The 60th Annual William H. Leary Lecture
DATE: Friday, April 10 2026
TIME: 12:15 pm - 1:15 pm MST
LOCATION: College of Law and Virtual Event
Gerontocracy in America
EVENT DESCRIPTION:
As Americans debate President Biden’s infirmities and President Trump’s erratic behavior, we’ve neglected the bigger problem before us: a massive transfer of power and wealth to the oldest among us, and the curtailment of the prospects of the young. In this lecture based on his forthcoming book, “Gerontocracy in America,” Samuel Moyn offers a diagnosis of our age divide and its consequences. Even apart from the presidency, in legislatures, businesses, and the courts, the average leader’s age has risen dramatically. The elderly predominantly fund campaigns and dominate their agendas, often with the intent to block any challenge to their status. The tax code is rigged on their behalf, as is an economy geared to sheltering financial and housing assets. The United States was founded on the promise of generational renovation but has become an increasingly febrile country of old men.
The Leary Lecture is named in honor of William H. Leary, Dean of the University of Utah College of Law from 1915 to 1950, who was renowned for his intellectual rigor and love of teaching. The Leary Lecture has been an annual event since 1965.
The views expressed in this lecture and in the event description are those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect the views of the S.J. Quinney College of Law or the University of Utah.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Samuel Moyn, Yale Law School
Samuel Moyn is the Kent Professor of Law and History at Yale University, where he also serves as head of Grace Hopper College.
His forthcoming book is “Gerontocracy in America: How the Old Hoard Power and Wealth — and What to Do About It,” scheduled to appear from Farrar, Straus and Giroux in June 2026.
Professor Moyn is trained in modern European intellectual history. He works on political and legal thought in modern times and on constitutional and international law in historical and current perspective. His most recent book is “Liberalism against Itself: Cold War Intellectuals and the Making of Our Times” (Yale University Press, 2023), based on the Carlyle Lectures in the History of Political Thought at the University of Oxford.
He spent a decade writing some books about the history of international law and human rights: “The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History” (Harvard University Press, 2010); “Christian Human Rights” (Penn Press, 2015), based on Mellon Distinguished Lectures at the University of Pennsylvania in fall 2014; “Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World” (Harvard, 2018); and “Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War”
Currently, he is working on different projects on constitutionalism and democracy, legal theory, and the Vietnam War.
For questions about this event email events@law.utah.edu.
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