Stacy Leeds (1971–)

Stacy Leeds is a leading Indigenous legal scholar who was the first Indigenous person to serve as a law school dean when she headed the University of Arkansas School of Law in Fayetteville (Washington County) from 2011 to 2018. She was named the president of the University of Tulsa in 2026.

Stacy Lynn Leeds was born on December 1, 1971, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Jim and Sharon Leeds. Her father is Cheroke and can trace his family lineage to the Native Americans who were forcibly removed from the South on the infamous Trail of Tears. Her mother was a white native of Oklahoma, a Dust Bowl–era child. Her father did not graduate from high school, and while her mother did, Leeds and her older brother Scott were the first in the family to attend college.

Leeds grew up in Muskogee, Oklahoma, attending Muskogee High School, where she was both an athletic and academic star. She went on to Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, where she played on the tennis team while also starring in basketball, playing on two teams that went to the NCAA Division III Final Four. She had entered college thinking she wanted to be a history teacher and basketball coach, but after graduating in 1994 with a BA in history, she instead chose to attend the University of Tulsa School of Law, earning her JD in 1997.

Leeds then went on to the University of Wisconsin Law School, where she was a William H. Hastie Fellow, earning an LLM in 2000. She began her career in academia as assistant professor of law and director of the Northern Plains Indian Law Center at the University of North Dakota.

She served in that capacity until 2003, when she joined the faculty at the University of Kansas, where she served as professor and director of the Tribal Law & Government Center at the School of Law until 2011. She also served as the law school’s Interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs from 2010 to 2011. In addition, in the 2008–2009 academic year, Leeds was a W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute Non-Resident Fellow at Harvard University, and in 2010, she earned an MBA at the Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee.

The following year, she became the dean of the University of Arkansas School of Law, a post she would hold until 2018. Leeds was the first Indigenous woman in the United States to serve as a law school dean. As dean and then as the university’s Vice Chancellor for Economic Development, Leeds expanded the university’s intellectual property portfolio and substantially increased funding for faculty inventors and startups.

When she assumed the new role as the university’s Vice Chancellor for Economic Development, she thought her days as an administrator were over. However, in 2019, she moved to the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University to serve as Foundation Professor of Law and Leadership; the next year, she added Regents professor to her responsibilities, and in 2023 she was named the Willard H. Pedrick Dean of the Law School.

Beyond her academic positions, Leeds has been both an active scholar as well as an active member of the Native American judicial system. She is the author of several books, articles, and book chapters on Indian and Indigenous law and legal issues. She has also served on a wide array of academic panels, while also doing presentations at legal and academic conferences.

Leeds was appointed in 2002 as a justice on the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court, becoming the first woman to ever serve in that capacity. She served on the court until 2006. She also served as chairperson of the Cherokee Nation Gaming Commission from 2013 to 2016 and as Special Attorney Advisor in the Office of Attorney General for the Cherokee Nation from 2016 to 2020. She has also been active in the Cherokee National Historical Society, Inc., serving as a trustee from 2005 to 2008, vice president from 2007 to 2008, and legal advisor from 2021 to 2023. In addition, she was a founding board member and treasurer of the Foundation for America’s Public Lands, a congressionally chartered nonprofit, as well as a corporate board member for Kituwah LLC.

Her judicial roles have included serving as the chief judge of the Prairie Band of Potawatomi Nation’s District Court from 2008 to 2011, associate justice of the Kaw Nation’s Supreme Court from 2005 to 2011, and chief justice of the Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma’s Supreme Court from 2001 to 2011. She has also served in a variety of legal and judicial positions for other Indian nations including judge for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation District Court from 2020 to 2023 and a number of positions with the Hualapai Tribe Court of Appeals from 2022 to 2024.

She won the Cherokee National Historical Society’s Contemporary Achievement Award in 2013, the Cherokee National Statesmanship Award in 2014, and the Association of American Law Schools Ruth Bader Ginsburg Lifetime Achievement Award in 2025. She was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2024.

In March 2026, Leeds was named the twenty-second president of the University of Tulsa, to begin her role on July 1, 2026. In announcing the university’s choice, University of Tulsa interim president Rick Dickson said, “Today marks several important milestones for the university: A fellow native Oklahoman, Stacy is the third UTulsa graduate and the first woman to assume the role of permanent president.”

Leeds and her husband, retired law professor Lonnie Beard, have one son.

For additional information:
Broecker, Jennie. “Stacy Leeds ’00: Hastie Fellowship Was ‘Immeasurably Valuable.’” Gargoyle: Alumni Magazine for the University of Wisconsin Law School, October 11, 2023. https://gargoyle.law.wisc.edu/2023/10/stacy-leeds-hastie-fellowship/ (accessed May 1, 2026).

“Dean Stacy L. Leeds.” American Law Institute. https://www.ali.org/profile/4590 (accessed May 1, 2026).

Garwitz, Blaire Leible. “Empowering Next-Generation Indigenous Leaders.” Wash U Magazine, August 7, 2023. https://source.washu.edu/2023/08/empowering-next-generation-indigenous-leaders/ (accessed May 1, 2026).

Interview with Stacy Leeds. First Person Plural: An Oral History of Arkansas Women. David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History. University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas. Online at https://pryorcenter.uark.edu/project.php?thisProject=21 (accessed May 1, 2026).

Polikoff, Rich. “Stacy Lynn Leeds.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, July 21, 2013, pp. 1D, 5D. Online at https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2013/jul/21/stacy-lynn-leeds-20130721/ (accessed May 1, 2026).

Stacy Leeds. https://www.stacyleeds.com/ (accessed May 1, 2026).

“Stacy Leeds—Native American Heritage Month.” The Appellate Project. https://theappellateproject.org/stacy-leeds (accessed May 1, 2026).

“The University of Tulsa Names Stacy Leeds as President.” University of Tulsa News. https://utulsa.edu/news/the-university-of-tulsa-names-stacy-leeds-as-president/ (accessed May 1, 2026).

William H. Pruden III
Raleigh, North Carolina