Seattle University law professor Henry W. McGee, Jr. has had a rich career. He served as a county prosecutor in Chicago, a civil rights attorney in Mississippi, regional director of the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity Legal Services Program, and director of the UCLA Center for Afro-American Studies.
McGee won the Arthur Sutherland Public Service Award in 1990 at UCLA, and was honored by the Los Angeles City Council for accomplishments as a human rights advocate. A Fulbright Professor at the University of Madrid in 1982, he received a second Fulbright to the university in 2002 as senior researcher and visiting professor.
Locally, McGee focuses his energy on raising consciousness around affordable housing issues. He is a board member for the Low Income Housing Institute and takes his students on tours to demonstrate the lack of adequate housing options in our community. "The force of gentrification is quite powerful," he says. "Seattle is becoming an upper-middle to upper-class city where only the wealthy can live, and that's a sad thing."