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LAW
Blazing A Path of Distinction
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.
“I
was at a point in my career where
teaching appealed to me
because I could have the freedom to
determine my own agenda and work on
public issues,” Overton says.
Accepted as a Charles Hamilton
Houston Fellow at Harvard, Overton
worked on his legal research writing
skills with Michelman and co-taught
a course on “Law and the Political
Process” with professor Lani Guinier.
“It was a great experience” working
with Michelman and others on the
legal research and writing, he says.
“Spencer’s a self-starter. I’ve
known him from the time he began law
school,” Michelman says.
Overton’s life today, as a professor
and a Harvard graduate,
contrasts starkly with the reality
of his teen years. He is candid
about the anger, alienation and deep
confusion he experienced as a teen
growing up in a middle-class home in
Southfield, a suburb of Detroit. He
took advanced courses in elementary
and middle school, but began to
drift away from academics. By eighth
and ninth grade, Overton was
struggling in school.
The
young Overton sensed a strong racial
divide and a prevalent indifference
towards Black students at his
school. Overton grew divided over
his own social identity, preferring
more and more the company of the
“cool” Black students for whom
academics were a low priority.
Despite finishing high school with a
1.8 GPA. Overton managed to gain
admission to historically Black
Hampton University, where he began
to turn his life around. In his
first semester, he had a 4.0 grade
point average resulting from being
inspired by his peers and professors
to excel. “I felt like I could do
well and fit in socially. [Hampton]
deracialized the academic
environment for me. It took race out
of the equation.”
—
By Ronald Roach
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Copyright 2005 by
DiverseEducation.com
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