Eugene Volokh

Eugene Volokh (; born Yevhen Volodymyrovych Volokh (); February 29, 1968) is an American legal scholar known for his scholarship in American constitutional law and libertarianism as well as his prominent legal blog, '' The Volokh Conspiracy''. Volokh is regarded as an expert on the First Amendment, and the Second Amendment.

He is currently the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, the Gary T. Schwartz Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles, and an affiliate at the law firm Schaerr Jaffe.

Early life and education

Volokh was born in the Soviet Union to a Jewish family residing in Kyiv, Ukraine. He emigrated with his family to the United States at the age of seven. 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.Nancy Graham, "Professor's Gift Is Nurturing Gifted, Steering Them to UCLA"
''Los Angeles Times'', October 18, 1986. 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.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))

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

Volokh later attended the UCLA Law School, where he was a managing editor of the ''UCLA Law Review''. He graduated in 1992 with a Juris Doctor.

Career

After law school, Volokh 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. Upon completing his Supreme Court clerkship in 1994, UCLA hired Volokh as a professor of law. As of 2018, he also held the position of Gary T. Schwartz Professor of Law, and was an academic affiliate at the law firm Mayer Brown. As of 2023, he was an affiliate of trial and appellate law firm Schaerr Jaffe.

In 2024, Volokh retired from UCLA, becoming a Professor of Law Emeritus, and moved to the Hoover Institution at Stanford, where he is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow.

Politics

Volokh is commonly described as politically conservative or libertarian. In 2012, one commentator described Volokh's politics as "soft libertarian", and Volokh as an "unpredictable libertarian-leaning" writer. He has been a longtime member of the Federalist Society since he first joined in the 1980s.

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. Bazelon, Emily (November 26, 2007
On the advice of counsel
, Slate.com; accessed February 27, 2018. 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."

Volokh is a supporter of same-sex marriage.

Writing

Volokh's article about "The Commonplace Second Amendment" (1998), was cited by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's majority opinion in the landmark Second Amendment case of '' District of Columbia v. Heller'', and he has been quoted in the media on gun laws. His article, "Might Federal Preemption of Speech-Protective State Laws Violate the First Amendment?" (2021) was cited by Justice Clarence Thomas in a concurring opinion for ''Knight First Amendment Institute v. Trump'' (2021), with Thomas arguing that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act might be unconstitutional and that Twitter should be regulated as a common carrier.

Volokh advocates free speech on campus, religious freedom, and other First Amendment issues, and has been widely quoted as an expert. 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.

On his weblog, Volokh addresses a wide variety of issues, with a focus on politics and law.

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.

Family

Volokh's brother, Alexander "Sasha" Volokh, is a law professor at Emory University. Like Eugene, Alexander also clerked for Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court, although Alexander clerked for Justice Alito as well.

Selected works

Books

*
*

Articles

*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

See also

* List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States (Seat 8)

References

External links

The Volokh Conspiracy website

Volokh's webpage at UCLA
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Volokh, Eugene
1968 births
Living people
20th-century American Jews
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American Jews
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American legal scholars
American legal writers
American libertarians
American male bloggers
American bloggers
American male non-fiction writers
Copyright scholars
First Amendment scholars
HuffPost writers and columnists
Jewish American non-fiction writers
Jewish bloggers
Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States
Lawyers from Los Angeles
Legal educators
People from Greater Los Angeles
Soviet emigrants to the United States
Soviet Jews
UCLA School of Law alumni
UCLA School of Law faculty
University of California, Los Angeles alumni