Andrew Schlafly

Andrew Schlafly
Schlafly in 2007
Born Andrew Layton Schlafly
(1961-04-27) April 27, 1961
Alton, Illinois, U.S.
Nationality American
Alma mater Princeton University
Harvard Law School
Occupation Attorney, political activist
Spouse(s)
Catherine Kosarek (m. 1984)
Children 2
Parent(s)

Andrew Layton Schlafly (/ˈʃlæfli/; born April 27, 1961) is an American lawyer and Christian conservative activist,[1] and the founder and owner of the wiki encyclopedia project Conservapedia. He is the son of the conservative activist and lawyer Phyllis Schlafly.[2]

Schlafly was the lead counsel for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons' efforts to bring the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act before the United States Supreme Court.

Early life

Andrew Schlafly is one of six children.[3] His great-great-grandfather August Schlafly was a Swiss immigrant to the United States. His father John Fred Schlafly Jr. was an attorney, and his mother Phyllis Schlafly spearheaded the movement opposing the Equal Rights Amendment and was founder of the Eagle Forum.

Born and raised in Alton, Illinois,[3][4] Andrew Schlafly graduated from Saint Louis Priory School and later received a B.S.E. in electrical engineering and certificate in engineering physics from Princeton University in 1981.[5][6] After graduating from Princeton, Schlafly briefly worked as a device physicist for Intel in Santa Clara, California until 1983, when he became a microelectronics engineer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.[7] In 1984, Schlafly married Catherine Kosarek, a medical student and fellow Princeton alum.[8] Schlafly later worked for Bell Labs before enrolling at Harvard Law School.[2]

Schlafly graduated from Harvard Law School in 1991 with a J.D. in the same class with future U.S. president Barack Obama.[1] From 1989 to 1991, Schlafly was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.[1][9][10]

Career

After graduating from Harvard, Schlafly served as an adjunct professor at Seton Hall Law School.[2] In 1992, Schlafly ran as a Republican for the United States House of Representatives seat of Virginia's 11th congressional district; Schlafly came in last place in the primary.[11]

Schlafly was an associate for the Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz law firm in New York City before moving to private practice, stating: "Large firms never do work [for conservatives] on homosexual or abortion issues."[12] Additionally, Schlafly is General Counsel for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons and led its Supreme Court challenge of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.[13][14] In 2010, Schlafly wrote an article for the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons about the economic effects of the legislation.[15]

In 2010, Schlafly became lead counsel for a group seeking to recall US Senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey. The group, associated with the tea party movement, argued that the US Constitution permits political recall for federal offices, despite not explicitly mentioning so.[16] On November 18, 2010, the New Jersey Supreme Court rejected Schlafy's arguments, finding that the New Jersey provision violated the U.S. Constitution.[17] Later that year, Schlafly represented the group RecallND in a case before the North Dakota Supreme Court in another frustrated effort to recall Kent Conrad, another Democratic US Senator.[18]

Conservapedia

Schlafly created the wiki-based Conservapedia in November 2006 to counter what he perceived as a liberal bias present in Wikipedia.[19] He felt the need to start the project after reading a student's assignment written using Common Era dating notation, rather than the Anno Domini system that he preferred. Although he was "an early Wikipedia enthusiast", as reported by Shawn Zeller of Congressional Quarterly, Schlafly became concerned about perceived bias after Wikipedia editors repeatedly undid edits to the article about the 2005 Kansas evolution hearings.[20] Schlafly expressed hope that Conservapedia would become a general resource for American educators and a counterpoint to the liberal bias that he perceived in Wikipedia. The Conservapedia project has been met with generally negative reception from liberal and conservative critics alike for bias and inaccuracies.[21][22][23]

In 2009, Schlafly appeared on The Colbert Report to discuss his Conservative Bible Project, a project hosted on Conservapedia that aims to rewrite English translations of the Bible in order to remove or alter terms described as "liberal bias".[24]

