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175 Makers of History: Elliott H. Levitas

Elliott H. Levitas 52C 56L
Rhodes Scholar, Congressman

A Rhodes Scholar, Elliott H. Levitas served in the Georgia Legislature (1966–1975) and the U.S. House of Representatives (1975–1985).

In 1999, he joined the plaintiffs' litigation team in the historic class-action suit of Cobell v. Norton. The Levitas team sued the federal government on behalf of more than 300,000 Native Americans for breach of contract regarding lands and billions of dollars of Indian trust funds held by the United States since the 1880s. The U.S. Supreme Court decided the case in the plaintiffs' favor, and the $3.4 billion judgment -- signed by President Obama -- is the largest class-action award in U.S. history.