Edward H. Levi

Levi was born in Chicago, the son of Elsa B. (Hirsch) and Gerson B. Levi, a rabbi from Scotland.[7] His maternal grandfather was Reform rabbi Emil Gustav Hirsch, son of the German philosopher and rabbi Samuel Hirsch. He received his A.B. Phi Beta Kappa from the undergraduate college of the University of Chicago in 1932, and later his J.D. at the University of Chicago Law School in 1935. The following year he was named an assistant professor of law at the Law School and was admitted to the Illinois bar. He earned a J.S.D. from Yale Law School,[8] where he was also a Sterling Fellow in 1938.

During World War II he served as a special assistant to the Attorney General of the United States. In 1945, he returned to the University of Chicago Law School and was named dean of the law school in 1950. In 1950, he also worked as chief counsel for the Subcommittee on Monopoly Power of the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary. He resigned as law school dean and became provost of the university in 1962. That same year, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[9]

He was a member of the White House Central Group on Domestic Affairs in 1964, the White House Task Force on Education from 1966 to 1967 and the President's Task Force on Priorities in Higher Education from 1969 to 1970.

He became the University of Chicago's president in 1968, serving until 1975, when President Gerald R. Ford appointed him 71st Attorney General of the United States. Levi was the first Jewish Attorney General of the United States. During his presidency of the University of Chicago he refused to call the Chicago City Police to evict students occupying the university administrative building.

During his term as Attorney General, he issued a set of guidelines (in 1976) to limit the activities of the FBI. These guidelines required the FBI to show evidence of a crime before using secret police techniques like wiretaps or entering someone's home without warning. These guidelines were replaced by new ones issued in 1983 by Ronald Reagan's Attorney General, William French Smith. He urged President Ford to appoint Robert Bork, who was his former student and Solicitor General, or fellow Chicagoan John Paul Stevens to the United States Supreme Court, and Ford followed his advice.[10][11] Levi later testified in support of Bork at his confirmation hearing.[12] Serving under him, in various high staff positions, were such people as Rudolph Giuliani, Robert Bork, Antonin Scalia, Rex E. Lee, and Arthur Raymond Randolph.[13]

Levi filed a lawsuit preventing the formation of the Westheimer Independent School District, a proposed school district in Texas that was to break away from the Houston Independent School District, on the grounds of the U.S. Voting Rights Act as his last official action before leaving his post as Attorney General.[14]

After his term as Attorney General, he returned to teaching at the University of Chicago's Law School and College. He was a visiting professor at Stanford University Law School from 1977 to 1978. He was the author of An Introduction to Legal Reasoning, which was first published in 1949 and his speeches were collected in Point of View: Talks on Education. He was also a trustee of the University of Chicago and the MacArthur Foundation, and was a chairman and a member of the Council on Legal Education for Professional Responsibility. He was a member of the American Philosophical Society.[15]

Levi was the father of three sons, David, Michael, and John. David F. Levi is a former federal judge who served as dean of Duke Law School. John G. Levi served on the board of directors of the Legal Services Corporation.

Levi died from complications of Alzheimer's disease in Chicago on March 7, 2000, aged 88.

• List of Jewish American jurists

• Guide to the Edward H. Levi Papers 1894–1998 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
• Guide to the University of Chicago Office of the President, Levi Administration Records 1918–1975 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
• Appearances on C-SPAN