Kenji Yoshino (born May 1, 1969) is an American

legal scholar Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the a ...

and the Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law at the New York University School of Law.NYU Hires Kenji Yoshino as Permanent Faculty Member
/ref> Formerly, he was the Guido Calabresi Professor of Law at

Yale Law School Yale Law School (YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824. The 2020–21 acceptance rate was 4%, the lowest of any law school in the United ...

. His work involves

constitutional law Constitutional law is a body of law which defines the role, powers, and structure of different entities within a state, namely, the executive, the parliament or legislature, and the judiciary; as well as the basic rights of citizens and, in ...

, anti-discrimination law, civil and

human rights Human rights are universally recognized Morality, moral principles or Social norm, norms that establish standards of human behavior and are often protected by both Municipal law, national and international laws. These rights are considered ...

, as well as law and literature, and Japanese law and society.

Education

Yoshino graduated from

Phillips Exeter Academy Phillips Exeter Academy (often called Exeter or PEA) is an Independent school, independent, co-educational, college-preparatory school in Exeter, New Hampshire. Established in 1781, it is America's sixth-oldest boarding school and educates an es ...

(1987) as valedictorian and

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate education, undergraduate college of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Part of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Scienc ...

, obtaining a B.A. in English literature ''summa cum laude'' in 1991. Between undergraduate years, Yoshino worked as an aide for various members of the Japanese Parliament. He moved on to

Magdalen College, Oxford Magdalen College ( ) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by Bishop of Winchester William of Waynflete. It is one of the wealthiest Oxford colleges, as of 2022, and ...

, as a

Rhodes Scholar The Rhodes Scholarship is an international Postgraduate education, postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford in Oxford, United Kingdom. The scholarship is open to people from all backgrounds around the world. Esta ...

, earning a M.Sc. in management studies (industrial relations) in 1993. In 1996, he earned a J.D. from

, where he was an editor of the ''

Yale Law Journal ''The Yale Law Journal'' (YLJ) is a student-run law review affiliated with the Yale Law School. Published continuously since 1891, it is the most widely known of the eight law reviews published by students at Yale Law School. The journal is one ...

''.

Career

From 1996 to 1997, Yoshino served as a

law clerk A law clerk, judicial clerk, or judicial assistant is a person, often a lawyer, who provides direct counsel and assistance to a lawyer or judge by Legal research, researching issues and drafting legal opinions for cases before the court. Judicial ...

for Judge Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In 1998, he received a tenure-track position at Yale Law School as an associate professor, and in 2003 the school bestowed a full professorship. In 2006, he was named the inaugural Guido Calabresi Professor of Law. His first book '' Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights'' was published in 2006. It is a mix of argument intertwined with pertinent biographical narratives. His second book, ''A Thousand Times More Fair: What Shakespeare's Plays Teach Us About Justice'' was published in 2011. In 2016, his book ''Speak Now: Marriage Equality on Trial'' was published and received the Stonewall Book Award's Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Award. ''Covering'' won the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Non-Fiction from Publishing Triangle in 2007. His major areas of interest include social dynamics,

conformity Conformity or conformism is the act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to social group, group norms, politics or being like-minded. Social norm, Norms are implicit, specific rules, guidance shared by a group of individuals, that guide t ...

and assimilation, as well as queer (

LGBT LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, asexual, aromantic, agender, and other individuals. The gro ...

) and personal liberty issues. He has been a co-

plaintiff A plaintiff ( Π in legal shorthand) is the party who initiates a lawsuit (also known as an ''action'') before a court. By doing so, the plaintiff seeks a legal remedy. If this search is successful, the court will issue judgment in favor of the ...

in cases related to his specialties. During the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 school years, he served as a visiting professor at New York University School of Law, and in February 2008 he accepted a full-time tenured position as the Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law. In May 2011, Yoshino was elected to the Harvard Board of Overseers, where he served a six-year term. In 2023, Kenji Yoshino joined the Facebook Oversight Board. In July 2023, following a recommendation from the oversight board to deplatform Cambodian head of state Hun Sen, the government of

Cambodia Cambodia, officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. It is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north, and Vietnam to the east, and has a coastline ...

listed Yoshino as one of 22 people connected with Meta who were banned from entering the country.

Personal life

Japanese American are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian Americans, Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 United States census, 2000 census, they have declined in ...

, and openly gay man, Yoshino writes poetry for personal enjoyment.Yoshino, Kenj
A Conversation with Yale Law Professor Kenji Yoshino, Author of 'Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights'
, transcript of Court TV program (February 17, 2005). Retrieved on May 17, 2007.

Major works

* (1996)
"Suspect Symbols: The Literary Argument for Heightened Scrutiny for Gays"
'' Columbia Law Review'', 96 (1753). * (1997)
"The Lawyer of Belmont"
'' Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities''. 9 (183). * (1998)
"Assimilationist Bias in Equal Protection: The Visibility Presumption and the Case of 'Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell'"
''

'' 108 (487). * (2000)
"The Epistemic Contract of Bisexual Erasure"
'' Stanford Law Review'', 52 (2). * (2000). "The Eclectic Model of Censorship". '' California Law Review'', 88 (5). * (2002)
"Covering"
''

'', 111 (769). * (2005)
"The City and the Poet"
''

'', 114 (1835). * (2006). '' Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights''.

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

. . * (2011)
"The New Equal Protection"
''

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 ...

'', 124 (747). * (2011)
'' A Thousand Times More Fair: What Shakespeare's Plays Teach Us About Justice.''

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is a British–American publishing company that is considered to be one of the "Big Five (publishers), Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group USA, Hachette, Macmi ...

. . * (2016)
''Speak Now: Marriage Equality on Trial.''
Broadway Books. . * (2023)
the Right Thing: How to Talk About Diversity, Identity, and Justice.''
(with David Glasgow). Atria Books. .

References

External links

NYU School of Law profile

Personal website

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Yoshino, Kenji 1969 births Living people Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford American academics of Japanese descent American essayists American gay writers American legal scholars American legal writers American male essayists American Rhodes Scholars Gay academics Harvard College alumni American civil rights activists of Japanese descent American LGBTQ people of Asian descent American LGBTQ rights activists New York University School of Law faculty Phillips Exeter Academy alumni Stonewall Book Award winners Yale Law School alumni Yale Law School faculty