The University of Portland welcomes law professor Ilya Somin who will give our Schwarten Foundations of Freedom Lecture. He will be discussing his recent book, Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom (Oxford 2020).
The lecture will be delivered Thursday, October 21, at 5:00 p.m. in the Brian Doyle Lecture Hall (DB 004).
Ilya Somin is professor of law at George Mason University. His research and teaching focus on constitutional law, property law, democratic theory, federalism, and migration rights. In addition to Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom (Oxford 2020), he is the author of Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter (Stanford 2016), and The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain (University of Chicago 2015). Somin’s work has appeared in numerous scholarly journals, including the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, and others. Somin has also published articles in a variety of popular press outlets, including the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and the New York Times, and is a regular contributor to the popular Volokh Conspiracy law and politics blog. Somin’s writings have been cited in decisions by the United States Supreme Court, multiple state supreme courts and lower federal courts, and the Supreme Court of Israel. He has testified before the US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights on the use of drones for targeted killing in the War on Terror. In 2009, he testified on property rights issues at the United States Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Professor Somin earned his BA, Summa Cum Laude, at Amherst College, MA in Political Science from Harvard University, and JD from Yale Law School.
This event is sponsored by the Department of Political Science & Global Affairs.