Law School Mourns the Passing of Trailblazing Professor Emerita Joyce A. Hughes

Joyce A. Hughes, professor of law emerita at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, passed away November 13, 2025. A person of historic firsts, Professor Hughes’s pathbreaking achievements in legal education and public service opened doors for countless people and strengthened every institution she touched.

Hughes joined Northwestern Law in 1975 as an associate professor, after four years of teaching at the University of Minnesota Law School where she became the first Black woman tenure-track law professor at a predominantly white institution, which she wrote about in a chapter included in the book “Rebels in Law: Voices in History of Black Women Lawyers.”

When Hughes received tenure in 1979 at Northwestern, she also made history, becoming the first Black woman to be tenured in any department at the University.  “Joyce Huges was a beloved teacher, a powerful advocate for justice, and an inspiration to generations of students and colleagues,” said Interim Dean Zachary Clopton. “We are profoundly grateful for her life, her leadership, and the lasting legacy she leaves within our community.”

Hughes taught courses and seminars in banking law, civil procedure, evidence, the Fourteenth Amendment, immigration law, legal profession, preventive land law, real estate, refugees and asylum, and trial practice. 

Colleague and friend Leonard Rubinowitz, professor of law, reflects that “we are honored to have had Professor Hughes in our community for almost half a century, with her brilliance, resilience, courage, grace, and her deep commitment to the many generations of our students. I am extremely grateful to have had Professor Hughes as a friend as well as a colleague for all those years.”

“Joyce gave me my first teaching opportunity at Northwestern when she invited me to speak with her refugee law seminar. I was still an associate at Sidley but had just argued an asylum case at the Seventh Circuit,” added James Speta, Elizabeth Froehling Horner Professor of Law and interim dean of the Law School from 2020-2021. “I looked forward to her memos when I was curriculum dean, and I know the extraordinary impact she had on generations of students.”

In an interview with the Law School in 2020, Hughes said she long defied what society deemed acceptable work for women, let alone a Black woman — sometimes to the dismay of men who tried to discourage her along the way. 

“I ended up going to law school because I was angry at a recruiter from Columbia Law School who suggested I could not be a lawyer,” she said. “This man made me so mad.”

Hughes decided to prove her doubters wrong. She also recalled that teaching mostly male students as a Black and woman law professor meant that she was “dismissed often, challenged often and treated with disrespect.”

Hughes was awarded the 2021 Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award by the American Bar Association. The prestigious award honors the legacy of Margaret Brent, the first woman lawyer in America, by annually recognizing five outstanding women “who have achieved professional excellence and paved the way for other women in the legal profession,” according to the ABA.

“In spite of being both Black and female, I am honored the award commemorates my influence as a trailblazer in law,” Hughes said then about receiving the award. “The award should be seen as recognizing the first woman law professor in the country, Lutie Lytle, a Black woman who taught at a Black law school in 1897. It also acknowledges the first Black woman to be a tenured law professor, Sybil Jones Dedmond, who taught at a Black law school 20 years before I started at a white law school.”

During her tenure as a law professor, Hughes noted the strides made by women at the Law School.  “Women are now about half the law school, so there has clearly been progress for women,” she said. However, she noted there was still more work to be done to be more inclusive.

“My sense is that white women are going to reach parity before Black women do,” Hughes said. “I still maintain my focus on Black women. I do think white women opening some doors helps Black women, but there’s still a difference, and I don’t want people to overlook that difference.”

She recalled a Black male graduate once saying to her, “You can’t be, what you can’t see.” Said Hughes: “So what I think is most important about me is that students can see that it’s possible for them to be law professors.”

In April 2021, the Law School student body voted to name newly created team leadership awards after faculty members. Each academic year, the Joyce A. Hughes Leadership Award will be presented to two LLMs. In 2015, Northwestern’s Black Law Students AssociationhonoredHughes for her support and contributions to the Law School community.

Colleague Kimberly Yuracko, Judd and Mary Morris Leighton Professor of Law and dean of the Law School from 2018-2020, reflected on Hughes’s  “important impact” on her career. “I remember in particular our conversations during the summer of 2020 when she told me she had grown up near where George Floyd was killed and provided me with guidance and perspective as we navigated that challenging period at the law school,” said Yuracko. “She touched many people and made the law school stronger.”

Dan Rodriguez, Harold Washington Professor of Law and dean of the Law School from 2012-2018, added, “Joyce was a true pioneer and a lovely lady.”

In April 2023, the Northwestern Law community, family, close friends and colleagues celebrated the legacy of Hughes, unveiling a portrait in her honor in the newly named Professor Joyce A. Hughes Corridor. The celebration also highlighted the Joyce A. Hughes Endowed Scholarship. The scholarship is funded by a generous group of Northwestern Pritzker Law alumni and friends: Courtney Armstrong (JD-MBA ’97), Naima Walker Fierce (JD ’96), Sharon Bowen (JD-MBA ’82), Toni Bush (JD ’81), Joe Richardson (JD ’96), and Hari Osofsky, Myra and James Bradwell Professor of Law and dean of the Law School from 2021-2025. The fund provides scholarship support to Law School students.

“Professor Emerita Hughes was a tremendous pathbreaker who made such a difference through her scholarship, teaching, mentoring, and broader work,” said Osofsky.

A legal luminary

Hughes was born in Gadsden, Alabama, on Feb. 7, 1940, in the times of “rigid segregation,” Hughes said in an “NLAW Proud” video in 2020, explaining that her parents moved north to Minnesota because they wanted opportunities for their children.

She received a bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in 1961 from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. Hughes was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship where she spent a year at the University of Madrid in Spain. She would go on to receive her law degree with honors in 1965 from the University of Minnesota Law School. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the Order of the Coif. 

Throughout her career, Hughes dedicated herself to public service, particularly within the city of Chicago. She was part of the Chicago mayoral campaign for Harold Washington (JD ’52), served on the Chicago Board of Education, and became the first woman and first African American General Counsel of the Chicago Transit Authority. She was also a member of several professional organizations and served on several boards including the American Bar Association; Black Women Lawyers of Greater Chicago; Chicago Cook County Bar Association; and the National Bar Association. She also served as a trustee for her alma mater Carleton College; was a member of the advisory board for Northwestern Law’s Children and Family Justice Center; and served on the board of directors of the National Urban League.

Hughes also served as a member of the Illinois Supreme Court’s Committee on Rules of Evidence and was a member of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies’ Committee on Policy for Racial Justice. She is an inductee in the Cook County Bar Association Hall of Fame and was honored as a legal luminary by the Chicago Chapter of the American Constitution Society.