Edward H. Levi

Based on Wikipedia: Edward H. Levi

The Man Who Restored Faith in American Justice

In January 1975, the United States Department of Justice was in shambles. The Watergate scandal had just forced President Nixon from office, and his attorneys general had been caught obstructing justice, lying under oath, and using the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a political weapon against the president's enemies. The American people's trust in their law enforcement institutions had cratered. Gerald Ford, the unelected president trying to clean up the mess, needed someone beyond reproach to rebuild the Justice Department from the ground up.

He chose a diminutive law professor from Chicago who had never held elected office and had no political debts to repay.

Edward Hirsch Levi would go on to be called "the model of a modern attorney general" and "the greatest lawyer of his time." But what made him remarkable wasn't his legal brilliance—though he had that in abundance. It was his stubborn insistence that the law must constrain power, especially the power of those who enforce it.

A Chicago Dynasty of Rabbis and Scholars

Edward Levi was born in Chicago on June 26, 1911, into a family where intellectual achievement was simply expected. His father, Gerson Levi, was a rabbi who had emigrated from Scotland. His maternal grandfather was Emil Gustav Hirsch, one of the most influential Reform rabbis in American history. And his great-grandfather was Samuel Hirsch, a German philosopher whose writings on religion and ethics were still being debated in European universities.

This lineage matters because it shaped how Levi approached the law. Reform Judaism, unlike its Orthodox counterpart, emphasized adapting ancient principles to modern circumstances while preserving their essential ethical core. Levi would later bring exactly this sensibility to American jurisprudence—reverence for tradition combined with pragmatic flexibility.

The University of Chicago was practically in his bloodstream. He earned his undergraduate degree there in 1932, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, which is the oldest and most prestigious academic honor society in the United States. He then stayed for law school, earning his Juris Doctor in 1935. The following year, at just twenty-five, he joined the law school faculty and was admitted to the Illinois bar.

But Levi wasn't content with one elite legal education. He headed to Yale Law School, where he became a Sterling Fellow—Yale's most prestigious fellowship—and earned a Doctor of Juridical Science degree in 1938. This additional credential was unusual. Most lawyers stop at the J.D. The J.S.D. is a research degree, closer to a Ph.D., designed for those who want to advance legal scholarship rather than simply practice law.

His First Tour in Washington

World War II interrupted Levi's academic career, as it did for so many of his generation. He went to Washington to serve as a special assistant to the Attorney General of the United States, gaining his first exposure to the machinery of federal law enforcement.

What exactly did he do there? The historical record is sparse, but the timing is significant. The Justice Department during World War II was handling everything from war crimes prosecutions to the deeply controversial internment of Japanese Americans. A young legal scholar watching this machinery up close would have learned hard lessons about how easily government power can be abused, even—perhaps especially—when the cause seems righteous.

Levi returned to Chicago in 1945 and resumed his academic career. Five years later, at thirty-nine, he was named dean of the law school. That same year, he took on another Washington assignment: chief counsel for the Subcommittee on Monopoly Power of the House Judiciary Committee. This might sound like dry antitrust work, but the subcommittee was investigating how concentrated corporate power threatened American democracy—a question that remains painfully relevant today.

Building the Modern University of Chicago

As dean, Levi transformed the University of Chicago Law School into something distinctive. Most law schools at the time trained practitioners—lawyers who could competently handle contracts and litigation. Levi wanted something more ambitious: a law school that would produce scholars and leaders who understood law as an intellectual discipline connected to philosophy, economics, and the social sciences.

This interdisciplinary approach became known as the "Chicago School" of legal thinking. It would later influence everything from antitrust policy to constitutional interpretation, though not always in ways Levi himself would have endorsed.

In 1962, Levi stepped up to become provost of the university—essentially its chief academic officer. That same year, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, recognition that he had become one of the nation's most distinguished intellectual figures.

Then came 1968.

