Professor Jerry Dickinson has been appointed the University of Pittsburgh School of Law’s Vice Dean, effective March 1, 2023.
Professor Dickinson’s teaching and scholarship specialize in constitutional law, civil rights, property, and race and the law. His scholarship has been featured in numerous respected law reviews. His scholarly work has been cited by U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Third and Sixth Circuits, amicus briefs filed by Members of Congress in federal courts, and by foreign and international courts, such as the High Court of South Africa. His work has also been featured in The Washington Post, The Hill, and The Atlantic.
In a message to the Pitt Law School community, Haider Ala Hamoudi, Interim Dean and Professor of Law wrote, “Jerry is the right person to be a source of stability when our permanent Dean ultimately assumes their position. His brilliant work as Steering Committee Chair demonstrates that quite well. I thank Jerry for the important service to the school he is willing to undertake.”
Before joining the Pitt Law faculty, Professor Dickinson served as a law clerk for the Honorable Theodore A. McKee, former Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia. He practiced at Reed Smith LLP in Pittsburgh, where he founded and coordinated the Housing Rights Project, a pro bono initiative advocating for indigent tenants in eviction proceedings in Allegheny County in collaboration with the Neighborhood Legal Services Association. Professor Dickinson is a former Fulbright Scholar to Johannesburg, South Africa, where he studied comparative constitutional law and housing and worked as a human rights activist organizing and representing squatters in eviction proceedings.
“I’m honored to become the next Vice Dean of Pitt Law. I look forward to working with Interim Dean Hamoudi, the faculty, staff, students, alumni, and the Provost’s Office to lead Pitt Law into a new and exciting chapter collectively,” said Dickinson.
Professor Dickinson is a former congressional candidate. In 2020 and 2022, he ran for the Democratic nominations in two high-profile federal elections for Pennsylvania’s 12th and 18th Congressional Districts on platforms involving racial justice, healthcare reform, climate change, gun control, criminal justice reform, and affordable housing.