Education

A.B., Harvard University
J.D., Yale Law School

Biography

Daniel P. Tokaji is the Fred W. & Vi Miller Dean and Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin Law School, effective August 1, 2020.  As Dean, he serves as the chief academic and executive officer of the school, with responsibility for faculty and staff development, personnel oversight, strategic planning and institutional vision, fundraising, budget planning and management, curriculum, and student academic affairs

Dean Tokaji comes to the University of Wisconsin from Ohio State University, where he served as Associate Dean for Faculty and Charles W. Ebersold & Florence Whitcomb Ebersold Professor of Constitutional Law at the Moritz College of Law.  A member of the Ohio State faculty from 2003 until 2020, he taught a wide variety of courses, including Civil Procedure,  Civil Rights Lawyering, Comparative Constitutional Law, Election Law and Voting Rights,  Federal Courts, First Amendment, Legal Analysis and Writing, Legislation and Regulation, and the U.S. Legal System.  He has also taught at Harvard Law School, Hong Kong University, and Oxford University. 

A leading authority in the field of Election Law, Dean Tokaji’s scholarship addresses questions of voting rights, free speech, and democratic inclusion. He has published over 50 law review articles, book chapters, and other scholarly papers on a wide range of topics.  His recent work includes “Gerrymandering and Association,” William & Mary Law Review (2018), “Denying Systemic Equality: The Last Words of the Kennedy Court,” Harvard Law & Policy Review (2019), and “Voter Registration in a Pandemic,” University of Chicago Law Review Online (2020).  He is the author of Election Law in a Nutshell (2d ed. 2016), and co-author of Election Law: Cases and Materials (6th ed. 2017) and The New Soft Money (2014).  His recent scholarship addresses the challenges facing democracies around the globe, including the free speech issues surrounding digital disinformation and the need for trustworthy electoral institutions. 

Media have frequently relied on Dean Tokaji’s expertise on election, voting, and speech issues.  He has been quoted or interviewed by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and National Public Radio, and many other outlets.

Dean Tokaji graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College, with an A.B. degree in English and American Literature and Language and Philosophy, then earned a J.D. from Yale Law School. Dean Tokaji clerked for the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.  A former civil rights lawyer, he has brought many free speech, racial justice, and voting rights cases over his career.