The Campus in Flames

Levi became president of the University of Chicago in 1968, possibly the worst year to take charge of an American university. The Vietnam War had radicalized students across the country. Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated that April. Robert Kennedy was killed two months later. College campuses were erupting in protests, sit-ins, and sometimes violence.

At Chicago, students occupied the main administration building. University presidents across America were calling in police to drag students out, leading to bloody confrontations that only inflamed tensions further. The most infamous example was Columbia University, where a police raid left dozens injured and turned a campus protest into a national crisis.

Levi refused to call the Chicago police.

This decision was controversial. Some faculty and alumni thought he was being weak, allowing lawlessness to triumph. But Levi understood something his critics didn't: a university that uses force against its own students has already lost. He negotiated, waited, and eventually the occupation ended without violence. The university survived with its integrity intact.

This experience would prove crucial preparation for what came next.

The Watergate Wasteland

To understand why Levi's appointment as Attorney General mattered so much, you need to understand the depths to which the Justice Department had sunk.

John Mitchell, Nixon's first Attorney General, was convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and perjury for his role in covering up the Watergate break-in. He went to prison. Richard Kleindienst, Mitchell's successor, pleaded guilty to refusing to testify accurately before Congress—a polite way of saying he lied under oath. He became the first Attorney General in American history to be convicted of a crime.

But the corruption went deeper than Watergate. The FBI, under its longtime director J. Edgar Hoover, had been running illegal surveillance operations against civil rights leaders, antiwar activists, and political dissidents for decades. The bureau had tried to blackmail Martin Luther King Jr. into committing suicide. It had infiltrated and disrupted legitimate political organizations. And it had done all this with the tacit approval—or at least the willful ignorance—of multiple attorneys general.

By 1975, Congress was investigating these abuses through the Church Committee, named after Senator Frank Church of Idaho. The revelations were shocking: illegal wiretaps, break-ins, mail openings, and a program called COINTELPRO that had systematically targeted American citizens for their political beliefs.

Into this wreckage stepped Edward Levi.

Rebuilding the Rule of Law

Levi was an inspired choice precisely because he was so unlike his predecessors. He had no political debts. He wasn't a party operative. He was a scholar who had spent his career thinking about what law meant and how it should constrain power.

He was also the first Jewish Attorney General in American history, a fact that carried symbolic weight in an era when discrimination against Jews in elite institutions was still within living memory.

Levi's most enduring achievement was a set of guidelines he issued in 1976 to limit FBI activities. These guidelines might sound technical, but they represented a fundamental shift in how American law enforcement operated.

Before Levi, the FBI could investigate anyone it deemed a threat, based on suspicion, ideology, or political pressure. After Levi, the bureau needed to show evidence of a crime before using intrusive techniques like wiretaps or warrantless searches.

This seems obvious now. Of course police should need evidence before invading someone's privacy. But in 1976, after decades of FBI overreach, it was revolutionary.

The guidelines didn't last forever. In 1983, Ronald Reagan's Attorney General William French Smith replaced them with looser rules that gave the FBI more latitude. The pendulum has swung back and forth ever since, especially after the September 11 attacks. But Levi established a principle that still matters: law enforcement agencies must operate under law, not above it.

Shaping the Supreme Court

Levi also left his mark on the Supreme Court, though not by serving on it himself. When a vacancy arose, President Ford asked Levi for recommendations. Levi suggested two names: Robert Bork, his former student who was then serving as Solicitor General, and John Paul Stevens, a federal appeals court judge from Chicago.

Ford chose Stevens, who would serve on the Court for thirty-five years and become one of its most influential justices. Stevens was initially considered a moderate conservative, but as the Court shifted rightward, he became the leader of its liberal wing. His opinions on everything from free speech to executive power continue to shape American law.

Bork's turn would come later, and more controversially. In 1987, Reagan nominated him to the Supreme Court, and Levi testified in his support at the confirmation hearings. The Senate rejected Bork's nomination in one of the most contentious confirmation battles in American history, a fight that transformed how Supreme Court nominations work. Whether you think Bork was unfairly "borked" or appropriately blocked depends on your political views, but the episode reshaped American politics in ways still being felt today.

