Memorial Service for Professor Henry McGee, Jr.

Dear Colleagues:

As some of you know, Professor Emeritus Henry “Hank” McGee, Jr. passed away last month. Professor McGee was one of the first African American hires at the UCLA School of Law, where he taught for 25 years before joining Seattle University in 1994 as our School of Law’s first-ever tenured professor of color.

Previous to his career in higher education, Professor McGee served as a county prosecutor, private firm litigator and regional director of the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity Legal Services Program. He represented Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) members who were arrested for assisting with African American voter registration during Freedom Summer in 1965.

Whether in government, private practice or academia, Professor McGee brought to his work an unwavering commitment to racial and economic justice and service to others. His prolific scholarship and writing helped shape our understanding of civil rights issues nationally and closer to home, including among many others a casebook he coauthored on housing law and his widely cited article on the transformation of the Central District. He was as engaged globally as locally, twice serving as a Fulbright Scholar and teaching at more than 30 universities throughout the world.

Multitalented and extensively involved in the community, Professor McGee was an accomplished violinist who performed with the Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra, and he served on a number of boards in the Seattle area. A remembrance in BlackPast summarizes Professor McGee’s impact and accomplishments, which include the Metropolitan King County Council’s recognition of his distinguished legacy upon his retirement in 2015.

As we celebrate the truly extraordinary career and life of Professor McGee, let us especially keep in our prayers his wife, Dr. Victoria Kill, who served as Seattle University’s first full-time director of the Patricia Wismer Center and Adjunct Professor in English and Women and Gender Studies.

A memorial for Professor McGee will be held at 3:30 p.m., Saturday, May 4, at Seattle First Baptist Church (1111 Harvard Ave.). The service will include remarks by Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion Natasha Martin and music by Professor Quinton Morris. A social will follow with ice cream—a particular love of Professor McGee, as his colleagues can attest.

Please join me in remembering with gratitude Professor McGee and all that he meant to our School of Law, our university and the wider community.

Respectfully,

Eduardo M. Peñalver
President