Alena Allen to become first Black dean at LSU law school

By Piper Hutchinson
Contributing Writer

(lailluminator.com) — A professor who resigned from the University of Memphis School of Law due to a lack of Black leaders will be the first Black dean of LSU’s law school.

Alena Allen, currently a law professor at the University of Arkansas School of Law, will be the next dean of the LSU Law Center, the university announced last week. Allen, a Louisiana native, will be the first woman and first African American to hold the post on a non-interim basis. Current interim Dean Lee Ann Lockridge was the first woman to serve in the role.

Allen made headlines in 2021 when she resigned from the University of Memphis School of Law due to alleged racial bias. In her resignation letter, Allen said she resigned because the school consistently passed over Black candidates for leadership positions, despite faculty favoring those candidates, the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette reported.

Allen also serves as the deputy director for the Association of American Law Schools. Her expertise is in health policy and tort law. Allen is a graduate of Loyola University New Orleans and Yale School of Law.

“We set out to find an exceptionally talented leader committed to legal education, scholarship and practice,” LSU President William Tate IV said in a press release. “Ms. Allen’s experience has the depth and breadth we need to take the Paul M. Hebert Law Center to the next level of excellence.”

Allen, who received her B.A. in psychology from Loyola New Orleans in 1999 and graduated from the Yale Law School in 2003, will start July 17, pending approval from the LSU Board of Supervisors.

This article originally published in the March 6, 2023 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.