The People in His Orbit

The Justice Department under Levi was a remarkable incubator of talent. Among those who served under him were Antonin Scalia, who would become one of the most influential conservative justices in Supreme Court history; Rudolph Giuliani, who would later become mayor of New York City and a presidential candidate; Rex Lee, who would serve as Solicitor General under Reagan; and Raymond Randolph, who would become a federal appeals court judge.

This list is ideologically interesting. Levi himself was not a conservative ideologue—his approach to law emphasized pragmatism and institutional restraint rather than ideological crusading. Yet he surrounded himself with people who would go on to lead the conservative legal movement. Perhaps this reflects Levi's commitment to intellectual excellence regardless of politics. Or perhaps it shows that in 1975, the categories of "conservative" and "liberal" meant something different than they do now.

A Final Act of Principle

Levi's last official action as Attorney General was characteristically principled. He filed a lawsuit to prevent the creation of the Westheimer Independent School District in Texas.

This proposed district was attempting to break away from the Houston Independent School District, and the circumstances made clear that the motivation was to create a whiter, wealthier enclave that wouldn't have to share resources with Houston's diverse student population. Levi argued this violated the Voting Rights Act, the landmark 1965 law that prohibited discrimination in voting—and, by extension, in the governance structures that determine who gets to vote on what.

It was a fitting final act for someone who believed that law should protect the vulnerable against the powerful.

Return to Chicago

After leaving Washington in 1977, Levi went home. He spent a year as a visiting professor at Stanford Law School, then returned to the University of Chicago, where he taught in both the law school and the undergraduate college until his retirement.

He remained active in legal education, serving as chairman of the Council on Legal Education for Professional Responsibility. He was a trustee of both the University of Chicago and the MacArthur Foundation, which administers the famous "genius grants." He joined the American Philosophical Society, the oldest learned society in the United States, founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743.

Levi also wrote. His book "An Introduction to Legal Reasoning," first published in 1949, remains a classic text in law schools. Unlike the dense treatises that dominate legal scholarship, it's a slim volume that explains how judges actually think through cases—reasoning by analogy, distinguishing precedents, adapting old principles to new circumstances. His speeches were collected in a volume called "Point of View: Talks on Education."

A Family of Achievers

Levi married Kate Sulzberger in 1946. They had three sons, all of whom followed their father into distinguished careers.

John Gerson Levi became a prominent attorney at Sidley Austin, one of Chicago's most prestigious law firms, and served as chairman of the board of the Legal Services Corporation, which provides legal aid to Americans who can't afford lawyers.

David Frank Levi became a federal judge in California and later the fourteenth dean of Duke Law School. Before that, he served as U.S. Attorney, the chief federal prosecutor for his district.

Michael Edward Levi became a physicist, working on both particle physics and cosmology at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Unlike his brothers, he escaped the gravitational pull of the law—but not the family tradition of intellectual distinction.

Legacy

Edward Levi died in Chicago on March 7, 2000, from complications of Alzheimer's disease. He was eighty-eight.

In 2005, the Justice Department commemorated the thirtieth anniversary of his appointment by creating the Edward H. Levi Award for Outstanding Professionalism and Exemplary Integrity. The ceremony brought together an extraordinary group: former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Supreme Court Justices John Paul Stevens and Antonin Scalia, former Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, and Robert Bork. These people disagreed about almost everything in American politics, but they agreed on Levi.

In 2013, the University of Chicago renamed its main administration building—the one students had occupied back in 1968—Edward H. Levi Hall. A portrait of him hangs in the lobby, looking out at the campus he led through crisis.

The questions Levi grappled with haven't gone away. How do we balance security and liberty? How do we ensure that law enforcement serves justice rather than power? How do we maintain trust in institutions when those institutions have betrayed us?

Levi didn't solve these problems permanently. No one can. But he showed that it was possible to rebuild trust after catastrophic failure, one principled decision at a time. In an era when Americans are again questioning the integrity of their institutions, that example matters more than ever.