Michael Fitts

Michael Andrew Fitts (born March 1, 1953)^[1][2] is an American legal scholar, currently serving as the 15th president of Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, since July 2014. He is also the Judge Rene H. Himel Professor of Law at the Tulane University School of Law.

Michael Fitts
15th President of Tulane University
Incumbent
Assumed office July 1, 2014
Preceded by	Scott Cowen
Personal details
Born	(1953-03-01) March 1, 1953 (age 72)
Education	Harvard University (BA) Yale University (JD)

Fitts served as dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School from 2000 to 2014.

Biography

Education

Fitts received a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard College in 1975 and a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 1979.^[3]

Law career

Fitts served as a clerk for federal judge and civil rights advocate Leon Higginbotham, who became a mentor to him.^[4] He then worked as an attorney in the United States Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, where he served as outside counsel to the President, the White House, and the Cabinet.^[4]

University of Pennsylvania

His teaching career began at the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1985.^[5] Fitts served 14 years as dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, from 2000 to 2014, where he was recognized for greatly increasing the school's offerings in interdisciplinary education.^[5] He also presided over a quadrupling of Penn Law's endowment, a more than 40 percent increase in the size of the Law School faculty and a doubling of all forms of student financial aid.^[5] Fitts also oversaw the rebuilding or renovation of the entire Law School campus.^[5] In recognition of his accomplishments, the Penn Law School's Board of Overseers named a faculty chair, a scholarship and an auditorium at the school in his honor.^[5]

Fitts has written on presidential power, separation of powers, executive branch decision-making, improving the structure of political parties and administrative law. He is a member of the Law and Political Process Study Group of the American Political Science Association.^[5]

Tulane University

Fitts became president of Tulane in July 2014. Fitts launched task forces for interdisciplinary collaboration.^[4] In May 2018, he had an approval rating of 97.3%.^[6]

Fitts has initiated a campus master planning process redesigned to promote connections.^[4]

Honors

• Beacon Award for Public Service (2014)^[4]
• Urban Leadership Award, Urban Institute (2014)^[4]
• Michael A. Fitts Distinguished Professor of Law (2013)^[4]
• Named one of the "Nine Most Transformative U.S. Law Deans" over the past decade, Brian Leiter's Law School Report (2011)^[4]
• Friends Select School Distinguished Alumni/ae Award (2007)^[4]

Personal life

Michael Fitts's father, William T. Fitts, Jr., was a John Rhea Barton Professor and Chairman of Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania Health System from 1972 to 1975.^[7][8] William T. Fitts, Jr. also served in World War II as a surgical ward officer in the University of Pennsylvania's 20th General Hospital in the China-Burma-India Theatre.^[8] Michael Fitts's' maternal grandfather, Joseph H. Willits, was a professor and dean of the Wharton School.^[9]

Michael Fitts and his wife, Renée J. Sobel, have two daughters.^[4]