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Joshua Weishart

Professor of Law

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Biography

Joshua Weishart is a lawyer, teacher, and scholar whose research and advocacy center on education rights under federal and state law, especially state constitutions. Within that discipline, his scholarship has focused on issues of school funding, democratic education, integration, and teacher rights. Weishart’s law journal publications include articles in the Stanford Law Review, William & Mary Law Review, Florida Law Review, and U.C. Davis Law Review. Other works include chapters in edited collections such as the Oxford Handbook on U.S. Education Law.

His opinion pieces for broader audiences have been published by the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and Education Week and his commentary has appeared in various media outlets including the Associated Press, The Atlantic, New York Magazine, and Chalkbeat. Weishart’s public advocacy includes joining and authoring amicus briefs in cases of national and state significance and serving as lead counsel in a state constitutional challenge.

Prior to joining the Suffolk Law faculty, Weishart was the Thomas R. Goodwin Professor of Law at the West Virginia University College of Law, where he taught for twelve years. Before entering academia, he was an associate at Severson & Werson in San Francisco and a law clerk to Judge Robert B. King of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

A Truman Scholar, Weishart earned a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science from West Virginia University, an M.Phil. in Philosophy from the University of Cambridge, and his J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.

Education

University of California, Berkeley School of Law, J.D.
University of Cambridge, M.Phil., Philosophy
West Virginia University, B.A., Political Science and Philosophy

Publications

Articles

Discriminatory Censorship Laws, Tulane Law Review (with Jonathan Feingold) (forthcoming)

The Right to Teach, 56 U.C. Davis Law Review 817 (2022)

Separate But Free, 73 Florida Law Review 1139 (2021)

Democratizing Education Rights, 29 William & Mary Bill of Rights J. 1 (2020)

Rethinking Constitutionality in Education Rights Cases, 71 Arkansas Law Rev. 491 (2019) (Symposium: “Hiding in Plain Sight: What Education Reform Needs”)

Aligning Education Rights and Remedies, 27 Kansas J. Law & Public Policy 346 (2018) (Symposium: “Public Education Policy in the 21^st Century: Challenges and Opportunities”)

The Compromised Right to Education?, 71 Stanford Law Rev. Online 123 (2018)

Equal Liberty in Proportion, 59 William & Mary Law Review 215 (2017)

Reconstituting the Right to Education, 67 Alabama Law Review 915 (2016)

Transcending Equality Versus Adequacy, 66 Stanford Law Review 477 (2014)

Book Chapters

The Constitutionally Anomalous Right to Education, in Oxford Handbook of U.S. Education Law (Kristi Bowman, ed., Oxford University Press, 2021)

Protecting a Federal Right to Educational Equality and Adequacy in A Federal Right to Education: Fundamental Questions for Our Democracy (Kimberly Jenkins Robinson, ed., NYU Press, 2019)