Media Expertise: Law, Same-Sex Marriage Law
Areas of Interest: Same-sex Marriage law.
Biography
Biography: As of April 8, 2021, Professor Levitt is on leave from Loyola, serving as the White House Senior Policy Advisor for Democracy and Voting Rights. He plans to return to teach after his service.
A nationally recognized scholar of constitutional law and the law of democracy, Professor Justin Levitt returned to Loyola after serving as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. At DOJ, he primarily supported the Civil Rights Division’s work on voting rights and protections against employment discrimination (including LGBT rights in the workplace).
Levitt has published in the flagship law reviews at Harvard, Columbia, NYU, Georgetown, and William & Mary, the peer-reviewed Election Law Journal, and the flagship online law journals at Yale and NYU, among others. He has served as a visiting faculty member at the Yale Law School, at USC’s Gould School of Law, and at Caltech. He was honored to receive Loyola’s Excellence in Teaching Award in 2013-14 and 2019-20.
Levitt has been invited to testify before committees of the U.S. House and Senate, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, several state legislative bodies, and both federal and state courts. His research has been cited extensively in the media and the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. He maintains the website All About Redistricting, tracking the process of state and federal redistricting around the country, including litigation.
Levitt served in various capacities for several presidential campaigns, including as the National Voter Protection Counsel in 2008, helping to run an effort ensuring that tens of millions of citizens could vote and have those votes counted. Before joining the faculty of Loyola Law School, he was counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, for five years. He also worked as in-house counsel to the country’s largest independent voter registration and engagement operation, and at several nonprofit civil rights and civil liberties organizations.
At Loyola, Levitt established the Practitioner Moot Program, a complimentary service to the community allowing attorneys with pending appellate matters to practice their arguments before faculty experts and experienced advocates. Under the program, Loyola has hosted recent moots for cases later argued in the Supreme Court, the Ninth Circuit, the California Supreme Court, and the California Courts of Appeal, among others.
Levitt served as a law clerk to the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He holds a law degree and a masters degree in public administration from Harvard University, and was an articles editor for the Harvard Law Review. He is admitted to the bar in California, New Jersey, New York, and the District of Columbia, and to the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Courts of Appeal for the Fourth Circuit, Ninth Circuit, and Eleventh Circuit, and the U.S. District Courts in the Central District of California and Northern District of Florida.
Publications, Research and Related Material
Courses Taught
- Constitutional Law
- Law of the Political Process
- Criminal Procedure
- The Motives of Public Actors
Links
Education
- BA, magna cum laude, Harvard College
- JD/MPA, magna cum laude, Harvard Law School / Harvard Kennedy School
Primary Articles
- Problems of Public Purpose (in progress)
- Failed Elections and the Legislative Selection of Electors, __ N.Y.U. L. Rev. __ (forthcoming 2021).
- Citizenship and the Census, 119 Colum. L. Rev. 1355 (2019).
- Intent is Enough: Invidious Partisanship in Redistricting, 59 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 1993 (2018).
- Quick and Dirty: The New Misreading of the Voting Rights Act, 43 Fl. St. U. L. Rev. 573 (2016).
- Electoral Integrity: The Confidence Game, 89 N.Y.U. L. Rev. Online 70 (2014).
- The Partisanship Spectrum, 55 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 1787 (2014).
- Section 5 As Simulacrum, 123 Yale L. J. Online 151 (2013).
- Democracy on the High Wire: Citizen Commission Implementation of the Voting Rights Act, 46 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1041 (2013).
- Resolving Election Error: The Dynamic Assessment of Materiality, 54 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 83 (2012) (also edited for inclusion in Legal Workshop, Oct. 30, 2012).
- Election Deform: The Pursuit of Unwarranted Electoral Regulation, 11 Election L.J. 97 (2012).
- Confronting the Impact of Citizens United, 29 Yale L. & Pol’y Rev. 217 (2010).
