Blazing A Path of Distinction
Law
Spencer A. Overton
Title: Associate Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School
Education: J.D., Harvard University Law School; B.A., Mass Media/Journalism
Age: 37
By the time Spencer Overton’s first book, Stealing Democracy: The New Politics of Voter Suppression, appears in U.S. bookstores this spring, the 37-year-old George Washington University law school professor will have capped off an impressive chapter in his young career as a scholar. From winning tenure at the Washington, D.C.,-based law school in early 2004 to serving on a national commission on voting law reform over last spring and summer, and helping launch Blackprof.com, an influential African-American-run Internet blog, this past fall, Overton has shown he’s got the political savvy, intellectual depth and personal courage to become a leading public intellectual and influential legal activist.
“Professor Overton has distinguished himself both inside the classroom and outside in the public sphere,” says Roger Fairfax, a fellow George Washington University law school professor.
A noted expert on campaign finance and voting rights law, Overton made waves last year after serving as a commissioner on the Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform and making known his dissenting view on the voter identification process issue. On www.carterbakerdissent.com, Overton published his arguments on why a proposed requirement of voter identification photo cards would prove highly exclusionary for many American citizens.
Overton began his full-time academic teaching career in 2000, when he joined the University of California, Davis law school faculty. He had already worked as a clerk to federal district court judge Damon Keith in Detroit, participated in political campaigns in Michigan and worked in law firms in Detroit and Washington, D.C., after graduating from Harvard Law School. The Detroit native did not initially plan for a career in academia, but was urged to apply for a Harvard fellowship program by a former professor, Frank Michelman.
