Joshua D. Wright | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission | |
| In office January 2013 – August 2015 | |
| President | Barack Obama |
| Preceded by | J. Thomas Rosch |
| Succeeded by | Rohit Chopra |
| Personal details | |
| Born | January 20, 1977[1] San Diego, California, U.S.[1] |
| Political party | Republican[1] |
| Education | University of California, San Diego (BA) University of California, Los Angeles (JD, PhD) |
| Awards | Bator Award (2014) |
Joshua Daniel Wright (born January 20, 1977) is an American economist and legal scholar who served as a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) from 2013 to 2015.[2] At the time of his nomination, Wright was the fourth economist to serve as a commissioner of the FTC.[3]
He was a professor of law at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School between 2004 and 2023, and was the executive director of its Global Antitrust Institute.[4][5] He resigned from George Mason after multiple allegations of sexual misconduct.[6]
Wright is a scholar in the fields of antitrust law, law and economics, and consumer protection, and was described in National Review to be "widely considered his generation's greatest mind on antitrust law."[7] He has published more than 100 articles and book chapters, co-authored a casebook, and edited several book volumes in these fields. Wright has served as co-editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review and senior editor of the Antitrust Law Journal,[5] and in 2014 received the Paul M. Bator Award.[8]
Wright was born and raised in San Diego, California.[1][5] After graduating from Patrick Henry High School in 1995,[9] Wright studied economics at the University of California, San Diego, graduating in 1998 with a Bachelor of Arts, with honors. He then went to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he jointly did doctoral study in economics and attended the UCLA School of Law. As a law student, Wright was a managing editor of the UCLA Law Review. He received a J.D. in 2002 and a Ph.D. in economics in 2003.[5]
Wright was a law clerk for Judge James V. Selna of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California from 2003 to 2004. He then joined the faculty of the George Mason University Law School (now Antonin Scalia Law School).[5] Wright served in the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the Bureau of Competition as its inaugural Scholar-in-Residence from 2007 to 2008, where he focused on enforcement matters and competition policy.[5]
In January 2013, President Barack Obama appointed Wright to serve as a commissioner of the FTC at the recommendation of Mitch McConnell.[10] At the time, his appointment was scrutinized because of a pending FTC case against Google. Wright's research had been indirectly funded by Google, and he previously criticized the FTC's probe into Google. He agreed to recuse himself on any FTC matters involving Google for two years.[10] During his FTC tenure, Wright prolifically sided against attempts to regulate Big Tech.[6] Wright resigned August 2015 to return to academia.[6]
Wright began directing faculty hiring for the law school at George Mason in 2015.[6] He resigned from the law school in August 2023 after eight women accused him of sexual misconduct, including allegations that Wright abused his position as a professor and manager to pressure current and former students and employees into sexual relationships.[6][11][12][13] Wright denied coercion and said that the relationships were consensual and sued two of the women for defamation.[6][14] Google terminated its relationship with Wright as a consultant after news of the allegations came out.[6]
Wright also worked as an attorney at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, between 2016 and 2019, where he left amid a 2019 investigation into a sexual relationship with a subordinate woman.[6]
Wright filed defamation lawsuits against two of his accusers that was dismissed without prejudice on December 1, 2023, and he has filed a Title IX lawsuit against George Mason University.[15]