Derrick Bell - born on November 6, 1930, became the first black law professor at Harvard Law School to achieve tenure and one of the first African American deans in a non-historically black law school. Bell was also a founder of an academic model called critical race theory.
In 1969 Bell left the NAACP to become a professor at Harvard Law School. After achieving tenure in 1971, he remained there until 1980. Bell then moved to the University of Oregon to become the first African American dean of the law school there. He urged the law school to hire more people of color, and when it rejected an Asian American female applicant whom he felt was qualified, Bell resigned his deanship in protest. Bell returned to Harvard in 1986, but took a leave of absence in another protest when Harvard Law School declined to grant tenure to two professors of color. His departure from Harvard became permanent in 1992 when he ran out of leave time. Meanwhile Bell accepted a position as visiting professor at the New York University (NYU) Law School, where he continued to teach until his death in 2011.

Did You Know?

Derrick Bell wrote a number of books and articles on issues of race and equality in the United States. Some of these were semi-fictional in format; others were scholarly in tone. In 1973, he published his most famous work, Race, Racism and American Law, which is still used as an educational text in many US law schools.