Michael A. Fitts

Michael A. Fitts became the 15th President of Tulane University in July 2014 after 14 years as dean at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he also served as Bernard G. Segal Professor of Law.  President Fitts has long been recognized as one of the country’s foremost legal scholars writing on administrative and constitutional law, especially matters relating to separation of powers. He has published more than two dozen articles, book chapters and reviews in the nation’s leading law reviews, including the Yale Law Journal, Michigan Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal and the University of Pennsylvania Law Review.  Much of his scholarship has examined the dynamics of governance in the American experience. A trademark of his scholarship, consistent with the values he later brought to his academic leadership roles, has been its interdisciplinary compass, drawing insights from political science, psychology, game theory, philosophy, economics and history in challenging conventional wisdom about legal institutions and governmental powers.  Fitts clerked for Judge Leon Higginbotham on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and worked as an attorney in the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. He is a member of the American Law Institute and of the American Political Science Association’s Study Group on Law and the Political Process.