Sanford V. Levinson
- W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair in Law
- Professor
Sanford Levinson teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, legal history, and foreign and international law. An expert in his field, Professor Levinson has authored approximately 450 articles, book reviews, and commentaries in professional and popular journals, as well as seven books. In addition to teaching at Texas Law, he is a professor in the Department of Government at the University of Texas and is a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association.
Featured Work
Sanford Levinson, who holds the W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair in Law, joined the University of Texas Law School in 1980. Previously a member of the Department of Politics at Princeton University, he is also a Professor in the Department of Government at the University of Texas. Levinson is the author of approximately 450 articles, book reviews, or commentaries in professional and popular journals--and a regular contributor to the popular blog Balkinization. He has also written seven books: Constitutional Faith (1988, winner of the Scribes Award, 2d edition 2011); Written in Stone: Public Monuments in Changing Societies (1998, 2d ed. 2018); Wrestling With Diversity (2003); Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (and How We the People Can Correct It)(2006); Framed: America's 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance (2012); An Argument Open to All: Reading the Federalist in the 21st Century (2015); Democracy and Dysfunction (with Jack Balkin) (2018); and, with Cynthia Levinson, Fault Lines in the Constitution: The Framers, Their Fights, and the Flaws that Affect Us Today (2017, 2d ed. 2019, graphic novel ed. 2020). Edited or co-edited books include a leading constitutional law casebook, Processes of Constitutional Decisionmaking (6th ed. 2015, with Paul Brest, Jack Balkin, Akhil Amar, and Reva Siegel); Nullification and Secession in Modern Constitutional Thought (2016); Reading Law and Literature: A Hermeneutic Reader (1988, with Steven Mallioux); Responding to Imperfection: The Theory and Practice of Constitutional Amendment (1995); Constitutional Stupidities, Constitutional Tragedies (1998, with William Eskridge); Legal Canons (2000, with Jack Balkin); The Louisiana Purchase and American Expansion (2005, with Batholomew Sparrow); Torture: A Collection (2004, revised paperback edition, 2006); The Oxford Handbook on the United States Constitution (with Mark Tushnet and Mark Graber, 2015); and Constitutional Democracy in Crisis? (with Mark Tushnet and Mark Graber, 2018). He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association in 2010.
He has been a visiting faculty member of the Boston University, Georgetown, New York University, and Yale law schools in the United States and has taught abroad in programs of law in London; Paris; Budapest; Jerusalem; Auckland, New Zealand; and Melbourne, Australia. He has also been a regular visitor at the Harvard Law School since 2004. He was also affilated between 1984-2016 with the Shalom Hartman Institute on Jewish Philosophy in Jerusalem. He was a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 1985-86 and a Member of the Ethics in the Professions Program at Harvard in 1991-92. A member of the American Law Institute, Levinson was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001. He is married to Cynthia Y. Levinson, a writer of children's literature, and has two daughters and four grandchildren.
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year-2010
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Article
States Can't Nullify Federal Law
Sanford V. Levinson, States Can't Nullify Federal Law, Austin American-Statesman, February 6, 2010. <http://www.statesman.com/opinion/insight/commentary-states-can-t-nullify-federal-law-217250.html>
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Book Chapter
Morton Horwitz Wrestles with the Rule of Law
Sanford V. Levinson, Morton Horwitz Wrestles with the Rule of Law, in 2 Transformations in American Legal History 483 (Daniel W. Hamilton & Alfred L. Brophy, editors; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010) (with Jack M. Balkin). -
Article
Selection Biases
Sanford V. Levinson, Selection Biases, 45 Tulsa Law Review 575 (2010) (guest editor, with Mark A. Graber). View Article -
Book Review
America's "Other Constitutions": The Importance of State Constitutions for Our Law and Politics
Sanford V. Levinson, America's "Other Constitutions": The Importance of State Constitutions for Our Law and Politics, 45 Tulsa Law Review 813 (2010) (reviewing The Law of American State Constitutions, by Robert F. Williams). View Article -
Book Chapter
The Welfare State
Sanford V. Levinson, The Welfare State, in A Companion to Philosophy of Law and Legal Theory 539 (2nd ed.; Dennis Patterson ed.; Chichester, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010). -
Book
Processes of Constitutional Decisionmaking: Cases and Materials
Sanford V. Levinson, Processes of Constitutional Decisionmaking: Cases and Materials (Gaithersburg, N.Y.: Aspen Law & Business, 5th ed. 2006, with Paul Brest, Jack M. Balkin, Akhil Reed Amar & Reva B. Siegel; 4th ed. 2000, with Paul Brest, Jack M. Balkin, & Akhil Reed Amar; Boston: Little, Brown, 3rd ed. 1992, 2nd ed. l983, Supplement 2010, with Paul Brest, Jack M. Balkin, Akhil Reed Amar & Reva B. Siegel, Supplement 2006, with Paul Brest, Jack M. Balkin, Akhil Reed Amar & Reva B. Siegel, Supplement 1980, with Paul Brest). <http://tallons.law.utexas.edu/record=b1607618~S0>
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Article
Constitutional Dictatorship: Its Dangers and Its Design
Sanford V. Levinson, Constitutional Dictatorship: Its Dangers and Its Design, 94 Minnesota Law Review 1789 (2010) (with Jack M. Balkin). -
Book Chapter
Foreword
Sanford V. Levinson, Foreword, in Reason in Law by Lief H. Carter & Thomas F. Burke viii (8th ed.; Eric Stano ed.; New York: Longman, 2010).