Dialogue with Richard Lenski

Richard Lenski, an evolutionary biologist[25] who completed an experiment on evolution which showed speciation of E. coli bacteria over 10,000 generations, was engaged in correspondence by Schlafly about the results in 2008. Conservapedia supports creationism and objects to evolution, so Schlafly disputed that bacteria could evolve via beneficial mutations. The correspondence was commented on across the Internet. Schlafly was criticized by Lenski on sites such as Ars Technica for not reading Lenski's paper properly, for not understanding the experimental data he requested, and for not taking notice of people on Conservapedia itself who considered the paper well researched.[26]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Morris County resident, son of famous activist, runs 'Conservapedia' website". The Star-Ledger. January 6, 2010. Retrieved June 4, 2013. unsuccessfully ran in a Republican congressional primary in 1992 and also volunteered for [gubernatorial candidate] Steve Lonegan in 2009.
  2. 1 2 3 "Phyllis Schlafly Bio". Eagleforum.org. Archived from the original on October 6, 2014. Retrieved 2013-03-24.
  3. 1 2 Critchlow, Donald T. (2005). Phyllis Schlafly and grassroots conservatism: a woman's crusade. Princeton University Press. pp. 32–33. ISBN 0-691-07002-4.
  4. ↑ Mauney, Michael (1975). "Schlafly & Her Children". The LIFE Images Collection. Getty Images. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
  5. ↑ Hamilton, Keegan (November 4, 2009). "Hallowed Be Thy Name: A member of the Schlafly clan figures to do the Lord's work by cleansing the Bible of its "liberal bias"". Riverfront Times. Retrieved February 6, 2017.
  6. ↑ Bernstein, Mark F. (February 24, 2010). "A Moment With ... Andrew Schlafly '81, on 'Conservapedia'". Princeton Alumni Weekly. Retrieved June 4, 2013.
  7. ↑ Lee, D.J.; Becker, N.J.; Schlafly, A.L.; Skupnjak, J.A.; Dham, V.K. (1983). Control logic and cell design for a 4K NVRAM. IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, 18(5), 531. doi:10.1109/JSSC.1983.1051988
  8. ↑ "Catherine Kosarek, Medical Student, Marries Andrew L. Schlafly, Engineer". The New York Times. November 25, 1984. Retrieved June 5, 2010.
  9. ↑ "Harvard Law Review Board of Editors, Volume 104, 1990-1991." From search of the Harvard Visual Information Access system, Record Identifier: olvwork365353.
  10. ↑ "Harvard Law Review Board of Editors, Volume 103, 1989-1990." From search of the Harvard Visual Information Access system, Record Identifier: olvwork390852
  11. ↑ "THE 1992 CAMPAIGN: Primaries; Democrat Loses Arkansas Runoff". The New York Times. June 10, 1992. Retrieved July 19, 2010.
  12. ↑ Chen, Vivia (July 9, 2007). "Shhh! Pro Bono's Not Just for Liberals Anymore". The American Lawyer. Retrieved October 31, 2010.
  13. ↑ "AAPS General Counsel Andrew Schlafly Discusses ObamaCare Lawsuit". Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. May 4, 2010. Retrieved June 4, 2010.
  14. ↑ "ObamaCare: Giant Meteor Scheduled to Strike in 2014". June 2, 2010.
  15. ↑ Schlafly, Andrew L. (Summer 2010). "ObamaCare: Not What the Doctor Ordered" (PDF). Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. 15 (2): 58–59.
  16. ↑ Burton, Cynthia (May 28, 2010). "N.J. Supreme Court hears tea party's push to recall Menendez". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved June 4, 2010.
  17. ↑ Isenstadt, Alex (November 18, 2010), "Court kills Robert Menendez recall push", Politico
  18. ↑ Beitsch, Rebecca (October 20, 2010). "Supreme Court hears arguments in recall of Conrad". Bismarck Tribune. Archived from the original on October 24, 2010. Retrieved October 31, 2010.
  19. ↑ Simon, Stephanie (June 22, 2007). "A conservative's answer to Wikipedia". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved November 2, 2007.
  20. ↑ Zeller, Shawn (March 5, 2007). "Conservapedia: See Under "Right"". The New York Times. Retrieved June 8, 2008.
  21. ↑ Siegel, Robert (March 13, 2007). "Conservapedia: Data for Birds of a Political Feather?". Retrieved July 26, 2007.
  22. ↑ Chung, Andrew (March 11, 2007). "A U.S. conservative wants to set Wikipedia right". The Star.com.
  23. ↑ Johnson, Bobbie (March 1, 2007). "Rightwing website challenges 'liberal bias' of Wikipedia". The Guardian.
  24. ↑ Gibson, David (October 7, 2009). "A Neocon Bible: What Would Jesus Say?". Politics Daily. Archived from the original on October 8, 2009. Retrieved October 7, 2009.
  25. ↑ "Richard Lenski | Home". Myxo.css.msu.edu. Retrieved March 13, 2011.
  26. ↑ Arthur, Charles (July 1, 2008). "Conservapedia has a little hangup over evolution". Technology Blog. The Guardian. Retrieved June 4, 2010.
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