Doug Spencer, PhD

Doug Spencer is a Professor of Law at the University of Colorado. Professor Spencer is an election law scholar whose research addresses the role of prejudice and racial attitudes in voting rights litigation, the empirical implications of various campaign finance regulations, and the ways that election rules and political campaigns contribute to growing inequality in America.
 
Before moving to Colorado, Professor Spencer was Professor of Law & Public Policy at the University of Connecticut from 2013-2021. He has also taught as a Visiting Professor at the Yale Law School (2020) and the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy (2018-2019). His research has been published or is forthcoming in the California Law Review, Columbia Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Indiana Law Journal, Iowa Law Review, Northwestern Law Review, University of Illinois Law Review, Yale Law & Policy Review, Yale Law Journal Forum, Journal of Law & Courts, and the Election Law Journal. His work has also been featured in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Slate and other media outlets.
 
Professor Spencer has worked as an expert witness in voting rights and campaign finance cases and, prior to law teaching, was a law clerk at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights in San Francisco, an election monitor in Thailand for the Asian Network for Free Elections, and a researcher for the Pew Center on the States' Military and Overseas Voting Reform Project.
 
Professor Spencer holds a Ph.D. in Jurisprudence and Social Policy from the University of California, Berkeley. He also earned a J.D. at Berkeley Law and a M.P.P. at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley. He graduated magna cum laude from Columbia University in 2004 with a B.A. in Philosophy.