DU Law Professor Effecting Real Change at Texas Law

Far and away the best law professor I had was Tom Russell, whether I knew it at the time or not. In recent days Professor Russell has made national news with a story that makes me even more proud to be a former student. From the ABA Journal,

The University of Texas will remove the name of a dead law professor from one of its dorms because he was once a leader of the Ku Klux Klan.

The university’s governing board voted today to change the name of Simkins Residence Hall, according to the Houston Chronicle and the Associated Press. The dorm was named after William Stewart Simkins, a law professor who died in 1929 after teaching at UT’s Austin law school for 30 years. Simkins was a Klan leader in Florida after the Civil War.

The controversy arose after a former UT law professor, Thomas Russell, posted a paper on the Social Science Research Network contending that the university named the dorm after Simkins as it faced pressure to admit African-American students.

h/t Above the Law