Incoming Batch Of Law Deans Is More Diverse Than Ever; New Women, Minority Deans Exceed New White Male Deans

National Law Journal, Incoming Batch of Law Deans Is More Diverse Than Ever:

The wave of minority women taking the helm at law schools is gaining momentum.

Two law schools in the past week have named black women as dean. Stetson University College of Law has tapped Michele Alexandre to be its next top administrator—the first African-American to fill that role. On Wednesday, the University of Cincinnati announced that Verna Williams was being elevated from interim dean to full dean. She, too, will be the school’s first black dean. Those appointments add to what is already shaping up to be a diverse crop of incoming deans.

At Stanford Law School, longtime professor Jenny Martinez, who is Hispanic, will assume the deanship in April. And G. Marcus Cole, who is black, is slated to become the first nonwhite dean of the Notre Dame University Law School this summer. In January, Rutgers Law School named faculty member Kimberly Mutcherson as its new co-dean, while the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law tapped Renée McDonald Hutchins to take over the deanship next month. Both women are African-American.

Danielle Conway, the first black dean at the University of Maine School of Law, this summer is moving south to take the top spot at Pennsylvania State University’s Dickinson Law. Meanwhile, Tamara Lawson became the first minority woman to lead St. Thomas University School of Law when she was elevated to dean in November. ...

The number of women and minorities announced as new deans this semester has thus far outnumbered white men named to those jobs.