Doug Spencer is Ira C. Rothgerber, Jr. Chair in Constitutional Law at the University of Colorado. Professor Spencer is an election law scholar whose research examines the role of prejudice and racial attitudes in voting, and the ways that election rules and political campaigns contribute to growing inequality in America.

Before moving to Colorado, 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 (2022 and 2020) and the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy (2018-2019). He has published dozens of academic articles and has served as an expert witness in voting rights and campaign finance cases. 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.