Justin Levitt

Professor of Law, Loyola Law School Los Angeles
A nationally recognized scholar of constitutional law and the law of democracy, Professor Justin Levitt has returned to Loyola after serving from 2021-22 as the White House's first Senior Policy Advisor for Democracy and Voting Rights. There, within a team devoted to racial justice and equity, Levitt assisted the President in his efforts to make sure that every eligible American has secure, reliable access to a meaningful vote; to provide equitable representation in government; to restore trust in a democracy deserving of that trust; and to bolster avenues by which Americans build community and engage in civic participation.

Levitt had previously served in federal government 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 federal statutory protections against workplace discrimination based on race, ethnicity, sex -- including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity -- religion, national origin, citizenship status, and military service).

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, UCLA School of Law, USC's Gould School of Law, and at Caltech. He was Loyola's Associate Dean for Research from 2017-20, and was honored to receive Loyola's Excellence in Teaching Award in 2013-14, 2019-20, and 2023-24. He became an elected member of the American Law Institute in 2024.

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 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 Court in the Central District of California.