I was deeply saddened to learn that Professor Steve Wasby passed away earlier this month. Steve was a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Albany. I had never met Steve, but he was a regular reader of the Volokh Conspiracy. Steve subscribed to the Volokh daily email list so would get all of our posts in bulk. Steve would then reply to that email to tell me what I got right and what I got wrong. Steve especially enjoyed my posts about the en banc process. He had studied the Ninth Circuit’s internal proceedings in some depth. I will miss his frequent insights.
Here is a snippet from the obituary:
Wasby, Stephen L. EASTHAM, Mass. Stephen L. Wasby, a resident of Eastham, Mass., died on August 2, 2021. He was a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Albany—SUNY. He was born in Boston on March 16, 1937, the son of Milton Charles Wasby and Pauline Bunshaft Wasby, and grew up in Belmont. He graduated from Belmont High School and received his B.A. from Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio, from which his father had graduated. A “late rebellion” led him to graduate from school with his M.A. (1961) and Ph.D. (1962) in political science from the University of Oregon, rather than a law degree. The law was nonetheless to be the focus of his long, active professional life, during which he held a Russell Sage post-doctoral residency in law and social science at the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1969-1970; taught and wrote about the legal process; and served as the director of the Law and Social Sciences Program at the National Science Foundation in 1978-1979. He began his teaching career at Southeast Missouri State college and Moorhead (Minn.) State College. After serving as an American Political Science Association Congressional fellow, working for Rep. John Moss (D-CA) and Ralph Yarborough (D-TX), he taught at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale from 1966 until 1978. In his 20 years at the University at Albany, from which he retired in 1999, he taught about the judicial process, served formally and informally as prelaw advisor, and instructed graduate students from several departments about writing dissertation proposals.
May his memory be a blessing.
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