Dear Tina,

My sincere condolences for the loss of your partner earlier this year. While I never had the pleasure of meeting Michael, he was certainly a hero to all of us who fight for educational equity and immigrants in this nation. As a Latina, I am especially proud of the incredible legacy and work that he built. Estela Bensimon is another one of my heroes, and she recently made her donation to the Campaign for College Opportunity in Michael’s honor. We both agreed a dedication in this particular publication would be appropriate and I wanted to share it with you (it’s on the last page).
https://collegecampaign.org/portfolio/representation-matters-californias-higher-education-governing-bodies-still-not-reflect-racial-gender-diversity-california-students/

I know there are no words of comfort for the incredible void that he leaves behind, but I do hope that the impact of his work and his legacy brings you joy.

Sincerely,
Michele Siqueiros (she/her/ella)
President | Campaign for College Opportunity

Ode to MICHAEL. With love, from Laura Padilla

M: Magnanimous. Michael was noble and generous in his unique, larger-than-life way, with his time, wit, and heart.

I: Inimitable. No single one of us can fill his shoes. That’s why we must rally, unite, work together, and carry on his legacy.

C: Committed. To Tina. To mentoring. To scholarship. To accountability. To the mission.

H: Honored to know you from the time I entered the Academy in 1992 and to be mentored by you since then. Honored to be free to communicate honestly, and to love and support each other.

A: Ass kicker. Enough said. If you knew Michael, you know this is true.

E: Example to follow. Michael entered when there were a handful of seats at the table, and he worked tenaciously, ferociously, and at great cost to his own aspirations, to make the table bigger and to make sure we were there. We will build on the example Michael set – part of GO LILA’s mission – to increase Latina leadership in the Academy.

L: Loved. We love you Michael. I love you Michael. 

Awesome information thank for you

https://uhamka.ac.id
https://uhamka.ac.id

Posted on behalf of Sean Olivas

https://www.r1news.com.br/a-remembrance-of-michael-a-olivas-opinion/

Posted on behalf of Turab Abbas, UH student and Congressional Intern, U.S. House of Representatives.

Dear Ms. Reyes:

I was saddened and devastated to hear about the recent loss of extraordinary scholar and Professor Emeritus Dr. Michael A. Olivas. I am Turab Abbas, a rising senior at the University of Houston, aiming to attend the University of Houston Law Center after graduation in Fall 2023. I had the opportunity to meet Dr. Olivas virtually this March through a referral of his common friend and my professor, Dr. Dale Rule, Associate Professor at the University of Houston's Bauer College of Business. We had a very productive chat, and he was very generous with his time. 

Dr. Olivas is an inspiration to many, and he surely is an inspiration to me. While Dr. Olivas has departed, his legacy will live on. He will be remembered when students will read his works and learn about his contributions to the legal field. I have recently mailed a package to your residential address at 3101 Old Pecos Trail # 304, Santa Fe, NM, 87505, enclosing a Certificate of Congressional Recognition, a US flag flown over the Capital, and a letter of condolences from Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, representative 18th Congressional District of Texas, in the loving memory of Dr. Olivas. Please let me know if I can ever be of assistance to you or your family.

Ms. Reyes, please know that you are in my thoughts and prayers. My deepest condolences to the entire Olivas family—Dr. Olivas lives on!

Sincerely,
Turab Abbas
Senior District Intern
U.S. House of Representatives
Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee
18th Congressional District, Texas

Remembering Former AALS President Michael A. Olivas https://www.aals.org/about/publications/newsletters/aals-news-spring-2022/remembering-former-aals-president-michael-a-olivas/

Submitted on behalf of Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia: 
I have received permission from Cambridge and the editors to circulate [this article] in his honor with the citation they provided. Since it is Michael’s last word on Plyler I felt it was important that get out there. The version is almost final save the copy editing. Here is the ssrn link https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4107785

Always, Shoba

Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia
Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Samuel Weiss Faculty Scholar
Director, Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic
Penn State Law | University Park

