Steven Andrew Light (B.A., Yale University; Ph.D., Northwestern University) is Associate Professor of Political Science and Public Administration. He joined the faculty at the University of North Dakota (UND) after teaching at Northwestern and Marquette and serving in the Voting Section of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division in Washington, D.C.
Light teaches American government, constitutional law, civil rights and civil liberties, voting rights and minority representation, public personnel administration, and administrative law, and serves as Associate University Pre-Law Advisor. He is joint recipient (with frequent collaborator Kathryn R.L. Rand) of the 2006-2007 UND Foundation/McDermott Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching, Research or Creative Activity, and Service. He is a three-time recipient of the UND College of Business and Public Administration's Outstanding Teaching, Research, and Service Award (2005-2006, 2004-2005, & 2000-2001), and also received the College's Outstanding Teaching Award (2003-2004).
With Rand (UND School of Law), he is Co-Director of the Institute for the Study of Tribal Gaming Law and Policy, which they co-founded in 2002 as the first university-affiliated institute in the U.S. dedicated to the study of Indian gaming. The Institute provides legal and policy assitance related to tribal gaming enterprises to interested governments, individuals, and organizations, and contributes to both scholarly and practical research and literature on Indian gaming. In 2005, Light and Rand testified on Indian gamingregulation before the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C. Their first book, Indian Gaming and Tribal Sovereignty: The Casino Compromise, was featured on C-SPAN2’s Book TV in 2006.
An internationally recognized expert on Indian gaming, Light has published extensively on Indian gaming law and policy and tribal sovereignty, as well as the policy implementation of Supreme Court decisions, affirmative action, environmental racism, and voting rights. With Rand, he is the author of three books, Indian Gaming and Tribal Sovereignty: The Casino Compromise (University Press of Kansas, 2005), Indian Gaming Law and Policy (Carolina Academic Press, 2006), and Indian Gaming Law: Cases and Materials (Carolina Academic Press, 2008). He is working on a solo book, “The Law is Good”: The Voting Rights Act, Redistricting, and Black Regime Politics (Carolina Academic Press, forthcoming). Light's recent work appears in the American Review of Public Administration, Virginia Journal of Social Policy and the Law, PS: Political Science & Politics, the Gaming Law Review, the Journal of Public Affairs Education, the Journal of Law and Social Inquiry, the Journal of Legal Education, and Indian Gaming magazine.
Light is a frequent commentator on Indian gaming in the national media, with recent appearances in the New York Times, Boston Globe, International Herald Tribune, and the St. Petersburg (FL) Sun Times. Light and Rand have been featured speakers at numerous scholarly and professional conferences and are pleased to deliver informative and entertaining talks on Indian gaming for universities and civic groups across the U.S. Light writes a regular column in Casino Lawyer magazine and, with Rand, blogs on the legal, political, and public policy issues raised by the Indian gaming industry at their website, Indian Gaming Today. Check it out at indiangamingtoday.com. |
