Dean of Pennsylvania State University’s Dickinson Law steps down
Danielle Conway stepped down Friday as the dean of Pennsylvania State University’s Dickinson Law and the university’s School of International Affairs, effective immediately, returning to a faculty position.
While the university’s announcement does not state the reason for the move, it comes two days after a former student testified before Congress about his objections to the school’s mandatory anti-racism course that Conway created in 2020. David Blackman II, a military veteran, said in the hearing he left the school because of the course required for all first-year students.
Conway is now listed as a distinguished law professor and the executive director of the Antiracist Development Institute on the law school’s website. Laura Williams, a senior associate dean for external affairs and chief of staff, will be the acting dean until an interim dean is appointed, according to the university’s statement on its website.
“The university remains fully committed to continuing to provide our law students with an excellent legal education at Penn State Dickinson Law at our primary location in Carlisle and at University Park,” Fotis Sotiropoulos, the university’s executive vice president and provost, said in a July 24 press release.
Conway, who was the dean for seven years, will continue as the president of the Association of American Law Schools.
“Danielle Conway has been an outstanding leader for Penn State Dickinson Law,” Kellye Testy, the CEO and the executive director of the AALS and a 2022 ABA Journal Legal Rebel, wrote in an email to the Journal. “We look forward to her continued leadership at AALS and to seeing what she takes on next.”
Conway previously was dean of the University of Maine School of Law and led the reunification of Pennsylvania State University’s two law schools—one in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and another in University Park, Pennsylvania—into one school.
In 2021, she launched the law school’s Antiracist Development Institute, according to the university’s press release, and she was instrumental in guiding Dickinson Law ’s development of civil rights, equal protection and social justice certificate program.
She did not immediately respond to the Journal’s request for comment.
See also:
Penn State Dickinson Law goals include an ‘antiracism’ focus
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