Frank H. Wu is a law professor, author, and public intellectual. He was recently appointed as the new Chancellor & Dean of UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, California, a position he assumed in July 2010. He is the first Asian American professor to teach at Howard Law School, as well as the first Asian American to serve as dean of Wayne State University Law School in Detroit, Michigan. Wu is the author of Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White, which was immediately re-printed in hardcover. Arguing for a new paradigm of civil rights that goes beyond a black-white paradigm, while also addressing subtle forms of racial discrimination, the book has become canonical in Asian American Studies and is widely used in classes on the subject. Yellow appears in both the film, Americanese, an adaptation of American Knees by Shawn Wong, and the book, Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology. Wu himself has appeared as a character in Asian America: The Movement and the Moment.
In addition, Wu received the largest grant issued by the federal Civil Liberties and Public Education Fund, to co-author Race, Rights and Reparation: Law and the Japanese Internment, now the leading textbook on Asian Americans and the law. He also contributes to Fanfare Magazine, reviews for ATPM.com (About This Particular Macintosh), and regularly publishes in various other law reviews, newspapers, and online journals. Wu is represented by the American Programs Bureau and is currently writing a follow-up book to Yellow about the Vincent Chin case.
The son of Chinese immigrants from Taiwan to the United States, Wu was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on August 20, 1967. In his youth, Wu’s parents moved to Detroit, Michigan, where his father worked as an engineer at Ford Motor Company. In his book Yellow and other writings, Wu claims that his childhood experience of being the only Asian American among his classmates and the schoolyard taunting he endured as a result of his race alerted him to racial inequalities at an early age. He further describes how his attempts to assimilate and reject what was “Asian” only seemed to reinforce his marked difference to his peers.
When Wu was a teenager, a Chinese American man, Vincent Chin, was killed by two white autoworkers in Highland Park, Michigan. The multiple criminal and civil cases that ensued throughout the 1980s have been recognized as birthing the Asian American victims and civil rights movement, and were marked as the 34th Michigan Legal Milestone in 2009. It was the Vincent Chin case that inspired Wu to pursue an active role in civil rights advocacy and the law.
Career
Frank H. Wu is currently Chancellor & Dean of UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, California. He was formerly a law professor at Howard University, resuming a role he held from 1995 to 2004, and visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University, where he taught Asian Americans and the Law. He also was a CV Starr Foundation Visiting Professor at the School of Transnational Law at Peking University, in its English language JD program, in summer of 2009. He has previously taught at Stanford, Michigan, Columbia, Maryland, George Washington University, and Deep Springs College.
From 2004-2008, Wu served as the ninth dean of Wayne State University Law School in Detroit, Michigan, succeeding the law school’s first female dean, Joan Mahoney (1998—2003). Along with Harold Hongju Koh of Yale Law School and Jim Chen of the University of Louisville School of Law, Wu was one of only three Asian American law school deans in the United States. In April 2007, Wu announced he would resign as dean in May 2008, a year before his appointment was to end, citing his wife's health problems as the leading cause of his resignation. In 2008, he was one of two recipients of the Asian Pacific Fund Chang-Lin Tien Award, given for leadership in higher education. Named for the first Asian American to head a major research university, the award comes with a $10,000 honorarium. He also has received the Trailblazer Award from the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association.
Wu earned his bachelor's degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1988 and his law degree from the University of Michigan Law School in 1991. In 2006, he completed the Management Development Program at Harvard University Graduate School of Education. Prior to his academic career, Wu held a clerkship with the late U.S. District Judge Frank J. Battisti in Cleveland, Ohio. He then joined the law firm of Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco, concentrating on complex litigation and devoting a quarter of his time to the representation of indigent individuals.
Other activities
Wu recently accepted the Trustees of Deep Springs' invitation to join the college's governing board. Wu previously served as a Trustee of Gallaudet University, the school for the deaf and hard-of-hearing, from 2000-2010. As a board member, Wu emphasized the significance of shared governance, asserting that decision-making authority at a university leads by serving its many stakeholders, the most important of which are the students. He became Vice-Chair of that Board following the protests over the appointment of Provost Jane Fernandes as President, in 2006. He also is a board member of the Leadership Conference for Civil Rights Education Fund, commissioner of the Military Leadership Diversity Commission, and director of the Committee of 100 , the non-profit group of Chinese Americans seeking to promote better US-China relations and the active participation of Chinese Americans in public life, and has chaired its many research projects. He was the Project Advisor for the Detroit Historical Museum exhibit on Chinatown, which opened in spring 2009.
