John L. S. Simpkins is Assistant Professor of Law and Director of Diversity
Initiatives at the Charleston School of Law in Charleston, SC. He has observed or served
as a consultant in constitution-building processes in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and
Uganda. He currently serves as a member of the African Network of the International
Association of Constitutional Law as well as the American Bar Association Task Force on
International Electoral Standards.
Prof. Simpkins is co-founder of the Center for a Better South and a Senior Associate at
the Richard W. Riley Institute of Government, Politics, and Public Leadership at Furman
University. He also serves as a political analyst with WYFF Channel 4 in Greenville and
WCBD Channel 2 in Charleston. He has published essays on South Africa, Southern politics,
and African-American culture in the New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, The State,
and The Oxford American.
He serves as a board member of the Center for Heirs Property Preservation, Trident United
Way, the South Carolina Aquarium, the Children’s Museum of the Lowcountry, and the
Lowcountry Housing Trust. He also is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. Prof.
Simpkins received an A.B. in Government from Harvard College and a J.D. and LL.M. in
International and Comparative Law from Duke University School of Law.
