Manoj Mate

Manoj Mate is Professor of Law and Floyd H. and Hilda L. Hurst Faculty Scholar, and Director of the Edwin F. Jaeckle Center for Law, Democracy and Governance at the University at Buffalo School of Law. He is also an Affiliated Faculty Member at the Center for Information Integrity.  Professor Mate interdisciplinary research centers on constitutional law, election law,  comparative constitutional law and judicial politics, and law and society.

Professor Mate’s current research focuses on the constitutional dimensions of electoral governance and democracy, including the failures of election law and electoral regulation to advance representation and other democratic values.  Other current research focuses on how features of Supreme Court and federal court adjudication pose threats to the rule of law, constitutional rights and democracy; examining how structure-based frameworks have reshaped election law; the role of partisanship in constitutional governance and adjudication; the role and capacity of courts to regulate and protect democracy globally; and critical approaches to electoral governance and democracy.

Prior to joining the University at Buffalo, Professor Mate held faculty appointments at DePaul University College of Law, where he also served as the Inaugural Faculty Director of the DePaul Racial Justice Initiative, and at the University of Windsor Faculty of Law as a Canada Research Chair in International Trade Law.  Mate has held visiting faculty appointments at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, and the University of California, Irvine School of Law, and also served as a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School’s East Asian Legal Studies program.

Professor Mate’s scholarship has been published or is forthcoming in leading law reviews and journals, including Connecticut Law Review, Tulane Law Review, Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, University of Chicago Legal Forum, Stanford Journal of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, Yale Journal of International Law, William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal, Columbia Human Rights Law Review, Berkeley Journal of International Law, and the Journal of Human Rights. He also has had peer-reviewed chapters published in volumes by Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press.  Professor Mate was selected as a Public Voices Fellow for the Op-Ed Project in 2022, and his commentary and interviews have appeared in numerous publications including Time Magazine, The Hill, Salon, and Jurist.

Recent and forthcoming articles include Constitutional Structure and Election Law (forthcoming, 34 William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal (2026), Voids of Constitutional Law (forthcoming,  59 Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review (2026), Elections, Courts, and Democratic Crises: Constitutional Structure and the 2020 Election Cases (forthcoming, University of Chicago Legal Forum (2025), and New Hurdles to Redistricting Reform: State Evasion, Moore and Partisan Gerrymandering in the Connecticut Law Review (2024).

Professor Mate has held numerous external leadership appointments, including as chair of the Association of American Law Schools' (AALS) sections on Comparative Law and Law and South Asian Studies. Mate also has significant experience in public policy and election law.  Mate also has extensive experience working at the intersection of law and public policy. He was appointed by Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker as a member of the academic community on the Illinois Racial Profiling Prevention and Data Oversight Board, and previously served as a Senior Policy Advisor to San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro on public health and sustainability policies.

Professor Mate holds a B.A. degree from U.C. Berkeley, a JD from Harvard Law School, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from U.C. Berkeley. After law school, Mate practiced litigation at the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers, and later worked for the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law on election law and policy reforms, including the 2006 Voting Rights Reauthorization Initiative.  Prior to joining the legal academy, Mate was a Mellon Sawyer Fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Society and a Fellow in Global Comparative Law at the University of California Berkeley, School of Law.