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IU McKinney Michael J. Pitts was one of three legal scholars to work with the Gilder Lehman institute of American History to write about the history of voting rights.

The institute received a grant from the Annenberg Foundation to create a curriculum for high school students and teachers about voting rights, which is housed on its website. Professor Pitts was asked to be part of a group who wrote short essays about the history of voting rights. He wrote about voting rights from 1920 through 2000 in an essay titled “The Right to Vote: The Role of States and the U.S. Constitution.”

“I called upon my old journalism degree skills,” Professor Pitts said. “I distilled 80 years of the history of voting rights into 500 words.”

After the initial review process indicated the first draft was appropriate for students at the graduate level, Professor Pitts was able to get the piece to the high school level through the editing process.

The piece also was vetted for political balance and it was found to be balanced. “I feel a point of pride in that,” Professor Pitts said.

Professor Pitts is the Cleon H. Foust Professor of Law at IU McKinney. He is renowned for his expertise in voting rights law. He served the law school as vice dean from 2018 through 2022.