In 2008, Wu testified before the Detroit City Council regarding governmental reforms following the controversy regarding Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. He also has testified before the United States Congress and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and he appeared as an expert witness on behalf of students who intervened in the historic University of Michigan affirmative action case.
Wu frequently appears in the media and on the college lecture circuit. He has debated Dinesh D'Souza and Ward Connerly, among others, on affirmative action and has appeared on both the O'Reilly Factor and Oprah discussing the same.
(2008) Trailblazer Award from the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association
(2007) Arthur A. Fletcher Award, American Association for Affirmative Action
(2007) Special Recognition Award, Wolverine Bar Association
(2006) Walton A. Lewis Brotherhood Award, Bethel A.M.E. Church, Detroit, Michigan
(2005) Janet A. Helms Mentoring Award, Columbia University, Teacher's College
(2005) Tim Dinan Community Service Award, Oakland County (Mich.) Democratic Party
(2004) Named among 20 "Giants in the Classroom" by Black Issues in Higher Education magazine in its 20th anniversary issue (now Diverse Issues in Higher Education)
(2004) National Asian Pacific American Bar Association’s "Best Lawyers Under 40"
Frank H. Wu (2002). Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White.
Frank H. Wu, Margaret Chon, Eric Yamamoto, Jerry Kang, Carol Izumi (2001). Race, Rights & Reparations: Law and the Japanese Internment.
Books (chapter)
George Curry, Theodore Hsien Wang (1996). The Affirmative Action Debate.
Charles Cozic (1996). Illegal Immigration: Opposing Viewpoints.
Books (foreword)
Wing Young Huie (2007). Looking for Asian American.
Hazel M. McFerson (editor) (2001). Blacks and Asians: Crossings, Conflict and Commonality.
Articles (op-ed)
Frank H. Wu (22 April 2009). "Why Law School Is for Everyone." U.S. News & World Report.
Frank H. Wu (19 February 2009). "FDR New Deal Legacy Intact, but Internment of Japanese-Americans Lives in Infamy Too." U.S. News & World Report.
Frank H. Wu (20 August 2008). "On Race: A mockery of Olympic ideals." San Francisco Chronicle.
Frank H. Wu (17 July 2005). "We all favor diversity, now plan out best path." Detroit Free Press.
Frank H. Wu (14 June 2002). "The Invisibility of Asian American Scholars." The Chronicle Review.
Frank H. Wu, Theodore Hsien Wang (30 August 2000). "Singled Out, Based on Race." Washington Post: A25.
Frank H. Wu (3 February 1992). "The Fallout From Japan-Bashing." Washington Post: A11.
Frank H. Wu (21 January 1991). "...And Others." Washington Post: A21.
Frank H. Wu (18 August 1990). "On With The Show; It's wrong to reduce each of us to our respective race." Washington Post: A21.
Articles (law)
Frank H. Wu (Summer 2009). "Burning Shoes and the Spirit World: The Charade of Neutrality." 44 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 313.
Frank H. Wu (3 November 2008). "Parental expectations." The National Law Journal.
Frank H. Wu (Summer 2004). "Difficult Decisions During Wartime: A Letter from a Non-Alien in an Internment Camp to a Friend Back Home." 54 Case W. Res. 1301.
Frank H. Wu (May 2003). "The Arrival of Asian Americans: An Agenda for Legal Scholarship." 10 Asian L.J. 1.
Frank H. Wu (January 2001). "Settlements: Winning Over Your Own Client." Practical Litigator 12(1): 5.
Frank H. Wu (July 2000). "Getting Down to Cases." Practical Litigator 11(4): 5.
Frank H. Wu (September 2000). "Goodbye to the Bluebook?" Practical Litigator 11(5): 5.
Frank H. Wu (February 1996). "Changing America: Three Arguments About Asian Americans and the Law." 45 Am. U.L. Rev. 811.
Articles (scholarly)
Frank H. Wu (2009-2010). "Embracing Mistaken Identity: How the Vincent Chin Case Unified Asian Americans." Asian American Policy Review.
Frank H. Wu (20 May 2004). "Brown at 50: Keeping Promises." Black Issues in Higher Education.
Frank H. Wu (2003). "Profiling Principle: The Prosecution of Wen Ho Lee and the Defense of Asian Americans.” Asian American Politics: Law, Participation, and Policy.
Frank H. Wu, Francey Lim Youngberg (2001). "'People from China Crossing the River': Asian Americans & Foreign Influence.” Asian Americans and Politics: Perspectives, Experiences, Prospects.
Frank H. Wu, Gabriel Chin, Sumi Cho, Jerry Kang (1996). Beyond Self-Interest: Asian Pacific Americans Toward a Community of Justice, a policy analysis of affirmative action.
