Alumnus Kenneth Mack Explores Justice, Power, and the Lessons of the Past

Kenneth W. Mack has spent his career reshaping the conversation around civil rights and legal history, but his path to becoming one of the nation's foremost scholars in the field wasn’t a conventional one.

A 1987 graduate of Drexel University’s College of Engineering, Mack began as an electrical engineer at Bell Laboratories before realizing that his passion lay elsewhere. That realization, fostered in part by Drexel’s signature co-op program, ultimately led him to Harvard Law School and a career at the intersection of law, history, and race in America.

“I think the co-op helped me a lot,” Mack said. “I learned what it meant to be in a workplace and what that kind of lifestyle was about.” But while the experience made him career-ready, it also made him reconsider whether engineering was the future he truly wanted. “I really liked Drexel. I liked the school, I liked my friends, I liked the classes. But when I was co-oping, I didn’t imagine myself being an engineer at age 30. And that’s what’s great about the co-op program: you might find your dream job, but you might also get valuable insight into where your passion lies.”

That realization sent him in a new direction. Inspired by a classmate who was applying to law school, Mack considered the possibility for himself, despite having never met a lawyer before. “I didn’t really have any role models or anything like that, but law seemed interesting. I was really interested in current events at the time—this was the late ‘80s, the Cold War was still on—and that kind of thing seemed to orient me more toward law school.”

At Harvard Law, Mack’s academic curiosity deepened, and he developed an interest in legal history that would define his career. He credits his time at Drexel for sparking that interest, particularly through a history course he took with then-professor David Noble. “I really got to like his work. I hadn’t read it at the time, but I liked his class, so I took another history class, and then a third. When I was in law school, I thought, ‘One of the things I should do is take a class in legal history.’ So I did, and I really loved it.” That passion led him to earn a PhD in history at Princeton after practicing law for a few years.

Now the inaugural Lawrence D. Biele Professor of Law and an Affiliate Professor of History at Harvard, Mack has spent 25 years on the faculty, establishing himself as an influential voice in civil rights legal history. His 2012 book, Representing the Race: The Creation of the Civil Rights Lawyer , was named a Washington Post Best Book of the Year and was a finalist for the Julia Ward Howe Book Award. His work has been widely published in leading law reviews and historical journals, and he has served as a Senior Visiting Scholar at Cambridge University.

His experience clerking for Judge Robert L. Carter, a key figure in Brown v. Board of Education , further shaped his interest in civil rights law. “He was a civil rights icon—he argued Brown v. Board, something more important than anything I’ll ever do in my own life. Clerking for him got me interested in thinking about civil rights history as the thing I wanted to do.”

Beyond his scholarship, Mack is passionate about mentorship, recognizing the role that professors play in shaping the lives of their students. “Being a mentor is certainly a huge thing for me,” he said. “Students look up to you, they take their cues from you, and the example you set as a professor is quite consequential.” At Drexel, he found mentors in professors like Noble, as well as in Bruce Eisenstein and former Dean of Engineering Richard Woodring. He also played a leadership role as president of the Drexel chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers.

Mack’s work continues to influence the field, and his research remains as timely as ever. He is currently working on a book about the Obama presidency, examining its historical significance. Mack knew Obama well—they were classmates at Harvard Law, and he recalls that “everyone thought that he would go into politics, even if he might not have been sure of it, and that he would rise very high.”

Reflecting on his journey, Mack acknowledges that his engineering background continues to shape his approach to law and history. “What I learned at Drexel was hard work and disciplined thinking,” he said. “Engineering problems are real-world problems, and you have to think them through. There are always multiple solutions, and that carries over into what I do today.”

Mack remains connected to Drexel and has noticed the university’s transformation over the years. “It’s a much more beautiful campus than it was back then,” he said. “Back then, it felt like a bunch of buildings in the middle of West Philadelphia, which I liked. But now, it feels much more like a campus, with a lot of innovation going on.” He even speculates that if he were at Drexel today, he might have stayed in engineering, given the expanding role of technology. “Everyone thinks that tech is going to take over the world — and that it has the power to improve it or destroy it, depending on one’s preference. But it seems like there are so many useful and innovative things one can do with an engineering degree now.”

Whether in engineering, law, or history, Mack’s career reflects the power of intellectual curiosity and the importance of finding a path that aligns with one’s passions. From his days as a co-op student to becoming one of the leading voices in legal history, his journey underscores the broad possibilities that a Drexel education can open.