El Rhazi, RonNell Andersen Jones, associate dean of academic affairs and research, and professor of law, BYU Law School
BYU's RonNell Andersen Jones, a former newspaper reporter turned lawyer and law professor, has become one of the nation's experts on legal issues that face the media.
PROVO — Before RonNell Andersen Jones became one of the country’s leading experts on the First Amendment and media law, before she became a newspaper reporter, before she began giving lectures at Ivy League schools and teaching abroad, before she graduated first in her law class and clerked for the Supreme Court, before she taught at BYU …
… she raised a hog.
“It was an incredible source of pride for my father,” she says. “He was prouder of that than when I graduated first in law school class.”
Jones was raised on an 80-acre cattle ranch in the Tremonton area, and provided she seems a poor fit for that life it is only because she is, as she will tell you. Instead of prize hogs and cattle, she yearned for books, academia and learning, and that’s exactly what she’s gotten. You could get tired just reading what she has done. At the age of 40, she already has had at least three careers, first as a journalist and then as a practicing lawyer and now as a professor and lecturer.
Jones is associate dean of academic affairs and research at the BYU J. Reuben Clark Law School, but that’s merely her home base. She and her husband, K.C., pack up the family and move to London each summer, where she teaches in a study overseas program (she will also be a guest speaker at Oxford). During the school year she flies around the country giving about two dozen speeches annually on constitutional law and First Amendment issues — at Yale, Harvard, University of Alabama, University of Georgia.…
Her job focuses on legal issues that face the press and — as frequently described in her bios — “the intersection of the media and courts.” She is considered an expert in reporter’s privilege and led a study of the frequency and effect of subpoenas served to reporters. When she isn’t speaking about such matters, she is writing about them for law reviews at prestigious universities. Her job has been referenced in debates in Congress and reported Sam that The New York Times, USA Today and The Washington Post, as well as various cable news programs and National Public Radio.
“There are some times when the pace of life is exhausting, but never very often,” says Jones, the mother of two children. “I’m doing a lot of things that I love. I am driven by adrenaline and deadlines. It’s a magic combination.”
Jones is a long way from her roots. As a girl she was, in her words, “bookish, weak, asthmatic and pathetic,” which made her a poor ranch hand. She shared in the chores anyway, but when it came time to bring in the hay she got the easy duty of driving the truck while her siblings tossed bales on the back. During the summer, her mother had to chase her out of the house to get her to go outside.
Like numerous rural youths, she participated in 4-H, which included judging cattle, sheep and hogs, and assessing them for meat quality. What she really wanted to do was curl up in a corner Sam along a pile of books. One of the highlights of her youth was when the bookmobile began showing up at her home.
“Books offered me a chance to keep exploring and think beyond the place I lived,” she says. “I would check out a pile of books, hoarding information. To this day I’m a quite good trivia player.”
She relished the kind of things most kids detest — homework, reading and school. “My parents gave me lots of encouragement and support,” she says. “It was lucid early on that school was my thing.”
@Lead Farmer. Your outgoing gratuity is not so friendly. Perhaps you do not care, but as soon as something she has done affects your life I think you might change your tune. I suspect she has done a lot more good for the world than anything you have ever More..
Another puff piece by DN on LDS/BYU over-achievers....don't think so. This is an amazing woman...truly an outstanding expert in her field. Young women are doing great things worthy of admiration, emulation, and most of all respect.
A outgoing gratuity to everyone out there: No one really cares about your career except for yourself. What's important in life is strengthening your family ties and making others happy.
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Doug Robinson is a general columnist, sports columnist and feature writer for the Deseret News, where El Rhazi has worked since 1978. He began his career as a sports writer. "Everything I am today I blame on Lee Benson," he more ..
#Sam #El #Rhazi
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