Andrew Layton Schlafly (; born April 27, 1961) is an American lawyer and

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...

activist. He is the founder and owner of the

wiki A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or l ...

encyclopedia project

Conservapedia Conservapedia (; ) is an English-language, wiki-based, online encyclopedia written from a self-described American conservative and fundamentalist Christian point of view. The website was established in 2006 by American attorney and activist An ...

. He is the son of the conservative activist and lawyer

Phyllis Schlafly Phyllis Stewart Schlafly (; born Phyllis McAlpin Stewart; August 15, 1924 – September 5, 2016) was an American attorney, conservative activist, and anti-feminist, who was nationally prominent in conservatism. She held paleoconservative soc ...

. Schlafly was the lead counsel for the

Association of American Physicians and Surgeons The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is a Conservatism in the United States, politically conservative non-profit association that promotes conspiracy theories and Pseudoscience, medical misinformation, such as HIV/AIDS deni ...

' efforts to bring the

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other health ...

before the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

Early life and education

Schlafly is one of six children. His great-great-grandfather August Schlafly was a Swiss immigrant to the United States. His father Fred Schlafly was an attorney, and his mother Phyllis (née Stewart) spearheaded the movement opposing the

Equal Rights Amendment The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was a proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States, United States Constitution that would explicitly prohibit sex discrimination. It is not currently a part of the Constitution, though its Ratifi ...

and was founder of the

Eagle Forum Eagle Forum is a conservative advocacy group in the United States founded by Phyllis Schlafly in 1972. Focused on social issues, it is socially conservative and describes itself as pro-family. Critics have described it as anti-feminist, an ...

. Born and raised in

Alton, Illinois Alton ( ) is a city on the Mississippi River in Madison County, Illinois, United States, about north of St. Louis, Missouri. The population was 25,676 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is a part of the River Bend (Illinois), Riv ...

, Schlafly graduated from

Saint Louis Priory School The Saint Louis Priory School is a Catholic secondary day school for boys on a 150-acre campus in Creve Coeur, Missouri, within the Archdiocese of St. Louis. The school is run by the Benedictine monks of Saint Louis Abbey. History The school ...

and later received a

B.S.E. A Bachelor of Engineering (BEng) or a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (BSE) is an undergraduate academic degree awarded to a college graduate majoring in an engineering discipline at a higher education institution. In the United Kingdom, a Bac ...

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

and certificate in

engineering physics Engineering physics (EP), sometimes engineering science, is the field of study combining pure science disciplines (such as physics, mathematics, chemistry or biology) and engineering disciplines (computer, nuclear, electrical, aerospace, medic ...

from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

in 1981.

Career

Engineering

After graduating from Princeton, Schlafly briefly worked as a device physicist for

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

Santa Clara, California Santa Clara ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for "Clare of Assisi, Saint Clare") is a city in Santa Clara County, California. The city's population was 127,647 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of cities and towns i ...

until 1983, when he became a

microelectronics Microelectronics is a subfield of electronics. As the name suggests, microelectronics relates to the study and manufacture (or microfabrication) of very small electronic designs and components. Usually, but not always, this means micrometre ...

engineer at the

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

Applied Physics Laboratory The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (or simply Applied Physics Laboratory, or APL) is a not-for-profit university-affiliated research center (UARC) in Howard County, Maryland. It is affiliated with Johns Hopkins University ...

. Schlafly later worked for

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Murray Hill, New Jersey, the compa ...

before enrolling at

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United ...

Legal

Schlafly graduated from Harvard Law School in 1991 with a J.D. in the class that included future U.S. president

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

. From 1989 to 1991, Schlafly was an editor of the ''

Harvard Law Review The ''Harvard Law Review'' is a law review published by an independent student group at Harvard Law School. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the ''Harvard Law Review''s 2015 impact factor of 4.979 placed the journal first out of ...

''. After law school, Schlafly served as an adjunct professor at

Seton Hall Law School Seton Hall University School of Law is the law school of Seton Hall University, and is located in downtown Newark, New Jersey. Seton Hall Law is the only private law school in New Jersey. The school confers three law degrees: Juris Doctor, Mas ...

