Luke Boso
Co-Associate Dean of Research | Professor of Law
B.A., magna cum laude, English, West Virginia University, 2004
J.D., West Virginia University College of Law, 2008
LL.M., University of California, Los Angeles, 2009
Member, California and West Virginia State Bars
Luke Boso joined the Southwestern faculty in the summer of 2023, where he teaches Constitutional Law I, Constitutional Law II, and Criminal Law. Professor Boso began his legal career by clerking for a state court judge in West Virginia, followed by a year in private practice during which he litigated issues of police brutality and misconduct in Southern California. Professor Boso then began his career in legal academia as a Law Teaching Fellow from 2011-13 with the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law. The Williams Institute is a think tank devoted to advancing LGBTQ+ rights through law and policy. From 2013-14, Boso was an Associate Professor at Savannah Law School, where he taught constitutional and property law courses. From 2014-23, Professor Boso held appointments at the University of San Francisco School of Law, where he primarily taught constitutional and criminal law courses in both the day and evening programs; he also taught Family Law, Remedies, and an Education Law seminar. Professor Boso also served as a Visiting Professor at the UC College of the Law, San Francisco, teaching Constitutional Law II in the fall semesters of 2019-21.
"Legal decisions throughout history have often perpetuated injustice, and the study of law can feel alienating for students who don't see themselves positively reflected in cases or statutes. In my classroom, students learn the law and its application while also thinking critically about the possibilities for--and their own roles in pursuing — future legal change."
Professor Boso approaches teaching, scholarship, and service with a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. While at USF, Professor Boso regularly served on the ADEI Committee and was Co-Chair in 2022-23. In 2021-22, he served as a trained coach for facilitating conversations on racial pedagogy for both colleagues and students. In 2022, Professor Boso co- created and facilitated sessions for new student orientation: Respectful and Inclusive Dialogue in the Law School Classroom. In 2021, Professor Boso received the John Adler Distinguished Professor Award, selected by the USF Law Graduating class for teaching excellence.
Regarding scholarship, Professor Boso is a prominent voice in national conversations at the intersections of sexuality, gender, race, class, and various forms of discrimination in U.S. law and society. Equity, inclusion, and anti-stereotyping are some of the unifying themes that connect his various projects. Professor Boso's scholarship includes publications in, for example, Boston College Law Review, Utah Law Review, Arizona Law Review, Florida Law Review, Washington Law Review, Tennessee Law Review, University of Hawaii Law Review, and UCLA Law Review. As a student, he won first place in the national LGBT Bar Association's student writing competition for his article, A (Trans)Gender-Inclusive Equal Protection Analysis of Public Female Toplessness, 18 Tulane J. L. & Sexuality 143 (2009). More recently, Professor Boso has twice been selected as a Dukeminier Award winner, given in recognition of each year's best legal articles on sexual orientation and gender identity: First in 2014 for Urban Bias, Rural Sexual Minorities, and the Courts, 60 UCLA L. Rev. 562 (2013); and second in 2022 for Anti-LGBT Free Speech and Group Subordination, 63 Ariz. L. Rev. 341 (2021).