Leading Critical Race Theorist Richard Delgado And Noted Legal Writer Jean Stefancic to Join Pitt Law Faculty

Husband and wife team

Named inaugural Derrick A. Bell Fellow and Professor of Law

And Derrick A. Bell Scholar and Research Professor of Law, respectively

March 11, 2003

PITTSBURGH—The University of Pittsburgh School of Law has named Richard Delgado, a leader of the critical race theory movement, the inaugural Derrick A. Bell Fellow and Professor of Law and Jean Stefancic, noted legal writer, the Derrick A. Bell Scholar and Research Professor of Law. The appointments will be effective in May.

"I cannot begin to explain the positive impact that Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic will have on the University of Pittsburgh School of Law," said David Herring, law school dean. "Of course, they will dramatically raise the scholarly profile of the school throughout the nation and the world. But more importantly, they will be active mentors for many members of our faculty. Both Richard and Jean have an unparalleled record in nurturing and enhancing the work of other scholars. It has been extremely exciting to see the creative intellectual sparks fly as they engage the members of our faculty in discussions of scholarly projects. Richard and Jean make everyone around them better, and I believe that this is the most exciting aspect of their decision to join our faculty."

Delgado, currently the Jean Lindsley Professor of Law at the University of Colorado School of Law at Boulder, and Stefancic, a senior research associate at Colorado and Delgado's wife, serve as co-editors of the New York University Press series Critical America. They also wrote Critical White Studies: Looking Behind the Mirror (Temple University Press, 1997), which won a Gustavus Myers award as the outstanding book on human rights in North America in 1998. In addition, they shared a 1993 Rockefeller Bellagio grant to complete Failed Revolutions (Westview Press, 1994).

The positions are named for Derrick A. Bell, a 1957 graduate of Pitt's School of Law. Bell is known for resigning from his tenured faculty position at Harvard to protest a lack of minority women faculty members. He is a visiting professor of law at New York University School of Law. His book Race, Racism and American Law, fourth edition (Aspen Law & Business, 2000), helped to ignite the critical race theory movement.

"Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic have published more than many law school faculties," said Bell. "Their range of interests is limitless, and their dedication to communicating through writings of interest and depth is a gift to all in the academy and beyond. I am pleased and proud that my alma mater has named positions for me and has selected two long-time friends as the first occupants."

Delgado, a founding member of the Conference on Critical Race Theory, has written more than 100 journal articles and 15 books. His books have received numerous national book prizes, including six Gustavus Myers awards. The Coming Race War (New York University Press, 1996) was the American Library Association Choice Outstanding Academic Book, and The Rodrigo Chronicles (New York University Press, 1995) was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1995. Both books also won the Gustavus Myers award.

James Lindgren's The Most Prolific Law Professors in the Most-Cited Law Reviews has ranked Delgado first among the nation's approximately 5,500 law professors. His work has been praised or reviewed in The Nation, The New Republic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.

One of the leading commentators on race in the United States, Delgado has appeared on Good Morning America, the MacNeil-Lehrer Report, PBS, NPR, the Fred Friendly Show, and Canadian NPR.

Stefancic writes about civil rights, law reform, social change, and legal scholarship. Her 1996 book, No Mercy: How Conservative Think Tanks and Foundations Changed America's Social Agenda, was recommended by the New York Law Journal as a "clarion call to those of us who have too long remained complacent that things will return to the more humane thinking of the bygone Great Society."

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