Danielle M. Conway, dean of Penn State Dickinson Law and the School of International Affairs, was elected president of the Association of American Law Schools during the association’s annual meeting earlier this month.
“This is a pivotal moment for us all in the legal academy to come together in coalition around academic freedom,” said Professor Conway. “We may disagree on many other things, but we must collectively uphold academic freedom. It is the right time for us all to land on this first principle in higher education and be in solidarity with that principle, whether I agree with your learned research agenda or you agree with mine.”
Professor Conway has led Penn State’s law school since 2019 and currently holds the title of Donald J. Farage Professor of Law. As dean, she worked to unify Penn State’s two law schools under the combined name, Penn State Dickinson Law. She also launched the university’s Antiracist Development Institute, an initiative aimed at dismantling systemic racial inequality.
Prior to her career at Penn State, Professor Conway served as dean of the University of Maine School of Law for four years. Earlier, she spent 14 years on the faculty of the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. Her career in academia began with a stint as a full-time lecturer with the Georgetown University Law Center, followed by a faculty position with the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law. In 2016, she retired from the U.S. Army after nearly three decades of service.
Professor Conway’s legal expertise centers on entrepreneurship, intellectual property, international law, internet law, and procurement law. In her current scholarly work, she focuses on advocating for public education and for actualizing the rights of marginalized groups. Her next book, Building an Antiracist Law School, Legal Academy, and Legal Profession, is forthcoming from the University of California Press.
Professor Conway holds a bachelor’s degree in finance and international business from New York University, a juris doctorate from Howard University in Washington, D.C., and a master of laws degree in government procurement law and environmental law from George Washington University.