Faculty Bio
Contact Information
Online Resources
Assistant
Junichi P. Semitsu
Professor-in-Residence
- JD, 1999, Stanford University
- BA, 1996, University of California, Berkeley
Areas of Expertise
Professor Semitsu teaches and writes in the area of media law and mass communications, constitutional law, civil rights, privacy law, and criminal law and procedure.
Professional Experience
Semitsu clerked for the Hon. James R. Browning of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He taught at the University of California, Berkeley in both the law school and in the Department of African American Studies. His essays have been published in the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle and on the front page of MSN.com. He created and hosts USD’s Battle of the Brains fundraiser, which pits students against faculty in a live trivia contest. He is a Board Member of Women of Color in Law, Inc. He is also a faculty member at USD School of Business Administration.
Honors and Affiliations
Semitsu received the American College Personnel Association’s Outstanding Undergraduate Student Staff Member Award while attending Berkeley. He won Best Individual Oral Advocate in the Kirkwood Moot Court Competition and served as Class President. He was senior editor and ombudsman on the Stanford Law Review. While teaching at Berkeley, he was placed on the Chancellor’s Faculty Heroes List and awarded the Asian Pacific Council’s Inspirational Faculty Member of the Year Award. He received USD’s Thorsnes Prize for Excellence in Teaching in 2011. He was also chosen as the USD School of Business Administration Master of Science in Global Leadership Program’s Professor of Impact in 2008 and 2011.
Key Works
Semitsu’s publications include “Arresting Development: Facebook Searches and the Information Super Highway Patrol” in 65 Arkansas Law Review 101 (2012); “Widening Batson’s Net to Ensnare More than the Unapologetically Bigoted or Painfully Unimaginative Attorney” in 96 Cornell Law Review 1075 (with Bellin) (2011); “From Facebook to Mug Shot: How the Dearth of Social Networking Privacy Rights Revolutionized Online Government Surveillance” in 31 Pace Law Review 291 (2011); and “Burning Cyberbooks in Public Libraries: Internet Filtering Software vs. the First Amendment” in 52 Stanford Law Review 509 (2000).
