THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT
Joe Levin
“By the time I graduated from law school, I was a person who was totally opposed to discrimination.“
A co-founder of Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), 1971. A member of the Carter Presidential Transition Team, 1976. Appointed Chief Counsel of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 1977. Cases include the landmark sex discrimination case of Frontiero v. Richardson (1973), and the private segregated school case of Gilmore v. City of Montgomery (1974).
Interviewed by Judy Waxman, Oral Historian, August 2025
More About Joe:
- The Supreme Court Historical Society, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s early career as a leading advocate before the Supreme Court. Panelists Sharron Cohen, the plaintiff in Frontiero v. Richardson (1973). Joseph Levin, co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Served as Sharron’s counsel in the landmark case Frontiero v. Richardson. Professor Phillippa Strum, Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Broeklundian Professor of Political Science Emerita, City University of New York. Professor Amanda Tyler, the Shannon Cecil Turner Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. Stephen Wiesenfeld, plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court case Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld (1975), for which Ruth Bader Ginsburg served as his counsel.
- Sharron A. Frontiero and Joseph Frontiero, Appellants, v. Elliot L. Richardson, Secretary of Defense, et al.