Даллин Окс: Өмірбаяны мен қызметі

Apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints

Dallin Harris Oaks (born August 12, 1932) is an American religious leader and former jurist and academic who since 2018 has been the first counselor in the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints (LDS Church). He was called as a member of the church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1984. Currently, he is the second most senior apostle by years of service and is the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Oaks was born and raised in Provo, Utah. He studied accounting at Brigham Young University (BYU), then went to law school at the University of Chicago, where he was editor in chief of the University of Chicago Law Review and graduated in 1957 with a J. D. cum laude. Oaks was a law clerk for Chief Justice Earl Warren of the U. S. Supreme Court, then spent three years in private practice at Kirkland & Ellis before returning to the University of Chicago as a professor of law in 1961. He taught at Chicago until 1971, when he was chosen to succeed Ernest L. Wilkinson as the president of BYU. Oaks was BYU's president from 1971 until 1980. Oaks was then appointed to the Utah Supreme Court, serving until his selection to the LDS Church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1984. During his professional career, Oaks was twice considered by the U. S. president for nomination to the U. S. Supreme Court: first in 1975 by Gerald Ford, who ultimately nominated John Paul Stevens, and again in 1981 by Ronald Reagan, who ultimately nominated Sandra Day O'Connor.

Dallin Oaks was born on August 12, 1932, in Provo, Utah, to Stella (née Harris) and Lloyd E. Oaks. Through his mother, he is a 2nd great grandnephew of one of the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon, Martin Harris. He was given the name Dallin in honor of Utah artist Cyrus Dallin. His mother was the artist's model for The Pioneer Mother, a public statue in Springville, Utah. She was present for the unveiling of the statue less than three weeks before Dallin Oaks was born.

Oaks was injured in a car accident that threw him from the car when he was nine months old, which was reported in both the Provo and Vernal newspapers. When Oaks was two years old, his father moved the family from Provo to Twin Falls, Idaho, where they would live until Oaks was eight. Oaks began his schooling at Washington School in Twin Falls. His father died of tuberculosis in 1940. After the death of her husband, Stella Oaks suffered an episode of mental illness and was unable to attend school and work for a time. During this time, Oaks and his two younger siblings resided with their maternal grandparents in Payson, Utah. The loss of his father and the temporary loss of his mother caused him to have difficulties concentrating in school. When he was about nine or ten years old, he resumed living with his mother, who had taken a position as a teacher in Vernal, Utah. where she served for two terms. In 1958, she also briefly served as Provo's assistant mayor. From about age 10 to 16 Oaks and his younger brother and sister spent the school year in Vernal, Utah, and the summer in Payson, Utah, with his maternal grandparents while his mother pursued her graduate degree at Columbia. During these years his mother was a high school teacher in Vernal. Oaks obtained his first job at the age of twelve at a radio repair shop in Vernal sweeping the floors. He later worked as an engineer and announcer for stations in both Vernal (KJAM) and Provo (KCSU). He had obtained his first class radio operator license in the spring of 1948. At the start of his 11th grade year, the Oaks family moved to Provo, where he chose to attend Brigham Young High School (B Y High) because it was smaller than Provo High School. At B Y High, he was again involved in football, track, playing the oboe in the band, and dramatic productions. Oaks graduated from B Y High in 1950. Oaks was involved in Boy Scouts and earned the rank of Eagle Scout at age 14.

After high school, Oaks attended BYU, where he occasionally served as a radio announcer at high school basketball games. At one of these basketball games during his freshman year at BYU, he met June Dixon, a senior at the high school, whom he married during his junior year at BYU. In 1952, Oaks married Dixon in the Salt Lake Temple. He graduated from BYU in 1954 with a bachelor's degree in accounting with high honors. Oaks then attended the University of Chicago Law School on a full tuition National Honor Scholarship, where he served as editor in chief of the University of Chicago Law Review. He graduated in 1957 with a Juris Doctor, cum laude. After his clerkship, he entered private practice at the law firm Kirkland & Ellis, where he specialized in corporate litigation. Initially they lived fairly far west in the suburbs of Chicago, but in 1960 the Oaks bought a house in Elmhurst, Illinois. According to historian Lavina Fielding Anderson, Oaks was the first lawyer from Kirkland & Ellis to represent an indigent party before the Illinois Supreme Court. This case was also the first time Oaks argued a case before an appellate court. In 1961, Oaks left Kirkland & Ellis and became a professor at the University of Chicago Law School. During part of his time on the faculty of the Law School, Oaks served as interim dean. During this time, Rex E. Lee was among the students he sought to get placed in Supreme Court clerkships. As a faculty member, Oaks taught primarily in the fields of trust and estate law, as well as gift taxation law. He worked with George Bogert on a new edition of a casebook on trusts. In 1963, Oaks edited a book entitled The Wall Between Church and State covering discussions on views on the relationship of the government and religion in the law and the aptness of that metaphor. He also wrote an article on the school prayer cases aimed at a lay audience that was published in the LDS Church's Improvement Era in December 1963. He also wrote on issues of evidence exclusion and the Fourth Amendment. He was opposed to the exclusionary rule and favored prosecution in "victim less crimes". In the summer of 1964, he served as assistant state's attorney for Cook County, Illinois. In the fall of 1964, Oaks was appointed a full professor at the University of Chicago law school. While at the University of Chicago, Oaks was the faculty advisor to the legal aid clinic at that institution. He also worked to find ways to address the root issues facing the poor. He felt the federal anti poverty programs of the time focused too much on symptoms and not enough on causes. Oaks served as a visiting professor at the University of Michigan Law School during the summer of 1968. In 1968, he became a founding member of the editorial board of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought; he resigned from the journal in early 1970. In 1969, Oaks served as chairman of the University of Chicago disciplinary committee. In conducting hearings against the 160 students who had been involved in a sit in at the administration building, Oaks was physically attacked twice. Over 100 students were eventually either suspended or expelled. During the first half of 1970, Oaks took a leave of absence from the University of Chicago while serving as legal counsel to the Bill of Rights Committee of the Illinois Constitutional Convention, which caused him to work closely with the committee chair, Elmer Gertz. From 1970 to 1971, Oaks served as the executive director of the American Bar Foundation. Oaks left the University of Chicago Law School when he was appointed the president of BYU in 1971. In 1975, Oaks was one of eleven considered to be nominated for the vacancy in the United States Supreme Court. and eight years as chairman of the board of directors of the Polynesian Cultural Center.