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Article
Assessing the Supreme Court's Current Caseload: A Question of Law or Politics?
Sanford V. Levinson, Assessing the Supreme Court's Current Caseload: A Question of Law or Politics? 119 Yale Law Journal Online (2010).
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Book
The American Supreme Court
Sanford V. Levinson, The American Supreme Court (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 5th ed. revision 2010; 4th ed. revision 2005; 3rd ed. revision 2000; 2nd ed. revision 1994) (with Robert G. McCloskey).
year-2009
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Article
Thomas Ruffin and the Politics of Public Honor: Political Change and the "Creative Destruction" of Public Space
Sanford V. Levinson, Thomas Ruffin and the Politics of Public Honor: Political Change and the "Creative Destruction" of Public Space, 87 North Carolina Law Review 673 (2009). -
Article
Constitutional Crises
Sanford V. Levinson, Constitutional Crises, 157 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 707 (2009) (with Jack M. Balkin) -
Article
Our Schizoid Approach to the United States Constitution: Competing Narratives of Constitutional Dynamism and Stasis
Sanford V. Levinson, Our Schizoid Approach to the United States Constitution: Competing Narratives of Constitutional Dynamism and Stasis [Jerome Hall Lecture], 84 Indiana Law Journal 1337 (2009). -
Article
Foreword: "I Read the News Today, Oh Boy": The Increasing Centrality of Constitutional Design
Sanford V. Levinson, Foreword: "I Read the News Today, Oh Boy": The Increasing Centrality of Constitutional Design [Symposium: What, if Anything, Do We Know about Constitutional Design?], 87 Texas Law Review 1265 (2009). -
Article
Still Complacent After All These Years: Some Rumination on the Continuing Need for a "New Political Science" (Not to Mention a New Way of Teaching Law Students About What Is Truly Most Important About the Constitution
Sanford V. Levinson, Still Complacent After All These Years: Some Rumination on the Continuing Need for a "New Political Science" (Not to Mention a New Way of Teaching Law Students About What Is Truly Most Important About the Constitution [Symposium: The Most Disparaged Branch: The Role of Congress in the Twenty-First Century], 89 Boston University Law Review 409 (2009). -
Article
For whom is the Heller Decision Important and Why?
Sanford V. Levinson, For Whom is the Heller Decision Important and Why? [Symposium: The Second Amendment after District of Columbia v. Heller], 13 Lewis & Clark Law Review 315 (2009). -
Article
Why Didn't the Supreme Court Take My Advice in the Heller Case? Some Speculative Responses to an Egocentric Question
Sanford V. Levinson, Why Didn't the Supreme Court Take My Advice in the Heller Case? Some Speculative Responses to an Egocentric Question [Symposium: The Second Amendment after Heller], 60 Hastings Law Journal 1491 (2009). -
Article
What Should Citizens (As Participants in a Republican Form of Government) Know About the Constitution?
Sanford V. Levinson, What Should Citizens (As Participants in a Republican Form of Government) Know about the Constitution? 50 William and Mary Law Review 1239 (2009). -
Article
The Vanishing Book Review in Student-Edited Law Reviews and Potential Responses
Sanford V. Levinson, The Vanishing Book Review in Student-Edited Law Reviews and Potential Responses, 87 Texas Law Review 1205 (2009). -
Article
United States: Assessing Heller
Sanford V. Levinson, United States: Assessing Heller, 7 International Journal of Constitutional Law 316 (2009).
spring 2025
- Const Law II: The Theory and Practice(s) of American Federalism
- SMNR: Comparative Constitutional Law and Politics
- SMNR: Sovereignty in Political Theory and Law