Andrew Schlafly

Andy Schlafly
Schlafly in 2007
Born	Andrew Layton Schlafly (1961-04-27) April 27, 1961 (age 51)
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Princeton Harvard
Occupation	Attorney, homeschool teacher

Andrew Layton "Andy" Schlafly (born April 27, 1961) is an American lawyer, conservative political activist and homeschool teacher,^[1] best known as the founder and owner of controversial wiki Conservapedia. He is the son of the prominent conservative activist and lawyer Phyllis Schlafly.

Schlafly is 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 and education

Schlafly is one of the six children of John Fred Schlafly, Jr. and Phyllis Schlafly, residents of Alton, Illinois.^[2] John Fred Schlafly, Jr.'s grandfather August was a Swiss immigrant to the United States. John Fred Schlafly was an attorney, while Phyllis Schlafly is a conservative activist who founded the Eagle Forum and spearheaded the movement opposing the Equal Rights Amendment. Andrew Schlafly received a B.S.E. in Electrical Engineering and a certificate in Engineering Physics from Princeton University and degree from Harvard Law School with a Juris Doctor. At Harvard, Schlafly was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Schlafly has worked as an engineer with Bell Labs, Intel, and Johns Hopkins University and an adjunct professor at Seton Hall Law School.^[1] In 1984, Schlafly married Catherine Kosarek, a medical student and fellow Princeton alum.^[3] 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.^[4]

Legal work

Schlafly worked as 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."^[5] Additionally, Schlafly is General Counsel for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons and is leading its Supreme Court challenge of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.^[6][7] In 2010, Schlafly wrote an article for the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons about the economic effects of the legislation.^[8]

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.^[9] On November 18, 2010, the New Jersey Supreme Court found that the New Jersey provision violated the U.S. Constitution.^[10] 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.^[11]

Conservapedia

Schlafly created the wiki-based encyclopedia Conservapedia in November 2006.^[12] 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 reverted his edits to the article about the 2005 Kansas evolution hearings.^[13] 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.^[14][15][16]

In 2009, Schlafly appeared on The Colbert Report to discuss his Conservative Bible Project, a project hosted on Conservapedia that aims to rewrite modern English translations of the Bible in order to remove terms described as "liberal bias".^[17]

Dialogue with Richard Lenski

Richard Lenski, an evolutionary biologist^[18] 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 Schlafly disputed that bacteria could evolve via beneficial mutations. The correspondence was commented on across the Internet. Schlafly was criticized by Lenski and on sites such as Ars Technica for not reading Lenski's paper properly, for not understanding the experiental data he requested, and for not taking notice of people on Conservapedia itself who considered the paper well researched.^[19]

References