Janet K. Levit is a professor at the

University of Tulsa College of Law The University of Tulsa College of Law is the law school of the private University of Tulsa in Tulsa, Oklahoma. For 2021, ''U.S. News & World Report'' ranked the University of Tulsa College of Law at No. 111 among all law schools in the United S ...

. She was the first woman to become dean of the law school, the first woman provost at the

University of Tulsa The University of Tulsa (TU) is a private research university in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It has a historic affiliation with the Presbyterian Church and the campus architectural style is predominantly Collegiate Gothic. The school traces its origin to ...

, and the interim president of the

from June 2020 until June 2021, from the resignation of former president Gerard Clancy until the appointment of

Brad Carson Brad Rogers Carson (born March 11, 1967) is an American lawyer and politician from the state of Oklahoma who served as the Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness from 2015 to 2016. In that role, he initiated a number of not ...

Education

She enrolled in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

, where she earned the Bachelor of Arts (A.B.) in 1990. She then went to

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

where she earned an M. A. in International Relations and her J.D. from Yale Law School, both in May 1994.

Career

After graduating from Yale in 1994, she served as a law clerk for the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Stephanie K. Seymour from 1994 until 1995. She was employed at the Export-Import Bank of the United States from August 1998 until April 2000. In 2002, Levit became an assistant professor at

, where she was named professor in 2006. Levit was appointed Dean of the law school effective July 18, 2008; she was the first woman to hold that post, which she retained until 2015. In 2018 Levit became the first female provost at the

when she replaced Roger Blais. She served in that position until 2020; the position was then vacant until George Justice was appointed to succeed Levit in January 2022 by

. A faculty vote of no-confidence in Levit was passed 157-44 in November 2019. Levit was the

interim president An acting president is a person who temporarily fills the role of a country's president when the incumbent president is unavailable (such as by illness or a vacation) or when the post is vacant (such as for death, injury, resignation, dismissal ...

of the

(TU) at

Tulsa, Oklahoma Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with ...

from 2020 to 2021. During that time, University of Tulsa students passed a no-confidence resolution against her by a 805 to 264 margin. At the end of her term as interim president in 2021, she returned to the

faculty.

Selected publications

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Awards and honors

In 2017, Levit received the Anna C. Roth Legacy Award from the YWCA Tulsa and the Mayor’s Commission on the Status of Women.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Levit, Janet Living people Presidents of the University of Tulsa Women heads of universities and colleges Academics from Tulsa, Oklahoma Princeton University alumni University of Tulsa College of Law faculty Yale University alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Oklahoma lawyers