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Deseret News names Ruth Okediji as recipient of the 2026 Deseret News Civic Charity Award

deseret.com · 2h · first reportShare

Deseret News presented Harvard Law School professor Ruth Okediji with the 2026 Deseret News Civic Charity Award on Thursday night at an award gala in Salt Lake City. “We are delighted to honor Professor Ruth Okediji, whose public life, combined with her deep devotion to God, demonstrates the kind of civil citizenship and charity this award exists to honor,” said Jeff Simpson, president of Deseret Management Corporation. Professor Okediji has built her scholarship around a single throughline: how intellectual property law shapes opportunity for the people least equipped to negotiate it. A foremost authority on international intellectual property law and a pioneering voice on the role of intellectual property in social and economic development, Professor Okediji is the Jeremiah Smith, Jr., Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and Co-Director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. She founded and directs Harvard’s Program on Biblical Law and Christian