After the resignation of Ernest L. Wilkinson as BYU's 7th president, Neal A. Maxwell, who was the Commissioner of the Church Educational System, created a search committee for a new president, without any good leads on candidates. Both Wilkinson and University of Utah Vice President Jerry R. Anderson recommended to Maxwell that Oaks be interviewed. He was offered the position and assumed his duties on August 1, 1971. Although university enrollment continued to grow and new buildings were added, neither was done at the pace of the previous administration. Unlike his predecessor, Oaks took a hands off approach to the discipline of the university students specifically in relation to the Church Educational System Honor Code. He believed that should be delegated to the dean of students. During his tenure at BYU, enrollment grew twenty percent; the average class size was maintained at thirty four students. Library holdings increased to 2 million and the number of faculty members with doctorate degrees increased to 22 percent. The number of buildings constructed per year decreased to eight per year, compared to eleven per year during Wilkinson's administration. This issue ultimately ended in an agreement between the U. S. Department of Education and BYU that allowed BYU to retain requirements that all unmarried students live in gender specific housing whether they lived on or off campus. Oaks was a proponent for a lack of federal government intrusion in the private education sector and served as president of the American Association of Presidents of Independent Colleges and Universities for three years. His administration dealt with multiple attempts by the federal government to exert control over BYU. In 1975, what was then the U. S. Department of Housing, Education and Welfare, tried an unsuccessful attempt to state that BYU's honor code was in some way discriminatory based on sex. The next year, the Justice Department tried to exert power against small landlords to no longer uphold BYU's sex separated housing standard, but ultimately BYU also prevailed over the dispute. In 1979, the Internal Revenue Service tried to force BYU to disclose names of its donors on the contention that they were over valuing the worth of their donation to BYU. This case went to federal court where it was ruled that the demand was unjustified. During his presidency, he co authored Carthage Conspiracy: The Trial of the Accused Assassins of Joseph Smith with BYU professor of history Marvin S. Hill. The book received the Mormon History Association Best Book prize in 1976. Soon afterward, Oaks was released as BYU president and Jeffrey R. Holland took his place. The press cited the stand off between Benson and Oaks in regard to Vetterli as a contributing factor to Oaks's release.

In January 2018, Russell M. Nelson became the church's new president. As the apostle second in seniority to Nelson, Oaks became President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. However, since Oaks was appointed as Nelson's first counselor in the First Presidency, M. Russell Ballard was appointed as the quorum's acting president. As first counselor in the First Presidency, Oaks serves as first vice chairman of the CES Board. On June 1, 2018, Oaks gave the opening address at the First Presidency sponsored "Be One" event, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the revelation extending the priesthood and access to temple ordinances, such as the endowment and sealing, to all worthy males, regardless of race. Oaks spoke of seeing the hurt that the restriction had caused, more so while he was a resident of Washington, D. C., and Chicago than he had seen in Utah. He also spoke of how the announcement had been a very emotional time for him. He noted that, prior to the 1978 announcement, having studied many explanations for the priesthood restriction, he concluded that he was not satisfied that any offered explanation for the restriction was inspired. Oaks called on people to not dwell too deeply on past policies but to look forward to a brighter future. He also denounced any prejudices, be they racial, ethnic, economic, or others and called on anyone who held such beliefs to repent. In October 2020, Oaks gave a talk at general conference in which he encouraged civility and denounced racism. On October 27, 2020, he gave a BYU devotional address in which he again touched on this topic, explicitly endorsing the message "Black lives matter" while also discouraging its use to advance controversial propositions. In May 2022, Oaks delivered a eulogy at the funeral service of former Senator Orrin Hatch.

Oaks earned the rank of Eagle Scout in 1947, and he was honored with the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award in 1984. He was named "Judge of the Year" by the Utah State Bar in 1984, and he was bestowed the Lee Lieberman Otis Award for Distinguished Service by the Federalist Society in 2012. He received the Canterbury Medal from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty in 2013, and he received the Pillar of the Valley Award by Utah Valley Chamber of Commerce in 2014. In 2021, he was honored by America's Freedom Festival for his lifetime of work promoting the values of God, family, freedom, and country. Oaks was named an honorary board member of the World Congress of Families. Oaks received an honorary degree from Southern Utah University in 1991. Students at the University of Chicago Law School created the Dallin H. Oaks Society to "increase awareness within the Law School community of the presence, beliefs, and concerns of law students who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints".

Oaks married June Dixon on June 24, 1952. She died from cancer on July 21, 1998. They had six children, including Dallin D. Oaks, a linguistics professor at BYU, and Jenny Oaks Baker, a violinist. On August 25, 2000, Oaks married Kristen Meredith McMain in the Salt Lake Temple. McMain was in her early 50s, and it was her first marriage; she had previously served a mission for the LDS Church in the Japan Sendai Mission. McMain has bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Utah and a doctorate in curriculum and instruction from BYU.