Asians, Harold Koh, Kenji Yoshino, Law Professors, Law Schools

NYU Hires Kenji Yoshino as Permanent Faculty Member

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NYU School of Law announced today that it has hired Professor Kenji Yoshino as a tenured faculty member. He was a visiting professor at the school last year and again this spring.

Professor Yoshino graduated from Yale Law in 1996 and is influential in the fields of constitutional law, anti-discrimination law, and law and literature. It’s quite a score for NYU. Read the original email announcement, from Dean Ricky Revesz, after the jump.

From: Office of the Dean
Date: Fri, Feb 29, 2008 at 2:11 PM
Subject: Kenji Yoshino

MEMORANDUM

To: The Law School Community
From: Richard Revesz
Date: February 29, 2008
Re: Kenji Yoshino

I am thrilled to announce the terrific news that Professor Kenji Yoshino has accepted our tenured offer and will join us as a permanent member of our faculty in Fall 2008. Kenji, who was a Visiting Professor at the Law School last year and is visiting again this Spring, is currently the Guido Calabresi Professor of Law and the former Deputy Dean of Intellectual Life at the Yale Law School. He will hold a chair in constitutional law when he joins us.

Kenji is a leading scholar in the areas of constitutional law, anti-discrimination law, and law and literature. His highly regarded work on assimilation takes aim at how current anti-discrimination law fails to protect individuals against coerced conformity. Kenji has
developed a theory of civil rights law that not only seeks to protect individuals from discrimination, but which also seeks to advance their human flourishing. His recent award-winning book, Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights (Random House, 2006), skillfully melds memoir and argument to explore the intersection of personal identity, politics and law. He is currently at work on a book on Shakespeare and the Law.

Kenji served as a law clerk to Judge Guido Calabresi in 1996-97 and received a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1996, where he was Articles Editor of the Yale Law Journal. He earned a M.Sc. from Oxford University in 1993, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and a B.A. summa cum laude from Harvard University in 1991. He has been a celebrated teacher at Yale since joining that faculty in 1998 (as well as here during his visits), and has repeatedly been nominated for or won the teaching awards there.

Please join me in welcoming Kenji to the Law School community.

UPDATE: New email, from Kenji himself, sent to Dean Harold Koh of Yale Law. Read it below.

February 28, 2008

Dear Harold,

I never expect to have more difficulty writing a letter than in writing you today to say I will be leaving Yale Law School at the end of this academic year to move to the NYU School of Law. As you know, the reasons are entirely personal, and have nothing to do with the school. To the contrary, I could not have asked for a more supportive, inspiring, and loving community over my fourteen years here as a student and teacher. Please convey my profound gratitude to our colleagues, our students, and our staff for all they have done for me. I leave part of my soul behind me here with you today, and that is a testament to you all. But the rest of me will be a frequent visitor to the law school, beginning this fall!

With respect and affection,
Kenji

Earlier: Kenji Yoshino: Tied to a Chair?

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