Appreciating Our Freedoms

Kyu Ho Youm knows what it’s like to live in a country without freedom of speech and the press. That’s why he is so passionate about teaching his students to understand and responsibly exercise the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

“In 1973, I was a college freshman in Seoul,” says Kyu, who came to the U.S. in 1980. “I was an idealistic student and was subjected to vindictive punishment for expressing myself. That is how I came to appreciate freedom of expression as a basic, fundamental human right.”

Today Kyu is one of the top communication law scholars in the U.S. and was recruited to the UO to hold the Jonathan Marshall First Amendment Chair in the UO School of Journalism and Communication.

“Without the Marshall Chair, we would not have him—it’s as simple as that,” says Tim Gleason, dean of the school.

The UO’s Marshall Chair was established by another passionate advocate of the First Amendment, Jonathan Marshall, M.S. ’62, editor and publisher of the Scottsdale Progress in Arizona for twenty-five years. When he funded the chair in 1998, Jonathan said he hoped the holders would “help teach young journalists that, if they do nothing else, they should fight for the First Amendment.”

Kyu Ho Youm is doing just that.