- Long Lines at the Courthouse: Pre-Election Litigation of Election Day Burdens, 9 Election L.J. 19 (2010) (peer-reviewed).
- Taking the “Re” Out of Redistricting: State Constitutional Provisions on Redistricting Timing, 95 Geo. L.J. 1247 (2007) (co-authored with Michael P. McDonald).
Essays and Shorter Scholarship
- Nonsensus: Pretext and the Decennial Enumeration, 3 ACS Sup. Ct. Rev. 59 (2019).
- Race, Redistricting, and the Manufactured Conundrum, 50 Loyola L.A. L. Rev. 555 (2017).
- The Role of State Attorneys General in Federal and State Redistricting in 2020 (2017) (co-authored with James E. Tierney).
- Voter Identification in the Courts, in The Book of the States (Council of State Governments 2015).
- “Fixing That”: Lines at the Polling Place, 28 J.L. Pol. 465 (2013).
- You’re Gonna Need a Thicker Veil, 65 Fla. L. Rev. F. (2013).
- The New Wave of Election Regulation: Burden without Benefit, 6 Advance 39 (2012).
- Fault and the Murkowski Voter: A Reply to Flanders, 28 Alaska L. Rev. 41 (2011).
- Weighing the Potential of Citizen Redistricting, 44 Loyola L.A. L. Rev. 513 (2011).
- Guarantee Clause, in Encyclopedia of the U.S. Constitution (David Schultz ed., 2009).
- Seeing Double Voting: An Extension of the Birthday Problem, 7 Election L.J. 111 (2008) (co-authored with Michael P. McDonald) (peer-reviewed).
- Developments in the Law—International Criminal Law (pt. 2): The Promises of International Prosecution, 114 Harv. L. Rev. 1957 (2001).
Monographs and Book Chapters
- Quick and Dirty: The New Misreading of the Voting Rights Act, in America Votes! A Guide to Modern Election Law and Voting Rights (Benjamin E. Griffith ed., 3d ed. 2016).
- LULAC v. Perry: The Frumious Gerry-Mander, Rampant, in Election Law Stories (Foundation Press, 2016).
- Novel (and Not-so-Novel) Alternatives to Legislative Redistricting, in America Votes! A Guide to Modern Election Law and Voting Rights (Benjamin E. Griffith ed., 2d ed. 2012).
- Redistricting and the West: The Legal Context, in Redistricting and Reapportionment in the West (Gary F. Moncrief ed., 2011).
- A Citizen’s Guide to Redistricting (2d ed., Brennan Center for Justice 2010).
- How Data is [sic] Used by Advocates, in Data for Democracy (Paul Gronke & Michael Caudell-Feagan eds., 2008).
- A Citizen’s Guide to Redistricting (1st ed., Brennan Center for Justice 2008).
- The Truth About Voter Fraud (Brennan Center for Justice 2007).
- Introduction, in Making Every Vote Count: Federal Election Legislation in the States (Andrew Rachlin ed., 2006).
- Making the List: Database Matching and Verification Processes for Voter Registration (Brennan Center for Justice 2006) (co-authored with Wendy R. Weiser and Ana Muñoz).
Public Service
Levitt serves as a faculty advisor for the Loyola chapter of the American Constitution Society, and is an avid supporter of public interest work. He is an Advisor for the Course of Study in Law and the Political Process, is the co-chair of Loyola’s Faculty Workshops, and has served as the faculty advisor for the Loyola Law Review. In 2015, he served on the Search Committee for Loyola’s next Dean; he has also served on the Curriculum Committee and Instructional Technology Committee. Beyond Loyola, he regularly provides assistance to legislators and administrators from both major political parties, and has represented nonpartisan nonprofit organizations and officials and former officials from both major political parties in court. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Fair Elections Center, and as a member of the Advisory Committee to the Los Angeles County Voting Systems Assessment Project.
Contact
Burns 335
919 Albany St.
Los Angeles, CA 90015
(o) 213.736.7417
(f) 213.380.3769