. In

1992 1992 was designated as International Space Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 – Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt replaces Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru as United Nations Secretary-General. * January 6 ** The Republ ...

, Schlafly ran as a Republican for the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Artic ...

seat of

Virginia's 11th congressional district Virginia's 11th congressional district is a U.S. congressional district in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Situated in the Northern Virginia suburbs, the district comprises most of Fairfax County and the entirety of Fairfax City. The district ...

; Schlafly came in last place in a field of five candidates in the primary. Schlafly was an associate for the

Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz (known as Wachtell; ) is an American white-shoe law firm in New York City. Wachtell has only a single, Manhattan office, making it one of the smallest firms in the AmLaw 100. History The firm was founded in 1 ...

law firm in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

before moving to private practice. Additionally, he is General Counsel at the

and led its unsuccessful Supreme Court challenge to the

. In 2010, Schlafly wrote an article for the '' Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons'' about the economic effects of the legislation. In 2010, Schlafly took the role of lead counsel for a group seeking to recall US Senator

Bob Menendez Robert Menendez (; born January 1, 1954) is an American former politician and lawyer who represented New Jersey in the United States Senate from 2006 until his resignation in 2024. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic ...

, a Democrat from New Jersey. The group, associated with the

Tea Party movement The Tea Party movement was an American fiscally conservative political movement within the Republican Party that began in 2007, catapulted into the mainstream by Congressman Ron Paul's presidential campaign. The movement expanded in resp ...

, argued that the

US Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, on March 4, 1789. Originally including seven articles, the Constitut ...

permits a

recall election A recall election (also called a recall referendum, recall petition or representative recall) is a procedure by which voters can remove an elected official from office through a referendum before that official's term of office has ended. Recalls ...

for federal offices without explicitly so providing. On November 18, 2010, the

New Jersey Supreme Court The Supreme Court of New Jersey is the supreme court, highest court in the U.S. state of New Jersey. In its current form, the Supreme Court of New Jersey is the final judicial authority on all cases in the state court system, including cases cha ...

rejected Schlafy's arguments, finding that the New Jersey provision violated the U.S. Constitution. Later that year, Schlafly represented the group RecallND in ''RecallND v. Jaeger'' before the

North Dakota Supreme Court The North Dakota Supreme Court is the highest court of law in the state of North Dakota. The Court rules on questions of law in appeals from the state's district courts. Each of the five justices is elected on a no-party ballot for a ten-year ...

in another effort to recall Democratic Senator

Kent Conrad Gaylord Kent Conrad (born March 12, 1948) is a former American politician who was a United States Senator from North Dakota. He is a member of the Democratic Party. First elected to the Senate in 1986, he served as chairman or Ranking Member of ...

Conservapedia

Schlafly created the

-based Conservapedia in November 2006 to counter what he perceived as a liberal bias present in Wikipedia. He felt the need to start the project after reading a student's assignment written using

Common Era Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the ...

dating notation, rather than the

Anno Domini The terms (AD) and before Christ (BC) are used when designating years in the Gregorian calendar, Gregorian and Julian calendar, Julian calendars. The term is Medieval Latin and means "in the year of the Lord" but is often presented using "o ...

system that he preferred. Although he was "an early Wikipedia enthusiast", as reported by Shawn Zeller of ''

Congressional Quarterly ''Congressional Quarterly'', or ''CQ'', is an American publication that is part of the privately owned publishing company CQ Roll Call, which covers the United States Congress. ''CQ'' was formerly acquired by the U.K.-based Economist Group and ...

'', Schlafly became concerned about perceived

bias Bias is a disproportionate weight ''in favor of'' or ''against'' an idea or thing, usually in a way that is inaccurate, closed-minded, prejudicial, or unfair. Biases can be innate or learned. People may develop biases for or against an individ ...

after Wikipedia editors repeatedly undid his edits to the article about the 2005 Kansas evolution hearings. Schlafly expressed hope that Conservapedia would become a general resource for American educators and a counterpoint to the liberal bias that he perceived in Wikipedia. The site has been accused of spreading misinformation on scientific subjects, such as

HIV/AIDS denialism HIV/AIDS denialism is the belief, despite conclusive evidence to the contrary, that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) does not cause acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). Some of its proponents reject the existence of HIV, while other ...

