[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 16727]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    HONORING PROFESSOR DERRICK BELL

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. BARBARA LEE

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, November 3, 2011

  Ms. LEE of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with my colleague 
Congressman Rangel to honor the extraordinary life of Professor Derrick 
Bell, a bold legal scholar, educator, author, activist, veteran, 
husband, father, brother, mentor and friend, Prof. Bell was a 
preeminent intellectual and a fearless harbinger of change. He was a 
man who inspired many to advocate for civil rights, hiring equity and 
judicial reform, and his stories of individual protest will be a 
timeless call to action for all who stand for justice. With his passing 
on October 5, 2011 we look to Prof. Bell's continued legacy and the 
outstanding quality of his life's work.
  Derrick Albert Bell, Jr., was born to Derrick Albert and Ada 
Elizabeth Childress Bell on November 6, 1930 in Pittsburgh, 
Pennsylvania. He graduated from Schenley High School and became the 
first member of his family to attend college, receiving his bachelor's 
degree in 1952 from Duquesne University. In 1957, after serving as an 
Air Force officer for two years, Prof. Bell earned his law degree at 
the University of Pittsburgh Law School, where he was the only African-
American student.
  With the recommendation of U.S. Associate Attorney General William 
Rogers, Prof. Bell took a position with the Civil Rights Division of 
the U.S. Department of Justice, where he was the only black staff 
member. When, in 1959, the Department asked him to relinquish his 
membership to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored 
People (NAACP), Prof. Bell resigned. This would be the first of several 
high-profile resignations proffered in protest of racial injustice. He 
soon joined the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, where he 
oversaw more than 300 school desegregation cases in Mississippi.
  In the mid-1960s, Prof. Bell served as faculty and executive director 
of the University of California's Western Center on Law and Poverty. In 
1969, partially as a result of black students' protests for a minority 
faculty member, Prof. Bell was recruited to teach at Harvard 
University--where he shortly became the ivy league school's first black 
tenured professor. He established new coursework and law review 
articles dedicated to civil rights law, became an invaluable mentor to 
students of color and called on the university to improve its minority 
hiring record. In 1973, he published, ``Race, Racism and American 
Law,'' a book that became a staple in law schools and is now in its 
sixth edition.
  In 1980 Prof. Bell left Harvard to become one of the first African-
American deans of a non-historically black law school at the University 
of Oregon School of Law. However, he resigned five years later when the 
school did not offer a position to an Asian American woman. After 
returning to Harvard in 1986, he led a five-day sit-in inside his 
office to protest the school's failure to grant tenure to two 
professors whose work involved critical race theory. Moreover, in 1990 
he took an unpaid leave of absence, pledging not to return until 
Harvard Law School asked a woman of color to join tenured faculty for 
the first time. (Eight years later, Professor Lani Guinier achieved 
that milestone.)
  By the time the school refused to extend his leave, Prof. Bell was 
already teaching at New York University School of Law, where he 
continued to be a visiting professor until his passing. Professor 
Derrick Bell's long legacy as a pioneer of critical race theory and as 
an unwavering upholder of principles, earned him a comparison by then 
Harvard law student Barack Obama, as a civil rights hero akin to Rosa 
Parks.
  Today, California's 9th Congressional District and New York's 15th 
Congressional District salute and honor Professor Derrick Albert Bell, 
Jr. He dedicated his life to challenging academic paradigms and seeking 
justice for the systemically marginalized. His legacy will serve as a 
reminder that we must not be afraid to ask critical questions and to 
defend individual principles on behalf of future generations. We extend 
our deepest condolences to Professor Bell's family and to his extended 
group of loved ones. He will be deeply missed.

                          ____________________