" writer.[21]

In the 2008 presidential election, Volokh supported former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson, saying Thompson had good instincts on legal issues and that he preferred Thompson's positions on the First Amendment and political speech to John McCain's sponsorship of campaign finance reform. Volokh also liked Thompson's position in favor of individual gun ownership.[22] He noted that Thompson "takes federalism seriously, and he seems to have a fairly deep-seated sense that there is a real difference between state and federal power."[22]

Volokh is a supporter of same-sex marriage.[23]

Writing[]

Volokh's article about "The Commonplace Second Amendment",[24] was cited by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's majority opinion in the landmark Second Amendment case of District of Columbia v. Heller,[25] and he has been quoted in the media on gun laws.[26][27] Volokh advocates free speech on campus, religious freedom, and other First Amendment issues, and has been widely quoted as an expert.[28][29][30][31][32] He opposes affirmative action, having worked as a legal advisor to California's Proposition 209 campaign. Volokh is a critic of what he sees as the overly broad operation of American workplace harassment laws, including those relating to sexual harassment.[33][34][35][36]

On his weblog, Volokh addresses a wide variety of issues, with a focus on politics and law.[37][38][39]

Volokh's non-academic work has been published in The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Slate, and other publications. He was a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post from 2005-2012.[40]

Books[]

  • Academic Legal Writing: Law Review Articles, Student Notes, and Seminar Papers. New York: Foundation Press. 2003. ISBN 978-1-58778-477-4.
  • The First Amendment: Problems, Cases and Policy Arguments. New York: Foundation Press. 2001. ISBN 978-1-58778-144-5.

Articles (partial list)[]

See also[]

  • List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States
  • Edmund Burke

References[]

