Reference articles on history, science, culture and more
Encyclopedia

Justin Levitt

American constitutional law scholar

Justin Levitt is an American constitutional law scholar and professor at Loyola Law School. In September 2015, he left Loyola Law School to become the Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. He returned to the faculty of Loyola in early 2017. He then returned to government from 2021-2022, serving as the first Senior Policy Advisor for Democracy and Voting Rights under the Biden Administration before returning once again to the Loyola faculty.

01Education

Levitt received his BA magna cum laude from Harvard College and his MPA and JD from Harvard University.

02Career

Levitt served as the National Voter Protection Counsel in 2008. He began teaching at Loyola Law School in 2010, where he originally focused on electoral redistricting and administration. While there, he directed the school's Practitioner Moot Program, which allowed new attorneys to practice their arguments. He has also served as a law clerk to Stephen Reinhardt, a judge from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, as well as on advisory committee for the voting system InkaVote. On September 10, 2015, Loyola Law School announced that Levitt would go on leave from their school to join the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division as their Deputy Assistant Attorney General. He is expected to return to Loyola in early 2017. After he had been appointed to this position, he said that the Department of Justice is hampered by the Supreme Court's 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision, and that this decision is unquestionably "the biggest change since the last presidential election."

03Work on election law

Levitt is an academic researcher on election and constitutional law. In 2014, he reported on Wonkblog that there had only been 31 credible cases of voter impersonation from 2000 to August 2014, out of more than 1 billion ballots cast during this period. He also runs a blog about redistricting. Levitt has also authored work in coordination with the Brennan Center for Justice.

In 2021, he was hired by the Biden Administration as an adviser to strengthen voting rights. He served until 2022.

04Honors and awards

Levitt received Loyola's Excellence in Teaching Award for 2013-14.

Watch videos about Justin LevittExplainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article Justin Levitt, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

Fathomly is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation. Spotted a problem? Tell us.