For Tina, submitted by Jane LaBarbera

Walk Within You by Nicholas Evans

If I be the first of us to die, Let grief not blacken long your sky.
Be bold yet modest in your grieving. There is a change but not a leaving.
For just as death is part of life, The dead live on forever in the living.
And all the gathered riches of our journey,
The moments shared, the mysteries explored, The steady layering of intimacy stored,
The things that made us laugh or weep or sing, The joy of sunlit snow or first unfurling of the spring,
The wordless language of look and touch, The knowing, Each giving and each taking, These are not flowers that fade, Nor trees that fall and crumble, Nor are they stone,
For even stone cannot the wind and rain withstand And mighty mountain peaks in time reduce to sand.
What we were, we are. What we had, we have. A conjoined past imperishably present.
So when you walk the woods where once we walked together, And scan in vain the dappled bank beside you for my shadow,
Or pause where we always did upon the hill to gaze across the land, And spotting something, reach by habit for my hand,
And finding none, feel sorrow start to steal upon you,
Be still. Clear your eyes. Breathe. Listen for my footfall in your heart.
I am not gone but merely walk within you.

Submitted by Jim Starzynski
Michael Olivas 220430

Michael was a colossus. He bestrode both the academic world of law and history and sociology and the world of northern New Mexico. How he encompassed such a breadth of experience and knowledge is a measure of the towering stature of his piercing intellect, meticulous organization and deeply warm personality.
His bountiful academic output is represented by (but not limited to) that solid volume edited by Ediberto Román, Law Professor and Accidental Historian: The Scholarship of Michael A. Olivas (2017). The book contains essays from a multitude of professors, scholars, lawyers, activists, and others about Michael’s penetrating analyses of vast swaths of history and advocacy for improvement. (Who knew one person could attract so many admirers that actually wrote serious and substantial analyses of his analyses? No flighty Twitter posts here.)
Of course one cannot be a really successful law school professor without being also a teacher of life and a mentor for others. And he was, and received numerous awards for that work. Nor can one be a law school professor without having to shoulder a lot of administrative tasks. Michael served on many University of Houston Law School faculty committees, and even as dean of the downtown branch of UH. He had all the plaques thanking him for that work as well.
And when you are as good at this kind of job as Michael was, you end up being on a first-name basis with the likes of Anita Hill, Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez. 
At the same time he kept and tended his deep roots in New Mexico, starting first with his family and then encompassing friends from his days at the tiny little Immaculate Heart of Mary high school seminary and then at Albuquerque’s Saint Pius X High School. He kept his friends close (but had no enemies, as far as I can see, that required him to keep them closer) by organizing recurring gatherings such as meals together. He also understood deeply the culture of the northern frontier of New Spain as it has evolved into the central and northern New Mexico we all know (and even occasionally admire). And that immersion in New Mexican culture in turn helped sharpen his perception of and perspective on the otherwise overlooked (or just ignored) Latina/o share of society.
That remarkable combination of immersions in the highly sophisticated academic world and the “down home” world of family and friends in New Mexico – worlds that appear to be jarringly different – bespeaks a breadth of imagination that, frankly, characterizes a colossus.
There was of course more. Starting in high school (not early professional life, or college, but high school!), he had a subscription to The New Yorker. His M.A. thesis at Ohio State was about John Updike, which immediately led to his being named the editor of the national Updike Newsletter for a decade. John Updike, one of America’s most celebrated chroniclers of The New Yorker set who lived and worked in southern Connecticut and New York City. Where did that come from?
And then there was his fascination with and scholarship of rock and roll and all the other musical styles related to it. It appears that he and Tina attended more live concerts than are humanly possible, at least for people who have real lives. In his weekly podcast The Law of Rock and Roll, he nonchalantly tossed off references to concerts he and Tina had attended for every group of any renown over a period of decades, although to be clear he always reserved a special reverence for the greatest of them all, his beloved Linda Ronstadt. Her obituary should one day read “She was preceded in death by her greatest fan Michael Olivas.”
So John Updike and the Rock and Roll Law Professor – two more legs of the colossus. As if anyone has ever heard of a four-legged colossus. But he, always characterizing himself as only a “lucky boy”, would have laughed at the notion, and I suspect would have loved the thought of being characterized that way.
Descansa en paz, mi cuate.

