Timothy Johnson
267 19th Ave S
Minneapolis,
MN
55455
Timothy R. Johnson is Horace T. Morse Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Law (by courtesy) at the University of Minnesota. An internationally recognized expert on the U.S. Supreme Court and its oral arguments and decision making process, he has published more than 70 articles, book chapters, and publicly facing papers, two monographs, and six books including SCOTUS and COVID (2023), Oral Arguments and Coalition Formation on the U.S. Supreme Court (2012), A Good Quarrel (2009), and Oral Arguments and Decision Making on the U.S. Supreme Court (2004). Findings from many of these projects, along with his legal and political commentary, have appeared in The Economist, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.
Practitioners, including members of the Illinois Supreme Court and its clerks, the United States Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, and The Advocates Society of Canada and Canadian Supreme Court, have sought Johnson’s expertise. In 2024 he was appointed to the advisory board of the Brown v. Board of Education Revisited Project (winner of a 2025 American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award for Media and the Arts and a 2025 Webby Award honoree for law websites).
Johnson has mentored 15 graduate students and has overseen more than 250 undergraduate research projects (including 10 UROPS). In 2018 he was a semi-finalist for the Robert F. Cherry Award for Great Teaching and won the American Political Science Association's Distinguished Teaching Award.
Educational Background
- Ph.D.: Political Science, Washington University in St. Louis, 1998
- MA: Political Science, Washington University in St. Louis, 1995
- BA: Political Science, Russian Studies, Gustavus Adolphus College, 1993
Specialties
- American politics
- Judicial Politics
- Supreme Court Decision Making
- Supreme Court Oral Arguments
- Executive/Judiciary Relations
- Supreme Court Nominations and Confirmations
- Precedent and the U.S. Supreme Court