Joseph P. Viteritti

Joseph P. Viteritti is the Blanche D. Blank Professor of Public Policy and Chair of the Department Urban Affairs & Planning. He has previously served as Director of the Graduate Program in Urban Affairs. Prior to coming to Hunter in 2004, he had taught at Princeton, NYU, Harvard, and SUNY, Albany.

Professor Viteritti specializes in education policy, state & local governance, and public law. His most recent of ten books are When Mayors Take Charge: School Governance in the City (ed.) (Brookings Institution Press) and The Last Freedom: Religion from the Public School to the Public Square (Princeton University Press). Other books include Choosing Equality: School Choice, the Constitution, and Civil Society (Brookings Institution Press); Making Good Citizens: Education and Civil Society (Yale University Press) (edited with Diane Ravitch); and Across the River: Politics and Education in the City (Holmes & Meier). His more than 100 essays have appeared in social science journals, law reviews, and popular media such as the New York Times and Washington Post. His legal research has been published in the Yale Law & Policy Review, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Cornell Journal of Law & Public Policy, Virginia Journal of Social Policy and the Law, NYU Annual Survey of American Law, Southern California Law Review, Fordham Urban Law Journal, and Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender, and Class.

Professor Viteritti has an extensive record of public service. He is presently on the Steering Committee of the National Campaign for Civic Education in Schools (Justice Sandra Day O’Connor & Governor Roy Romer, Honorary Co-chairs). He was recently Executive Director of the Commission on School Governance appointed by NYC Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum. He has been a special assistant to the Chancellor of Schools (Frank Macchiarola) in New York City and a senior advisor to the superintendents of schools in Boston (Robert Spillane) and San Francisco (Bill Rojas). He was a member of the State Attorney General’s Advisory Panel on Nonpublic Schools (appointed by Eliot Spitzer), Executive Director of the State Charter Commission for Staten Island (appointed by Governor Mario Cuomo), Executive Director of the State Temporary Commission on Executive, Legislative and Judicial Compensation (appointed by Governor Mario Cuomo), and Executive Director of the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on Police Management and Personnel Policy (appointed by Edward Koch). He was also an advisor to the Charter Commission that wrote the present New York City Charter and to the Districting Commission that drew the current district boundaries for the City Council.

He received his Ph.D. in political science from the City University of New York and is a proud graduate of Hunter College.