Leland Ware, the inaugural Louis L. Redding Chair for the Study of Law and Public Policy in the School of Public Policy and Administration and professor of Africana studies at the University of Delaware, passed away on April 26. He was 77 years old.
A native of Atlanta, Georgia, Professor Ware earned his bachelor’s degree in history from historically Black Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. He went on to complete his juris doctorate from Boston College Law School.
Prior to his career in academia, Professor Ware practiced law with a private firm in Atlanta as well as the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and the U.S. Department of Justice’s civil division in Washington, D.C. From 1984 to 1987, Professor Ware served as university counsel at historically Black Howard University.
Professor Ware transitioned to teaching in 1987, serving as a professor of law at Saint Louis University in Missouri for the next 13 years. During this time, he had stints as a visiting professor with Boston College and Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany. In 2000, Professor Ware began his long tenure with the University of Delaware, where he would stay for the remainder of his career.
As a scholar, Professor Ware focused on civil rights and civil liberties law, employment law, and constitutional law. He was the author of more than 100 articles and several books. His final publication, Policies that Perpetuate Inequality: Colorblind Bias (Bloomsbury Academic, 2026), is a collection of essays examining how race-neutral policies often reinforce, rather than remediate, systemic inequality.
