Kyu Ho Youm

Kyu Ho Youm is an internationally recognized expert in communication law and press freedom whose research has been cited by courts around the world. He was the inaugural Jonathan Marshall First Amendment Chair at the SOJC and was inducted into the SOJC’s Hall of Achievement in 2026.

Biography

In 1973, Kyu Ho Youm was a college student in South Korea when he joined nationwide protests against President Park Chung-hee's suspension of the constitution. The government responded by conscripting him into nearly three years of military service, during which he read Time and Newsweek to practice his English. The experience set him on a path toward the study of free expression that would define his career.

Youm earned his master's and doctoral degrees at Southern Illinois University, where media law professor Harry Stonecipher once told him to drop the course and try again later. It was tough love Youm has credited as being formative. He later earned a Master’s of studies in law from Yale and a master’s of studies from Oxford. After teaching at Arizona State University, Youm joined the UO School of Journalism and Communication (SOJC) in 2002 as inaugural holder of the Jonathan Marshall First Amendment Chair.

A prolific communication law scholar, Youm has published widely in leading journalism and law journals, and his research has been cited by courts including the House of Lords, the High Court of Australia, and the supreme courts of Canada, the Philippines, and South Africa. He contributed to the textbook Communication and the Law, served since 2008 as editor of the International Encyclopedia of Communication, and authored several books on Korean and U.S. media law. He has been quoted by the New York Times on press freedom worldwide.

Youm's honors include the Guido H. Stempel III Award from Ohio University, a Wee Kim Wee Visiting Professorship in Singapore, and recognition as a distinguished global speaker for Yonsei University in Seoul. In 2020, he received the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Presidential Award—dedicated to his late wife, Bokim—and in 2021 was elected an International Communication Association Fellow. He is now professor emerit at the SOJC.