New Appointment: Dean of Howard University School of Law
Dear Howard University Community,
I am pleased to announce the appointment of Roger A. Fairfax Jr. as the dean of Howard University School of Law (HUSL), effective July 1, 2024. Fairfax, a prominent legal scholar, educator, and nationally recognized expert on criminal justice and diversity in the legal profession, currently serves as dean of the American University Washington College of Law.
Fairfax 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 Howard's campus and attended Archbishop Carroll High School in Northeast.
Prior to academia, Fairfax practiced law with 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 also admitted to practice in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Fairfax’s scholarship has been published in numerous books and leading journals, and 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 the senior associate dean for academic affairs and the Patricia Roberts Harris Research Professor of Law at George Washington University Law School.
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, expanded faculty diversity, new programs and investments in student experience, public interest, bar passage, diversity, community engagement, budget management, and enhanced fundraising performance and alumni engagement.
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, and 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.
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. I also want to thank Professor Lisa Crooms-Robinson for her contributions as interim dean. At the conclusion of her tenure through June 30, 2024, Professor Crooms-Robinson will return to the HUSL faculty.
Committed to Truth and Service,
Ben Vinson III, Ph.D.
President