Yoshino, Kenji 1969–

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Yoshino, Kenji 1969–

PERSONAL: Born 1969. Education: Harvard University, B.A., 1991 (summa cum laude); Oxford University, M.Sc., 1993; Yale University, J.D., 1996.

ADDRESSES: Home—New Haven, CT, and New York, NY. Office—Yale Law School, P.O. Box 208215, New Haven, CT 06520. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Honorable Guido Calabresi, U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, law clerk, 1996–97; Yale University, New Haven, CT, associate professor, 1998–2003, professor, 2003–, deputy dean of intellectual life, 2005–06. Also served as articles editor for the Yale Law Journal.

AWARDS, HONORS: Rhodes scholar.

WRITINGS:

Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights, Random House (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to journals, including Columbia Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Stanford Law Review, and the Yale Law Journal. Contributor to periodicals, including Boston Globe, New York Times, Village Voice, and the Nation.

SIDELIGHTS: Kenji Yoshino is an Asian-American of Japanese descent who grew up in the United States and Japan. His family encouraged him to be as American as possible while in the United States and as Japanese as possible while in Japan to avoid being seen as an outsider. It is this act of conforming and masking elements of his individuality that gave Yoshino the basis for his first book, Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights. Yoshino eventually became a law professor and, despite having already come out of the closet to friends and family, found he was hiding his sexuality in public and his work environment. Combining literary memoir and legal manifesto on equal rights, Yoshino's first book discusses this covering by sexual minorities, racial minorities, women, individuals with disabilities, and religious minorities.

Reviews of Covering were mostly positive. Vernon Ford, writing in Booklist, called the book "an insightful read." Regarding Yoshino's personal stories, he noted that "readers, gay or straight, will gain much from these personal, authoritative views." A reviewer in Publishers Weekly found Covering "as healing as it is polemical." The same critic commented: "Seldom has a work of such careful intellectual rigor and fairness been so deeply touching."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Yoshino, Kenji, Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights, Random House (New York, NY), 2006.

PERIODICALS

Advocate, February 14, 2006, Regina Marler, review of Covering, p. 58.

American Lawyer, January, 2006, Denali K. Dasgupta, review of Covering, p. 14.

Booklist, January 1, 2006, Vernon Ford, review of Covering, p. 36.

New York Times, January 22, 2006, Ann Althouse, review of Covering, p. 11.

Publishers Weekly, August 6, 2001, John F. Baker, "Covering Racial Differences," p. 16; November 28, 2005, review of Covering, p. 38; December 19, 2005, Austin Considine, "To Thine Own Self," p. 50.

Stanford Law Review, June, 2003, Roberto J. Gonzalez, "Cultural Rights and the Immutability Requirement in Disparate Impact Doctrine," p. 2195.