I first knew Mike as a junior in HS, spent 4 yrs together in college and have been lifelong friends for over 50 yrs . He was in my wedding in 1975, attended family functions in Ohio and visited him in NM over the yrs. We spoken on a regular basis. Despite his many accolades and accomplishments, whenever we got together or had a phone conversation he was always the same wonderful friend I knew in college. Mike, or ‘Olives’ as I knew him as a dear friend, I will miss you greatly and thanks for the abundance of laughter and so many great memories…Love ya. Ken

Like everyone else, I'm still processing the tremendous loss we've all sustained. When I began teaching at the University of New Mexico School of Law in 2019, Michael welcomed me into academia with open arms and has been one of my biggest supporters over the past three years. We bonded over our love of and roots in northern New Mexico. When I received the award from the Hispanic National Bar Association this year, he was the first to congratulate me, and he immediately sent the announcement to the dean of my law school and asked him to share the news. I feel enormously grateful to have benefitted from his consejos and from his work in the academy. Michael saw the value in hiring diverse faculty members, and at great cost to himself, he did all he could to ensure that people of color would be hired at law schools across the country. He was so passionate about increasing diversity in the academy, and I hope that we can all honor his legacy by carrying on his important work.

Con carino, Lysette Romero Cordova

Submitted on behalf of Patrick Terenzini:

Michael Olivas: An outsized person in every way – his intellect, astuteness, generosity to students, acumen, critical eye, keenness of wit – a formidable educational and societal force for good. And now in the magnitude of his loss. Thank you, Michael, and rest in peace.

Pat Terenzini

While my own time with Michael was more limited, the remembrance from Laura Gomez and many others shared in this space may help all of us more fully appreciate the mentor and friend we all loved. The Latino law professors dinner reminds me of a cab ride I once shared in NYC: Michael in the front seat, Tina, Laura, and me crammed into the back. I had no idea then that I was riding with the Past President of AALS – I just knew that we shared a love of learning, family, and home in New Mexico.



A while later, Michael flew me out to Houston to give a talk – after which I received both the kindest and firmest talking to over dinner with Michael and Tina. As I spoke excitedly about teaching in Madrid for the summer, Michael frowned, advising that my wisest course before mid-probation review would be to stay home for the summer and write. I went to Madrid, of course (who wouldn’t?), but also did a lot of staying home and writing after that.



When I finally received tenure, my first thought was to share the news with Michael, along with sharing my endless gratitude for all he’s done for me and legion others.

We all have sweet memories of Michael. I loved Laura's recollection of Michael's "eyes squinted shut" expression as he went through his rolodex of a life well-lived. Michael was bigger than life, so I was worried when I first reached out to him to invite him as a keynote speaker at UNLV. He was busy and he made sure I knew he was only coming because I was asking. He always had a way of making you feel as if you mattered. Once he also invited me to be a keynote speaker at a Houston conference. It meant so much to me. It was mid-career, and I was not even sure Michael read my work. He did. So sometimes he expected a lot of me. I appreciated that about him. Like the time he was organizing a AALS day-long program, and he said, you should do it-- I've no time. I'm willing to speak at the event. I was terrified but who could say no to Michael. So I stepped up. I'm grateful to Michael even more as I hear other women law professor stories, especially Latinas, of being uplifted. The academy will miss you Michael. Dreamers will miss you. I will miss you. Thank you for being bigger than life, even in death!

