Professor of Law, West Virginia University
By Cathy Bonnstetter
Joshua Weishart, a professor at West Virginia University (WVU) College of Law, places great value on education. He has spent the last seven years conducting research on educational rights and is now recognized as a
subject expert. He aims to influence lawmakers when it comes to guaranteeing equal educational opportunities.
“The best hope we have of bending the arc of the moral universe toward justice ourselves is to ensure educational justice for all children,” he says. “That’s why I devote my scholarship to the project of leveraging the law to devise schemes of educational justice that secure and effectuate rights to a quality, equitable education for disadvantaged children.”
Education helped Weishart overcome his own disadvantages. Abandoned by his father early in life, his disabled mother and his aunt, who raised him as a son, emphasized the importance of education. Public schooling made the difference for him, which is why he believes so strongly in its function and purpose.
“I am mindful that it was a collective effort that allowed me to escape poverty through education,” he says. “I recognize that I’m very much the exception in that regard, and that’s precisely why education law and policy matter so much to me.”
Weishart graduated from WVU with a double major in political science and philosophy before receiving his master’s degree in philosophy from the University of Cambridge. Awarded the Truman Scholarship, he enrolled at the University of California Berkeley School of Law.
His aha moment came during former Professor Gordon Liu’s education law and policy course. “It’s where my passion for civil rights found an outlet in education law and policy,” he says.
Weishart graduated with his law degree in 2006 and launched his legal career at the San Francisco law firm of Severson & Werson, where he represented some of the largest national banks like Wells Fargo and Bank of America.
“It was an initiation by fire at the height of the mortgage crisis,” he recalls. “I emerged largely unscathed and more rounded with five years of significant litigation experience.”
He returned to West Virginia to clerk for Judge Robert King of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. King taught him there is more to being an effective researcher than being able to find the relevant cases.
“Every time I would talk about the legal principles in the precedent, Judge King would steer me back to the facts in the cases,” says Weishart. “I required similar reengineering when it came to my writing. What took me eight sentences to say, Judge King reduced to two. There is a brilliance to that brevity, clarity and accessibility that I try to emulate in my own writings.
As a professor, Weishart is tasked with research, service and teaching. He also administers the WV ED Law Blog and maintains a social media presence. During the state’s recent teacher strikes, his blog posts were viewed by tens of thousands of unique visitors.
He has also been published in the Los Angeles Times and quoted in The Atlantic, and a Delaware court recently cited his scholarship in an important education rights case. His white paper, “Long Overdue: An Adequacy Cost Study in West Virginia,” is slowly gaining bipartisan support for legislation to commission a study on the costs of delivering a constitutionally adequate education.
Weishart has been the recipient of several honors, including the 2018 Faculty Scholarship Award, 2017 WVU Foundation Outstanding Teaching Award and 2016 Law Professor of the Year Award. He cherishes none more than the latter because it came from his students.
Combining his passion for both the law and public service has made his journey unique, and leaving the state for new experiences helped expand his knowledge base. After traveling across the pond and then across the country, he returned to the Mountain State to put his skills and knowledge to work and make his mark.
“It is surreal to be back in West Virginia and teaching at my alma mater after more than a decade away,” he says. “Now that the nostalgia has faded, I feel an urgency to do my part to help fix the problems plaguing my home state.”
