Paul Aizley, legislative trailblazer and UNLV professor, dies at 87

Former Democratic Assemblyman and UNLV professor Paul Aizley, a champion for progressive issues long before they became popular and a staunch advocate for life-long learning, died Sunday at the age of 87.

“He never let up,” said Rob Levrant, director of Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UNLV. “He was always working toward something. He always wanted to make everything better.”

Aizley, who served three terms in the Assembly from 2008 to 2014, spearheaded bills on progressive issues long before other legislators were considering them, said Assemblywoman Leslie Cohen, D-Henderson, who served alongside Aizley.

In 2009, he sponsored legislation on equal rights for the transgender community, but the bill failed, said Democratic Sen. James Ohrenschall, D-Las Vegas, who worked closely with Aizley when Ohrenschall was an assemblyman. Three years later Aizley sponsored the first successful legislation in Nevada history to prevent employment discrimination against the transgender community with Assembly Bill 211, Ohrenschall said.

“It was typical for his value system,” said former Assemblywoman Barbara Buckley who served as the first female Speaker of the Assembly in 2007. As a civil libertarian, “he just believed that the government should leave people alone,” Buckley said.

Likewise, he opposed the death penalty as well as advocated for a state lottery, sponsoring an Assembly resolution in 2009 that failed in the state Senate. He did not understand why the government was standing in the way of making money that would help education, Buckley said.

He co-sponsored legislation with then-state Sen. Tick Segerblom in 2013 regarding medical marijuana and introduced a bill that would require genetically modified foods to be labeled. He pushed for a portable tax credit in the movie industry and for ending the printing of millions of pages of tax rolls in newspapers.

“Paul was definitely willing to take on bills that a lot of others were nervous about trying,” said Ohrenschall, who first met Aizley when Ohrenschall was an undergraduate student at UNLV and Aizley was the head of summer programs.

Buckley remembers most Aizley’s desire to better the community and his “wicked sense of humor.”

“If he was here, he would say, ‘check your math, Barbara. Oh right, you’re a lawyer. You can’t do math.’ He was so quick with a punchline,” Buckley said.

State Sen. Dina Neal, D-North Las Vegas, said Aizley made a big impact on her and was very kind.

“He just always encouraged me while I was on the Assembly side about staying true to my convictions,” Neal said.

Life-long learning

From Boston, Aizley graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree before getting his masters at University of Arizona and his Ph.D. from Arizona State University. He moved to Las Vegas in 1968 to teach mathematics at what is now UNLV, driving to campus in his car with a “UNLV” personalized license plate that he has owned since 1969.

As an emeritus professor of mathematical sciences at UNLV, Aizley was a staunch advocate for the university, pushing for equal funding with the University of Nevada, Reno.

Aizley served as the dean of Continuing Education for 13 years at UNLV and also co-founded Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in the early ’90s. The program offers noncredit courses with no assignments or grades to adults over 50. Aizley taught classes up until last fall, Levrant said.

The classes he taught had very limited appeal — such as calculus for retired folks — but those who took his class “were hanging on every word,” Levrant said. Aizley understood that education was about the connection between students and professors, he said.

“In this day and age where we talk about the dollars and cents, the philosophy, politics and the test scores, he never really lost sight of it being about the relationship,” Levrant said.

Community involvement

He and his wife, Sari, who previously worked at the Review-Journal, were a power couple involved in many community organizations, Buckley said. He, Sari and their son ran a magazine for years called Class!, which was written by and for Clark County high school students.

The couple also formed the southern chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union in the 1980s and held ACLU meetings at their house. On two occasions, fake bombs were mailed to their porch, the couple said during the oral history with UNLV. The first time, they called the bomb squad, which arrived and determined it was fake. The second time, the Metropolitan Police Department told them to bring it to their office, they said during their oral history interview with UNLV.

Even after he left the Legislature, Aizley remained active in government and political issues. He regularly wrote letters to the editor published in the Review-Journal. In March, Aizley wrote a letter to the editor pointing out how the government is willing to give millions of dollars to Tesla or to renovate Harry Reid International Airport, but not to forgive college students’ loans.

“Some prefer ‘we the corporations,’ but I prefer ‘we the people,” Aizley wrote.

“He was definitely down to earth,” said former state Sen. David Parks, who sought out Aizley to take his place in the Assembly when Parks decided to run for Senate. “And he was very knowledgeable on just a whole lot of different issues. And that’s what made him a great legislator.”

Funeral services for Aizley will take place at 2 p.m. Friday at King David Memorial Chapel and Cemetery, 2697 E. Eldorado Lane in Las Vegas.

Contact Jessica Hill at jehill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @jess_hillyeah on Twitter.