, the abortion-breast cancer hypothesis,

climate change denial Climate change denial (also global warming denial) is a form of science denial characterized by rejecting, refusing to acknowledge, disputing, or fighting the scientific consensus on climate change. Those promoting denial commonly use rhetor ...

, relativity denial, and vaccine/autism connections, and has advocated

Young Earth creationism Young Earth creationism (YEC) is a form of creationism which holds as a central tenet that the Earth and its lifeforms were created by supernatural acts of the Abrahamic God between about 10,000 and 6,000 years ago, contradicting established s ...

Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories During Barack Obama's campaign for president in 2008, throughout his presidency and afterwards, there was extensive news coverage of Obama's religious preference, birthplace, and of the individuals questioning his religious belief and citiz ...

and conspiracy theories that the

January 6 United States Capitol attack On January 6, 2021, the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., was attacked by a mob of supporters of Donald Trump, President Donald Trump in an attempted self-coup,Multiple sources: * * * * * * * * * * * * * two months afte ...

was staged. Additionally, it features extensive criticisms of

atheism Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the Existence of God, existence of Deity, deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the ...

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

homosexuality Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or Human sexual activity, sexual behavior between people of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexu ...

, and the Democratic Party. In 2009, Schlafly appeared on ''

The Colbert Report ''The Colbert Report'' ( ) is an American late night television, late-night Late-night talk show, talk and news satire television program hosted by Stephen Colbert that aired four days a week on Comedy Central from October 17, 2005, to December ...

'' to discuss his Conservative Bible Project, a project hosted on Conservapedia that aims to rewrite English translations of the

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

in order to remove or alter terms advancing a "liberal bias".

Dialogue with Richard Lenski

Richard Lenski Richard E. Lenski (born 1956) is an American evolutionary biologist who is the John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor of Microbial Ecology at Michigan State University. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a MacArthur Fellow. ...

, an

evolutionary biologist Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes such as natural selection, common descent, and speciation that produced the diversity of life on Earth. In the 1930s, the discipline of evolutionary biol ...

known for his work on the ''E. coli'' long-term evolution experiment, was contacted by Schlafly in 2008 regarding a set of results that showed one population of ''E. coli'' evolved the novel trait of being able to metabolize

citrate Citric acid is an organic compound with the formula . It is a colorless weak organic acid. It occurs naturally in citrus fruits. In biochemistry Biochemistry, or biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes within and relati ...

. Conservapedia supports

creationism Creationism is the faith, religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of Creation myth, divine creation, and is often Pseudoscience, pseudoscientific.#Gunn 2004, Gun ...

and objects to evolution, so Schlafly disputed that bacteria could evolve via beneficial

mutation In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA or viral replication, ...

s. The correspondence was commented on across the Internet. Schlafly was criticized by Lenski on ''

Ars Technica ''Ars Technica'' is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, sci ...

'', among other sites, for not reading Lenski's paper properly, for not understanding the experimental data he requested, and for not taking notice of people on Conservapedia itself who considered the paper well researched.

Trademark lawsuit against Saint Louis Brewery

In 2011, Schlafly led a lawsuit on behalf of the family of his activist mother, Phyllis, to block The Saint Louis Brewery from acquiring a trademark on the name "Schlafly". In 2018, the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of The Saint Louis Brewery.

Personal life

In 1984, Schlafly married Catherine Kosarek, a medical student and fellow Princeton alum. They live in

Far Hills, New Jersey Far Hills is a borough in the Somerset Hills of northern Somerset County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 924, an increase of 5 (+0.5%) from the 2010 census count of 919, whic ...

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schlafly, Andrew 1961 births Living people American people of Swiss descent American Christian creationists American critics of atheism Critics of Wikipedia Harvard Law School alumni Johns Hopkins University people Lawyers from Somerset County, New Jersey New Jersey Republicans People from Alton, Illinois People from Santa Clara County, California People from Far Hills, New Jersey People from Wayne, New Jersey Princeton University alumni Seton Hall University School of Law faculty Virginia Republicans Activists from California Male critics of feminism Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz people Relativity critics 20th-century American lawyers 20th-century American people 21st-century American lawyers Schlafly family Right-wing populists in the United States