  1. ^ Logan, Christina (January 24, 2012). "First-Ever 'Pali Bee' Takes the Stage". Pacific Palisades Patch. Retrieved September 20, 2017.
  2. ^ "Pronouncing 'Volokh'". The Volokh Conspiracy. May 27, 2009. Retrieved July 20, 2016.
  3. ^ Sasha Volokh (July 20, 2016). "I'm finally attacked by name on the floor of the Senate". The Volokh Conspiracy. The Washington Post. Retrieved July 20, 2016. [S]he pauses for a second or two in her notes, carefully considering how to pronounce my last name before settling on [ˈvoʊlɒk] (rhymes with 'bow lock') – I don't object to that pronunciation, even though we use [ˈvɑːlək] (rhymes with 'frolic') and the Russian pronunciation is [ˈvoləx]
  4. ^ "UCLA Magazine". The Contrarian. Retrieved November 11, 2006.
  5. ^ "Volokh profile". mayerbrown.com. Retrieved June 12, 2018.
  6. ^ Drezner, Daniel W. (March 9, 2005). "Yeah, I'm Jewish too". Foreign Policy. Retrieved September 21, 2014.
  7. ^ UCLA Today. "Law Prof Outpaces Rest Of The World". NewMediaWire. Retrieved 2021-06-03.
  8. ^ Nancy Graham, "Professor's Gift Is Nurturing Gifted, Steering Them to UCLA", Los Angeles Times, October 18, 1986.
  9. ^ "Baby Einsteins : Education: An informal UCLA program accepts greatly gifted freshmen, some as young as 12". 3 November 1991.
  10. ^ Julian C. Stanley and Camilla P. Benbow, "Smpy's First Decade: Ten Years of Posing Problems and Solving Them", The Journal of Special Education, Vol 17 Iss 1 1983. (Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY))
  11. ^ "Professor Gets the Best and the Brightest off to an Early Start". 2 November 1986.
  12. ^ "About our Alumni". hcssim.org.
  13. ^ Nash, J. Madeleine; Frederic Golden; Philip Faflick (May 3, 1982). "Here Come the Microkids". Time. Archived from the original on February 5, 2013. Retrieved February 23, 2011.
  14. ^ "Omni: The New Frontier (1989) trailer". Video Detective. Retrieved January 23, 2011.
  15. ^ Jump up to: a b Kirby, Fiona (January 28, 2014). "UCLA alum goes from programmer to law professor". Daily Bruin. Retrieved September 18, 2017.
  16. ^ "Threats to the First Amendment – Hon. Alex Kozinski and Prof. Eugene Volokh". Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors. November 11, 2012. Retrieved September 18, 2017.
  17. ^ "Biography Page". law.ucla.edu. Retrieved 2018-03-23.
  18. ^ Beckett, Lois (October 15, 2016). "Milwaukee sheriff says it's 'pitchforks and torches time' and stands by Trump". The Guardian. Retrieved September 18, 2017. Eugene Volokh, a Libertarian second amendment scholar
  19. ^ Berrier, Justin (January 22, 2014). "The Volokh Conspiracy And Washington Post's Move To The Right". Media Matters for America blog. Retrieved September 18, 2017.
  20. ^ Brooks, David (November 20, 2012). "Election loss focuses attention on new conservative views". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved September 18, 2017.
  21. ^ Jump up to: a b Bazelon, Emily (November 26, 2007) On the advice of counsel, Slate.com; accessed February 27, 2018.
  22. ^ "Freedom to Marry, Freedom to Dissent: Why We Must Have Both". April 22, 2014. Retrieved February 27, 2018.
  23. ^ "The Commonplace Second Amendment". Archived from the original on 2020-08-02.
  24. ^ 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2789.
  25. ^ "NRA Leader Pledges 'To Go On Offense' During Trump Years". San Francisco Chronicle. Associated Press. December 4, 2016. Retrieved September 18, 2017.
  26. ^ Ha, Tu Thanh (December 17, 2012). "Legal hurdles get in the way of U.S. gun-control advocates". Toronto Globe and Mail. Retrieved September 18, 2017.
  27. ^ Egelko, Bob (February 2, 2017). "Milo Yiannopoulos' speech unwelcome in Berkeley, but protected by Constitution". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved September 18, 2017.
  28. ^ Saunders, Debra J. (March 13, 2015). "I Pledge Allegiance to the First Amendment". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved September 18, 2017.
  29. ^ Thanawala, Sudhin (May 5, 2017). "California students suspended for 'liking' racist posts launch lawsuit". Toronto Globe and Mail. Associated Press. Retrieved September 18, 2017.
  30. ^ Schoenberg, Tom (September 18, 2013). "Facebook 'Like' of Campaign Page Ruled Free Speech". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved September 18, 2017.
  31. ^ Rosenhall, Laurel (January 22, 2017). "Legislature Runs Afoul of First Amendment Advocates". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved September 18, 2017.
  32. ^ Schabner, Dean (August 15, 2017). "Was Racial Slur Anger or Hate Crime?". ABC News. Go.com. Retrieved September 21, 2017. Eugene Volokh, a specialist in the First Amendment who was one of the legal advisors on California's Proposition 209 anti-race-preference ballot measure
  33. ^ Volokh, Eugene (1992). "Freedom of Speech and Workplace Harassment" (PDF). UCLA L. Rev. 39: 1791. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-03-11. Retrieved March 11, 2021.
  34. ^ ""Harassment Law and Free Speech Doctrine"". Archived from the original on 2015-01-18.
  35. ^ Volokh, Eugene (1997). "What Speech Does 'Hostile Work Environment' Harassment Law Restrict?". Geo. L.J. 85: 627. Retrieved September 21, 2017.
  36. ^ Egelko, Bob (January 17, 2014). "Court Ruling Helps Bloggers in Libel Cases". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved September 18, 2017. Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor who is also a prolific blogger
  37. ^ Saunders, Debra J. (March 3, 2014). "Heckler's veto is not cultural appreciation". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved September 18, 2017.
  38. ^ Volokh, Eugene (September 18, 2017). "Opinion: The Volokh Conspiracy: Short Circuit: A roundup of recent federal court decisions". Washington Post. Retrieved September 18, 2017.
  39. ^ "Eugene Volokh | HuffPost". www.huffpost.com. Retrieved 2020-12-14.

External links[]

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