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.

Jenny S. Martinez

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.