Tracey R. McCants Lewis earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Gannon University in 1993. She attended law school at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and received her Juris Doctor in 2000. Remaining at Duquesne, she is now an Assistant Clinical Professor of Law and the Assistant Director of Clinical Legal Education in the university’s School of Law, focusing on critical race theory, feminist legal theory and the application of legal storytelling in clinical legal education.
During her stay at Gannon, Tracey’s interest in politics and student government lead her to take part in multiple student groups, including College Democrats, Minority Students United, and People on the Move. She also performed as a disc jockey for Gannon’s radio station, WERG-FM, and broadcasted the show “Super Soul Saturday.” Additionally, she was one of the founding members of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority in Erie, Pennsylvania. Due to the small African American female population on Gannon’s campus at the time, the organization extended membership to the other universities in the area: Mercyhurst University and Penn State Behrend College.
Outside of the educational system, Tracey is quite involved in the law community. Recently, she was appointed for a two-year term to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Disciplinary Board, a group of thirteen lawyers that work to maintain the integrity of the Pennsylvania legal system. Her other memberships include the NAACP Board, the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh, the Homer S. Brown Division of the Allegheny County Bar Association, Clinical Legal Education Association, and the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Minority Bar Committee, among various other public interest agencies.
Tracey has given countless presentations on legal theory involving race, education, and gender; has been published in the collective work Pursuing Trayvon Martin: Historical Contexts and Contemporary Manifestations of Racial Dynamics; and is currently writing her own work entitled Legal Storytelling: The Murder of Voter ID in Pennsylvania, which discusses the legal storytelling techniques used in the case of Applewhite et al. v. the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Tracey is working toward attaining her Master of Public Administration through Gannon.
(Published August 2014)