Portsmouth Vice Mayor Lisa Lucas-Burke Announces for Mayor, Howard Law Picks Roger Fairfax, Jr. as Dean, Hampton Gala
🎅🏾 It’s that time of the season: Happy Holidays to all! 🎄
Vice Mayor Lias Lucas-Burke is Running for Mayor
Portsmouth Vice Mayor Lisa Lucas-Burke announces she is running to be Mayor of Portsmouth, Virginia.
Lucas-Burke has been a member of the Portsmouth City Council and is now Vice mayor. She is the daughter of State Senator L. Louise Lucas. The Vice Mayor is the first announced opponent of current mayor, Shannon Glover.
"I believe that the council that we have right now is just not the unit that we need to move our city forward. By moving away, it will provide an opportunity for more persons to enter the city council race and then work effectively with me," Lucas-Burke said at her announcement on Dec. 12.
Roger Fairfax, Jr. Named Dean of Howard Law School
Attorney Roger Fairfax. Jr., who previously served as Dean at George Washington University and American University, has now been named the Dean of the Howard University School of Law School.
The Howard School of Law has a long list os famous graduates including Thurgood Marshall, first African American United States Supreme Court Justice and L. Douglas Wilder, first African-American Governor since Reconstruction among many others.
Roger Fairfax, Jr. is the son of Harvard Law graduate Roger Fairfax, Sr. and the older brother of Virginia’s 41st Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax. Roger Fairfax, Jr. graduated from Harvard Law School, Lt. Gov. Fairfax graduated from Columbia University Law School.
Howard University School of Law was established in 1869 by Professor John Mercer Langston, who was the first Black members of Congress elected in Virginia during Reconstruction (Rep. Bobby Scott is the first Black congressman elected in Virginia after Reconstruction). In 1870, Langston served as dean. The department opened with six students, and increased to twenty-two by the close of the session on June 30, 1869, according to Howard Law’s website.
“The School of Law was created to provide legal education for Americans traditionally excluded from the profession; especially African Americans. The objective of the School of Law is to produce superior professionals, capable of achieving positions of leadership in law, business, government, education, and public service. Most importantly, Howard School of Law is dedicated to producing “social engineers.” As stated by Charles Hamilton Houston, “A lawyer’s either a social engineer or … a parasite on society … A social engineer [is] a highly skilled, perceptive, sensitive lawyer who [understands] the Constitution of the United States and [knows] how to explore its uses in the solving of problems of local communities and in bettering conditions of the underprivileged citizens,” the Howard Law website also reads.
▶️ Howard University’s press release is below. Roger Fairfax begins as Dean on July 1, 2024.
🌞 Howard University President Ben Vinson III, Ph.D., Announced the Appointment of Roger A. Fairfax, Jr. as Dean of the Howard University School of Law
“I am pleased to announce the appointment of Roger A. Fairfax, Jr. as dean of the Howard University School of Law,” said President Vinson. “Mr. Fairfax is a passionate legal educator whose extensive scholarship and commitment to criminal justice reform are deeply aligned with the law school’s mission. We are excited to welcome Mr. Fairfax to the Howard University community.”
Fairfax, a prominent legal scholar, educator, and nationally recognized expert on criminal justice and diversity in the legal profession, will succeed Danielle R. Holley, who served as dean from 2014 to 2023 before being appointed president of Mount Holyoke College.
“I have long admired and championed the Howard University School of Law’s indispensable mission, and I am humbled by the opportunity to steward and lead this extraordinary community,” said Fairfax. “It will be a tremendous honor at this critical time to follow in the footsteps of those who have assumed the solemn responsibility of leading one of the most consequential institutions in the history of legal education and the legal profession.”
Fairfax currently serves as dean of the American University Washington College of Law. He graduated with honors from Harvard College, the University of London, and Harvard Law School, where he was an NAACP Legal Defense Fund Scholar and an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Hailing from a family with strong Howard University ties, he grew up blocks from campus and attended Archbishop Carroll High School in northeast D.C.
Prior to academia, Fairfax practiced with the firm of O’Melveny & Myers LLP in Washington, D.C., and served as an Attorney General’s Honors Program Trial Attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division. He began his legal career as a law clerk to a federal district judge in Boston and a federal circuit judge in D.C. He is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Fairfax’s scholarship has been published in numerous books and leading journals. He has taught courses and conducted research on criminal law and procedure, professional responsibility and ethics, criminal justice policy and reform, and racial justice. He previously served as George Washington University Law School’s Patricia Roberts Harris Research Professor of Law and senior associate dean for academic affairs.
As dean of the American University Washington College of Law, Fairfax successfully led a strategic plan that featured increased student enrollments with the highest academic credentials in the school’s history. He expanded faculty diversity, established new programs and invested in student experience, public interest, bar passage, diversity, community engagement, budget management, and enhanced alumni engagement and fundraising performance. Fairfax has served on the boards of the National Bar Association and the Maryland Office of the Public Defender. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute. He currently serves on the boards of the National Institute for Trial Advocacy and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. He was recently reappointed by Chief Justice John Roberts to the Judicial Conference of the United States Advisory Committee on Criminal Rules.
President Vinson also thanked law professor Lisa Crooms-Robinson, who currently serves as interim dean of the Howard University School of Law. At the conclusion of her tenure through June 30, 2024, Crooms-Robinson will return to the School of Law’s faculty.
Congressman Bobby Scott receives special recognition on Dec.16 in Hampton from Bishop Michael Golden and the C.O.G.I.C. Second Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction
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