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Frank Wu    

President of Queens College, City University of New York; Author of "Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White"

Frank H. Wu serves as the eleventh President of Queens College. In 2021, he announced the creation of both a new Business School and a new Arts School on the campus enrolling approximately 20,000 students, with almost 600 full-time faculty members.

Prior to joining the City University of New York (CUNY) system, Frank served as Chancellor & Dean, and then William L. Prosser Distinguished Professor at University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. Before joining UC Hastings, he was a member of the faculty at Howard University, the nation’s leading historically black college/university (HBCU), for a decade. In his leadership roles at Queens College and UC Hastings, as well as on the faculty at Howard, he was the first Asian American to serve in such a capacity. In recognition of his leadership, he was selected for the Chang-Lin Tien Award in 2008.

Frank is dedicated to civic engagement and civil rights. He was appointed by the Obama administration to its National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI) and by the Defense Department to the Military Leadership Diversity Commission. He was a Trustee of Gallaudet University and then Deep Springs College. For his advocacy work, he received the John Hope Franklin Award in 2020.

Frank is the author of Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White, which was immediately reprinted in its hardcover edition, and co-author of Race, Rights and Reparation: Law and the Japanese American Internment, which received the single greatest grant from the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund.

Prior to his academic career, he held a clerkship with the late U.S. District Judge Frank J. Battisti in Cleveland and practiced law with the firm of Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco – while there, he devoted a quarter of his time to pro bono work on behalf of indigent clients. He received a B.A. from the Johns Hopkins University and a J.D. with honors from the University of Michigan.

Speech Topics


Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White

Civil Rights and Diversity

In this keynote presentation, Wu offers a new paradigm for civil rights, beyond the literal and figurative black and white. Using history, social science, contemporary news, popular culture, anecdotes, and humor, he challenges the audience to make good on the promise of a diverse democracy.

Affirmative Action

Wu discusses the current law and policies governing affirmative action and the best practices for recruitment and retention of minorities and women in higher education and the workplace.

Coalition Building

Wu presents an approach for coalition among communities of color and progressive groups, to realize the goals of a diverse democracy.

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