NYU Hires Kenji Yoshino as Permanent Faculty Member
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. Kenji 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 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 CommunityFrom: 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.
UPDtTE: New email, from Kenji himself. Read it below.
February 28, 2008 Dear HaroldI 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”
(54) 
Comments
did a midget take that picture, or did he just back-hand a photographer to the ground!
Ichiban!
Thank you for including the serial comma in your cut & paste job - "of constitutional law, anti-discrimination law, and law and literature."
Well done.
Also, nice job using the singular "it" instead of "they" for NYU.
You're improving nicely. Another 40 posts of improvement and you could start a group or something and begin to judge other people... ok, another 400. But still, you're headed in the right direction.
Well done.
I heard he came to NY because his partner was already here.
It seems that Lat would have overlapped with Yoshino at Harvard College or Yale Law School--not the only two things they have in common.
So he graduated under-grad in '91, then studied some more at Oxford, receiving a degree in '93, then went right to YLS from 93-96. Then he clerked on the 2d Circuit from 96-97 and then went right back to YLS to teach after maybe a brief lay-over at some big firm, and now he is going to be teaching at NYU Law. Excuse me, but wtf does Kenji know about the real world? What would he know about assimilation, coerced conformity (whatever that is) or discrimination? He has been living in an Ivory Tower for the better part of the last two decades
"No person shall discriminate against or inhibit the human flourishing of any other person with regard to age, citizenship status, color, disability, marital or parental status, national origin, race, religion, sex or sexual orientation, or status as a veteran."
I don't think that's gonna work.
He taught at Columbia for a semester as well -- he was very good.
As a former student of Professor Yoshino, let me say that this is a sad day for Yale and a lucky day for NYU. He is a tremendous teacher and mentor. I'm sure that he will be sorely missed, but I wish him the best.
Lat didn't overlap. He was Harvard '96 and Yale '99.
This guy is an absolute rock star.
3:14, if, in everyday conversation, you really use "they" for referring to a school and not "it", that's the reason you're not getting laid.
Do we really care about this?
For faculty hire information, we have http://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/.
Leiter is enough for me.
Yoshiono's dad was a professor at Harvard Business School, and her sister is a practicing lawyer.
NYU to top 6!
Lat, how come you're no longer on Facebook??
3:35, NYU's already in the T6.
This is a great hire for NYU.
kenji yoshino has some terrible ideas. seriously, read his shit.
I still can't get over having a 1L contribute to this blog. She may be nice, and even talented, but she doesn't know enough about the law, much less the world this blog covers. Hiring her was a mistake.
NYU to 160.
Sharon Eliza Nichols to GFY and stop typing. You're annoying.
Harold Koh is dropping the ball big-time. Yale did not lose a single professor during Tony Kronman's entire tenure as dean. Maybe Koh should focus a little more on the school and a little less on every liberal issue that strikes his fancy.
Lat - what happened. Why aren't you on Facebook anymore?
wow. this is huge.
He was my favorite prof last semester. Writing with him would have been amazing. This sucks.
this is probably the biggest recruiting news so far. what a coup for nyu.
Kenji was rejected by Columbia, so NYU's a prefect fit for him.
yoshino was by far the best professor i've had. if columbia did reject him (which i doubt), then it just shows how dumb they are. i'm sure they'll come to regret it as they decline more and more.
Yoshino was my best professor in law school. Yoshino also spoke about his resume in the first day of class because he was visiting and wanted to establish his credibility. During this speech he said he has received offers to teach at Columbia, Harvard and NYU.
He's a great professor and this should more than makeup for Feldman leaving earlier.
The new female blogger should provide full disclosure in the form of a full frontal nude shot- seriously I need the info.
Kenji was not rejected by Columbia. He was offered an un-tenured position. But he made the right choice. A tenured position at NYU beats an un-tenured position at Columbia, despite Columbia's Ivy status.
Yoshi came to my undergrad last year promoting his book, "Covering". Seemed very intelligent and also humorous. I'd say this is definitely a boost for NYU, and if the rumors are true, a loss for Columbia.
He didnt clerk on SCOTUS. what a loser
How did he find time to work on Metal Gear Solid 4?
No offense to Mr. Yoshino, but have any of you ever read his articles? They are proof that law review editors worship verbose language and hundreds unecessary footnotes, followed by hundreds more. What ever happen to clear, concise writing? It is not "brilliant" to say something in twice as many words as necessary, or to inappropriately use the passive voice, or to include 500-700 side arguments disguised as "footnotes." That is just bad writing.
Yoshino's true genius lies in his mastery of the law school gobbledygook.
Columbia offered him an un-tenured spot? Why would they think that somebody with a named professorship at Yale would leave for an un-tenured position anywhere else?
I heard that Lat fellated this guy at yale Law- Serious
"columbia's ivy status"? haha. when you are a law professor at that level, and at yale law school, i doubt you would care much about columbia's ivy status.
no doubt this is a huge gain for nyu.
Columbia routinely hires (in some cases even before they go on the job market) and awards tenure very quickly to boatloads of YLS graduates, many of whom ovelapped with each other, with the current CLS dean, and with Yoshino at YLS. At least two relatively new hires served as his TAs, provided research asssitance for him, and / or edited his YLJ articles. The same people he thanks in the acknowledgements section of "Covering" in turn give him shout-outs in the asterick footnotes of their law review articles. It is a truism that Yale loves its own and places many of its graduates in faculty positions; it's also true that there is a Yale academic incestous circle at CLS which would glady welcome one of its own into its ranks with open arms. . .
It's also true that three faculty members have left Columbia for NYU in the past three years.
actually, i think 4 have left columbia for nyu in that time.
correct: issacharoff, estlund, waldron, and sharkey.
all were huge hires by nyu.
yoshino's an awesome prof, nyu's looking up!
3:18 made me laugh out loud, and i commend that poster with oodles of commemorations. well done.
two things. one, ricky revesz. the man has a standard, already legendary sell he does for prospective faculty that works to an unprecedented degree.
but more importantly nyu law is the most powerful arm of a massive university-corporation that has developed enough capital in new york to offer a law prof they really want basically anything. just look at j.h.h. weiler and arthur miller who are both clearing an entertainment industry salary every year. they gave sharkey a penthouse apartment as part of her deal.
4:47 - he "spoke about his resume on the first day of class . . . to establish his credibility" and you were impressed by that? Do you work for Aleksey Vayner?
Co-sign 12:02. Sounds extraordinarily pompous, even for a Yalie.
11:06 is dead on. It's the Steinbrenner theory of law school management.
12:02 - I for one didn't know who he was. So spending about 15 minutes before class began on his background ranging from hobbies, including recently getting a new dog, to current job status was fine by me.
11:06 is absolutely right. The attraction was not so much the school (although now that is certainly starting to change) as it was the money and the perks.
Here's hoping to Manhattanville becoming the new village!
I'll be sad to see Kenji leave YLS, but this has been a long time coming. He'll be happier in NYC than he has been in New Haven.
who is his partner, who is already in NY?
What does this guy actually know about the real world?
Ivory Tower to producing crap lawyers!
Yoshino's incredible. I actually pay attention to him during class instead of doing the crossword puzzle. His PowerPoint slides are meticulously crafted. His disposition is sunny. He's got terrific fashion sense. Suck it, haters.
I sat in two of Kenji's classes. He's a nice enough guy, but the material is more-or-less the usual shallow politically correct ideas. I think its a sad commentary on the legal academy that he is thought of so highly.