Michael Fitts

Michael Andrew Fitts (born March 1, 1953) is an American legal scholar who has been serving as the 15th president of Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, since July 2014. He previously served as dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School from 2000 to 2014.

Early life and education Fitts grew up in West Philadelphia. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University in 1975 and a Juris Doctor degree from Yale University in 1979. At Yale, he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal.

Career After law school, Fitts served from 1979 to 1981 as a law clerk to A. Leon Higginbotham Jr., a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. From 1981 to 1985, he was an attorney-adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel at the United States Department of Justice.

Fitts joined the University of Pennsylvania Law School faculty as an assistant professor in 1985. He was appointed as an associate professor in 1990, a full professor in 1992, and the Robert G. Fuller Jr. Professor of Law in 1996.

Higher-education policy specialists quoted by Inside Higher Ed argued in 2022 that extensive use of early decision could disadvantage lower-income applicants who needed to compare financial-aid offers. A Tulane spokesperson responded that the university had experienced increased applicant interest and described the entering class as its most selective and diverse to that point.

The university closed three buildings and moved some affected classes online, and the university police arrested six protestors on April 29. with at least fourteen protestors being arrested. Fourteen protestors charged with misdemeanor found not guilty by the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court of Louisiana in September 2024.

Law school freedom of speech controversy In June 2025, Kimberly Terrell, the director of community engagement at the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic at Tulane Law School, resigned and accused the Fitts administration of restricting her ability to speak publicly about research concerning pollution, public health, and racial disparities in Louisiana's petrochemical industry.

Emails obtained by the Associated Press showed that law dean Marcilynn Burke had told clinic personnel that president Fitts was concerned the clinic's work could reduce political and donor support for Tulane's proposed redevelopment of the former Charity Hospital. Burke also wrote that Fitts had questioned whether some of the clinic's research-based advocacy had moved into lobbying and how it related to the clinic's representation of clients.