Hill District native was first Black tenured professor at Pitt Law
He was the son of a Pullman porter who grew up on Webster Avenue in the Hill District in postwar Pittsburgh when most men went to work at the mill, and his high school guidance counselor downplayed the idea of college and encouraged him to be a printer.
But Robert Berkley Harper had other plans. He was a renaissance man of letters and literature and a legal scholar who became the dean of students and first tenured Black professor at his alma mater, the University of Pittsburgh Law School.
Mr. Harper, of Stanton Heights, died on Oct. 12 at age 82.
“Bob was a real trailblazer,” former University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Mark Nordenberg, also a past dean of the law school, said.
“His was a series of real accomplishments in the individual sense, but the true power came from the example that he set for others because there he was, and he stood for accomplishment. People could see that he had a tremendous impact on the student body of the law school at a time when there were strong efforts underway to add diversity. He was a real force for good in a law school and the broader university.”
One of a blended family of 17 children, Mr. Harper was a 1958 graduate of Uptown’s former Fifth Avenue High School and a member of the National Honor Society. He paid his way through Pitt while working a full-time night job at the post office, graduating in 1962 with a degree in education. He enlisted in the U.S. Army where he taught weapons at the Armory School at Fort Knox, Ky., and served in Korea, achieving the rank of first lieutenant.
He returned to Pittsburgh and taught school for two years as a Pittsburgh Public Schools math teacher, then matriculated at the University of Pittsburgh Law School in 1968. He graduated from Pitt Law in 1971 as one of only six Black students in the program, his younger brother Henry Harper said.
“He was my role model. I am what I am today, because he set the standard. And he pushed me to beat his standard, although I never did,” Henry Harper, himself a Ph.D. and distinguished educator and retired superintendent of schools assistant to the secretary of education in Delaware, said of his older brother.
To teachers at Fifth Avenue, Henry Harper was “Bobby’s little brother,” which he said meant much was expected of him academically.
After law school, Robert Harper went to work for the city of Pittsburgh as a legal adviser for the police department and eventually became chief legal adviser for the department.
“He bridged the community and the police because he knew he knew the community. He knew the Hill, Homewood, East Liberty, Beltzhoover,” Henry Harper said. “And he was the policeman’s friend, too, even though he didn’t carry a gun or a badge.”
He was lured away by the Pitt Law School, where he was recruited to serve as assistant dean. After four years in that role, Mr. Harper began teaching full time in 1977.
“The only reason I left [the police department] is that I felt I would be able to do more good out here [at Pitt] than to work as one attorney in town,” Robert Harper told the Post-Gazette in a February 1986 interview. “I came here for the purpose of dealing with all students, but personally I wanted to recruit, advise and assist minority students in law.”
At a time when only a handful of American law schools employed Black professors — and Black lawyers represented only about 3% of the legal profession in the 1980s — Mr. Harper stood out as the first tenured Black professor.
“We had never had a Black tenured faculty member here at Pitt, and therefore I took it as a challenge,” he said in the PG story. “I felt if I became tenured here, I could help someone.”
“Bob Harper brought a perspective, worldview and orientation to his students that was not only much needed, but pretty unique, growing up in working class Pittsburgh, not going to fancy schools [nor having] all the privileges of an elite academic background. He really has a great story and was totally dedicated to his community,” his colleague and friend Jules Robel, the Chair Professor of Constitutional Law at Pitt Law, said, noting that he was a true mentor for Black students and faculty.
“He was focused on the problems that really affected people, and he was focused on doing something meaningful and good in the world. He was a kind, compassionate gentleman who always looked out for people.”
The odds against a young Black man from Pittsburgh’s Hill District rising to the top of a field with a history of exclusion against Black Americans were fierce, he recalled, noting that Black lawyers couldn’t even join the American Bar Association until 1943.
“My white counselor at Fifth Avenue [High School] tried to dissuade me from going to college. My counselor told me I should go to vocational school and be a printer,” Mr. Harper said in the Post-Gazette article.
He often wrote opinion columns relating to racial issues and was a sought- after speaker and wrote a column, “Black on Black,” in the 1980s and 1990s for the Post-Gazette, and frequently wrote letters to the editor.
A devout Christian, he was also a world traveler, visiting Europe, Africa several times, the Middle East and China twice with his childhood best friend, whose family was from there. When they would travel to some international locale or celebrate a professional achievement, the Harper brothers and their sister Barbara, a nurse who lived abroad for many years, would marvel at their life’s journey. Henry Harper said, “We would say, would you believe the Pullman porter’s kids are doing these things?”
He was an avid squash player who held daily matches at Trees Hall, a Pitt basketball fan and a quick wit who quoted the classics and Bible with ease.
Matthew Logue, a Downtown attorney, studied advanced criminal procedure in the late 1990s under Mr. Harper.
“He was brilliant. He was among a legendary group of professors at the law school. But he was also a very downto-earth, nice guy,” Mr. Logue said. “A lot of academics can have an air of aloofness, but he wasn’t like that at all.”
“Bob had a huge presence,” Mr. Nordenberg said. “He was one of those people who energized the group for a room when he came into it. He also had a very big heart. And he had an infectious enthusiasm for life. He had strong opinions, which he was very willing to share. But he also was the kind of person who would relish hearing from someone who had a different opinion. And you could go back and forth and in the end, whether the differences were bridged or not, be smiling at each other,” Mr. Nordenberg said, adding that Mr. Harper didn’t just teach the law to aspiring lawyers but professional comportment.
“Bob had so many wonderful qualities that I think he stood out as a mentor in that regard,” Mr. Nordenberg said. “He was wonderful person. When you knew Bob, you were always looking forward to the next time you saw him.”
Mr. Harper is survived by his brother Henry, of Newark, Del.
A memorial service is being planned for March 2022, to be held in Pittsburgh.