Oregon Law School Names Bell Dean

Derrick A. Bell, professor of Law at Harvard, will accept the position of dean of the University of Oregon Law School effective Jan. 1, 1981.

"Derrick's departure will be a great loss to Harvard Law School, but it is a fine opportunity for him," Albert M. Sacks, dean of the Law Faculty, said yesterday.

"As an outstanding scholar and one of the leading law teachers in the country," Bell will "provide leadership and maintain the quality of the law program" at the Oregon Law School, Eugene F. Scoles, chairman of the committee to appoint the dean of the University of Oregon Law School, said yesterday.

Bell is the first black professor to receive full tenure at the Law School. "The pressure of being the first was enormous," Bell said yesterday.

Sacks will announce Bell's resignation today in a memo to the faculty of the Law School. Bell will return to Harvard this summer to teach a six-week seminar on "The Jurisprudence of Race" as part of a series of seminars for law teachers funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

Before assuming the deanship at Oregon in January, Bell will also teach "Constitutional Law and Minority Issues" at the Law School next fall. Bell added he feels "complimented" by his new appointment; he plans to concentrate on fund-raising in his new position.

Bell said he accepted the deanship only after a "great deal of soul-searching." Members of the Harvard Law faculty's "Genuine and heartfelt expressions" and "warm letters" by members of the Harvard Law faculty only made the decision harder, Bell added.