Sanford Levinson

Early life and education

Levinson was born in 1941 in Hendersonville, North Carolina. He is Jewish. Levinson graduated from Duke University with an A.B. in 1962, then earned a Ph.D. in government from Harvard University in 1969. He then attended Stanford Law School, graduating with a J.D. in 1973.{{cite web| author = staff| title = Sanford V Levinson (bio circa 2011)| publisher = School of Law – University of Texas at Austin| date = 2009-10-10| url = http://www.utexas.edu/law/faculty/profile.php?id=SVL55| access-date = 2017-01-21| url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110126194434/http://www.utexas.edu/law/faculty/profile.php?id=SVL55| archive-date=2011-01-26

Academic career

Levinson was a member of the department of Politics at Princeton. Levinson taught law at Georgetown, Yale, Harvard, New York University, Boston University, Central European University in Budapest, Panthéon-Assas University, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem{{cite web | access-date = 2017-01-21 In 2001, Levinson was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2010, he was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association. In 1980, he joined the University of Texas School of Law at Austin, Texas, where he is also a professor of government. He holds the W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood Jr. Centennial Chair in Law.{{cite web | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110213154203/http://fora.tv/speaker/1649/Sanford-Levinson | url-status = usurped | archive-date = February 13, 2011 | access-date = 2017-01-21

Books, scholarship, activism

Levinson is quoted often in publications about numerous legal topics.{{cite news | author-link = Joan Biskupic | access-date = 2009-10-10 | author-link = Joan Biskupic | access-date = 2017-01-21 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080629075857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,982373,00.html | url-status = dead | archive-date = June 29, 2008 | access-date = 2009-10-10 | access-date = 2009-10-10 | access-date = 2009-10-10 | access-date = 2017-01-21 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121114104802/https://www.reuters.com/article/2009/01/06/idUS187204+06-Jan-2009+PRN20090106 | archive-date=2012-11-14 | access-date = 2009-10-10 | access-date = 2009-10-10

Levinson has been critical of Supreme Court justices who have stayed in office despite medical deterioration stemming from age; for example, Levinson criticized Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist for a "degree of egoistic narcissism" by declaring six weeks before his death his intention to stay on.{{cite news | access-date = 2009-10-10 | access-date = 2009-10-10

Levinson is particularly noted for his 1989 "seminal article" in the Yale Law Journal entitled "The Embarrassing Second Amendment". He argued that the Second Amendment offers neither gun rights advocates nor gun control advocates a refuge.{{cite news | author-link = Richard Bernstein (journalist) | access-date = 2009-10-10 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110213090242/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,162909,00.html | url-status = dead | archive-date = February 13, 2011 | access-date = 2009-10-10

Levinson taught a course called Torture, Law and Lawyers at Harvard Law School in 2005.{{cite news | access-date = 2009-10-10 | access-date = 2009-10-10 | access-date = 2009-10-10

Levinson has been a critic of the unitary executive and excessive presidential power. In the magazine Dissent, he argued that "constitutional dictators have become the American norm."{{cite news | access-date = 2009-10-10 | access-date = 2009-10-10 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://archive.today/20121211130706/http://www.utexas.edu/law/news/2008/091808_levinson_essay.html | archive-date=11 December 2012 | access-date = 2017-01-21}} Levinson commented about a ban on gay marriage proposed by former President George W. Bush in legal terms as a Constitutional issue.{{cite news |access-date=2009-10-10 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090609032834/http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/21/national/21GAY.html?pagewanted=all |archive-date=June 9, 2009 }}

Levinson has criticized the Constitution (invoking comparisons to Thomas Jefferson) for what he considers to be its numerous failings, including an inability to remove the President despite lack of confidence by lawmakers and the public, the President's veto power as being "extraordinarily undemocratic", the difficulty of enacting Constitutional amendments through Article 5 and a lack of more representation in the Senate for highly populated states such as California.{{cite web |access-date = 2009-10-10 |url-status = dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20091005132615/http://www.utexas.edu/law/news/2006/101606_latimes.html |archive-date = October 5, 2009 | access-date = 2009-10-10

Levinson appeared on the Bill Moyers television program in 2007.{{cite news | access-date = 2017-01-21

Personal life

Levinson and his wife, children's writer Cynthia Levinson, have two daughters: philosopher Meira and lawyer Rachel.

Publications

• Pdf.

References

References

1. (1994). "H.R. 2443, the Equitable Escheatment Act of 1993: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions Supervision, Regulation, and Deposit Insurance of the Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs, House of Representatives, One Hundred Third Congress, Second Session, March 22, 1994". U.S. Government Printing Office.
2. Hannah Natanson. (November 25, 2016). "Anti-Semitic Postcard Promises to 'Drain the Swamp' at Harvard Law". The Harvard Crimson.
3. staff. (2017-01-21). "Sanford V Levinson". Texas Law – University of Texas at Austin.
4. staff. (2017-01-21). "Sanford Levinson". Harvard Law School.
5. Levinson, Sanford. (1989). "The Embarrassing Second Amendment". Yale Law Journal.
6. The review was not only of Levinson's book but also of ''The Interrogators: Inside the Secret War Against Al Qaeda'', by Chris Mackey and Greg Miller. Little, Brown & Company, 2004.
7. "Sanford V. Levinson".