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Law School Dean to Resign: Johnson, One of Few Blacks in His Post, Will End on Sabbatical

Posted on: Thursday, 20 April 2006, 06:00 CDT

By Paul Tosto, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.

Apr. 20--Alex Johnson, dean of the University of Minnesota Law School and one of only a handful of African-American law school deans in the country, will resign at the end of May, the university said Wednesday.

Thanking him for his service and saying that Johnson "has accomplished the goals he wanted to achieve," the university said Johnson will spend next school year on paid sabbatical. He'll also receive the title of dean emeritus.

Sealed with a five-year contract in 2002, Johnson's hiring was seen as a coup.

He came to Minnesota from the University of Virginia, where he spent 18 years teaching law and leading that university's faculty recruitment and retention efforts.

Minnesota's efforts to attract him came with much fanfare, and he became the only black dean among the nation's top 20 law schools, as ranked by U.S. News & World Report.

He was paid $338,130 annually as dean.

Johnson could not be reached for comment Wednesday. The university said it will name an interim dean, and a national search for a new dean will begin after consultations with law school faculty, staff and students.

Johnson grew up in South Central Los Angeles. He chose law by high school, inspired by the civil rights movement and the work of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.

His parents never graduated from high school but revered learning, the Pioneer Press wrote in a 2002 profile. Johnson, the eldest boy and second of four children, earned his law degree from the University of California-Los Angeles in 1978 and entered private practice.

The university Wednesday said that under Johnson, applications to the law school were up and the university had attracted higher-performing students.

One goal he mentioned in a 2002 interview, however, saw only a little progress.

"We haven't kept pace with the other elite schools in terms of minority enrollment," Johnson told the Pioneer Press in 2002, when about 16 percent of the school's law students were minority. Data from last fall show students of color were about 18 percent of enrollment.

Paul Tosto can be reached at ptosto@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-2119.

ALEX JOHNSON

Job: University of Minnesota law school dean since 2002

Salary: $338,130 a year

Hometown: Los Angeles

Education: Princeton University; Claremont Men's College; law degree, UCLA

Previously: Seven years as Vice Provost for Faculty Recruitment & Retention at University of Virginia and eleven years as professor of law at University of Virginia School of Law; four years in private practice with Latham & Watkins in Los Angeles; taught two years at the University of Minnesota Law School; and visiting professor at Stanford University, the University of Texas and Washington University law schools

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Copyright (c) 2006, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Saint Paul Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.)

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