Frank H. Wu

Meeting of February 28, 2007, Washington D.C. to Launch E-Race Initiative

In 2004, Frank H. Wu became the ninth Dean of Wayne State University Law School in his hometown of Detroit. From 1995 to 2004, he served on the law faculty of Howard University, including two years as Clinic Director. He has been an adjunct professor at Columbia University, a visiting professor at University of Michigan, and a teaching fellow at Stanford University. Dean Wu is the author of Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White, which entered an immediate second printing in its hardcover edition, and co-author of Race, Rights and Reparation: Law and the Japanese American Internment. His writing has appeared on a professional basis in such periodicals as the Washington Post, Detroit Free Press, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Chronicle of Higher Education, Legal Times, and Asian Week.

Dean Wu serves as a Trustee of Gallaudet University, the only university in the United States serving primarily deaf and hard of hearing; in late 2006, he became Vice-Chair of the Board. He has taught over several short periods at Deep Springs College, a highly-selective full-scholarship all-male school enrolling twenty-six on a student-run cattle ranch near Death Valley. He served briefly by appointment of the D.C. Court of Appeals on its Board of Professional Responsibility, which adjudicates attorney discipline matters, as well as two terms on Board hearing committees. He was appointed by Mayor Anthony Williams as Chair of the D.C. Human Rights Commission for 2001-02. He joined the Board of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund in 2004. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute, and a member of the Committee of 100, a civic group founded by Yo-Yo Ma, I.M. Pei, among others, to promote Asian American political participation, as well as a fellow of the American Bar Foundation. He testified at the trial of the University of Michigan affirmative action case.

His media appearances have included the Oprah Winfrey show, Now with Bill Moyers, Lehrer Newshour, O'Reilly Factor, Book Notes with Brian Lamb, Talk Back Live on CNN, NPR, Voice of America, Fox Movie Channel, and the Al Franken show. He has hosted episodes of the "Asian America" PBS-syndicated television show. He was named among the top twenty scholars in the nation by Black Issues in Higher Education in its twentieth anniversary issue, to Crain's magazine's list of "40 under 40" and the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association's Best Lawyers Under 40.

Prior to his academic career, Dean Wu held a clerkship with the late U.S. District Judge Frank J. Battisti in Cleveland. He then joined the law firm of Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco, concentrating on complex litigation and devoting a quarter of his time to the representation of indigent individuals. He received a B.A. from the Johns Hopkins University and a J.D. from the University of Michigan. He also completed the Management Development Program of the Harvard University Graduate School of Education.

He is married to Carol L. Izumi and resides in the historic Lafayette Park neighborhood of downtown Detroit. He is a fan of live theatre, a motorcyclist, and a beginning fencer.

This page was last modified on April 11, 2007.