Professor Michelle Kwon has been selected to serve as the University of Tennessee College of Law’s interim associate dean for diversity, inclusion and community engagement.
In this new position, Kwon will have responsibility for developing and advancing diversity, inclusion and belonging at the College of Law with an emphasis on lawyers’ professional obligation to seek justice and protect individual rights. In addition, consistent with the university’s land-grant mission, she will lead the college in utilizing its resources and expertise for the betterment of the Knoxville-area community and the state, especially among underserved populations.
College of Law Dean Lonnie Brown stressed the importance of this new position in achieving the diversity and community engagement objectives to which the College of Law has long been committed.
“As an institution, we remain firmly dedicated to cultivating an environment in which all forms of diversity are welcomed and celebrated and to actively engaging with and serving our local community and state, in keeping with time-honored values of the legal profession,” Brown said. “Dean Kwon’s demonstrated administrative abilities, compassion and unwavering devotion to the law school make her the ideal person to lead us in these efforts.”
Kwon joined the UT faculty in 2011 after three years at Texas Tech University School of Law. Before entering academia, she was an associate, and eventually a partner, in the Dallas, Texas office of Thompson & Knight LLP where she concentrated her practice in corporate tax planning.
“As the child of a native Hawaiian-Korean father and a German mother, and the only person in my family to go to college, I am honored to lead the College of Law’s diversity and inclusion efforts,” Kwon said. “I look forward to working with students, staff, faculty and community members on meaningful initiatives that lead to real and lasting change.”
Kwon also served as a senior attorney in the IRS’s Office of Chief Counsel for two years representing the IRS in U.S. Tax Court with specific emphasis on cases involving foreign currency option tax shelters and cases of individuals and small businesses.