Submitted by Steven Mintz, Professor of History, UT Austin

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/memoriam-michael-olivas

Michael was an inspiration to me to write and speak and agitate for civil rights for the Latino/a community. He was quick, smart, productive and indefatigable. And he did not suffer fools (like me at times) who were not consistently engaged in advocating for the community and creating a written record of our work. I will miss him and am so sorry I did not go visit him and his precious Tina in Santa Fe!

Submitted by Ediberto Roman:

https://www.thefacultylounge.org/2022/04/o-captain-my-captain.html

Saturday April 30, 2022 Eulogies and Services for Michael Olivas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNQnuJvIJdk

Although I was urged to go into teaching by a law school classmate, it was Michael who opened the door to the first law school I taught, in 1991. After that, we remained, as he would say, cuates. He was one of those people that when I saw him, my heart soared. The big smile accompanying the big hug always made my day a little better. I miss you amigo.

Michael Olivas was a giant of a scholar and a man.
He cared for people and for justice. I saw in him a model scholar, teacher and person that I strived to emulate. I found in him a friend. Soar among the stars dear brother as we are warmed by fond, loving memories. 
Walter Allen, UCLA

I appreciated many, many things about Michael, most of all his affection for the many ironies in our world, but mostly his cheeky delight when commandeering the arguments that proved to us that the proverbial emperor really has no clothes. We all learned so much from him.

The last time I saw Michael, I was hosting him and Tina at a talk he gave at The Ohio State University in 2018 about material for what would become his 2020 book on the legal and political history of the DREAM Act and DACA. Michael had reached out to me after I started at OSU, so proud that I was now a professor at his PhD alma mater in higher education. He served as a mentor through opportunities that he created like the IHELG (Institute of Higher Education Law and Governance) mentoring roundtable at the University of Houston. He wrote the foreword for the book that I co-authored with Sylvia Hurtado and Emily Calderon Galdeano about Hispanic-Serving Institutions, where the three of us noted that he was the first to write about these institutions in his 1982 book Latinos in Higher Education.

Michael did so much to expand opportunities for Latinx scholars and for scholars advancing equity-oriented work in law, finance, immigration, and education. He was a real mentor and sponsor, cultivating a critical network of scholars in these fields, supporting and watching them as they proceeded in their own careers. When I was selected as an American Educational Research Association (AERA) fellow in 2022, Michael was one of the first to email and congratulate me. On April 22, 2022, at the AERA fellows breakfast, the only other new Latinx fellow and I discussed how Michael had been so instrumental to helping us and so many scholars in our careers. It was right after that breakfast that we found out that he had died.

Michael's example reminds me to do my best to support others the way that he supported me, and to be confident, fierce, and joyful in promoting human dignity and social justice.

I met Michael almost 20 years ago when I was selected to participate in the Houston Higher Education Finance Roundtable Institute for Higher Education Law Governance (IHELG ). This is without a doubt one of the most memorable mentoring events of my career. I arrived to Houston and immediately felt welcome! Having the opportunity to share my work with him, Ron Ehrenberg and Amaury Nora as well as many other young brilliant scholars was key at that point in my career.

The most memorable part of the experience was having dinner at Michael's home. The house, smells, and food brought me back to Colombia, where I grew up. He had this unique presence of a patriarca. A giant intellectual with a sharp and witty mind but also an incredible aura and warmth.

I stayed in contact with Michael over the years mostly through my mentors Estela Bensimon and Bill Tierney.

I received the sad news right after attending AERA. I connected with Anne-Marie Nunez and we both reflected on the legacy of this Latino Intellectual Giant who will always be there to continue to guide his mentees as we support the next generation of Latina/o/x scholars.

Un abrazo muy grande y siempre te recordare con mucho cariño y respeto!
Tatiana Melguizo

I first met Michael in January of 2015. I had just accepted my first tenure/tenure track position at UC Davis School of Law and my Dean, Kevin Johnson, invited me to attend the annual Latino/a Law Professors Dinner. I was already awe-struck at having the privilege of beginning my academic career at an institution lead by a Latino dean, now I had the chance to meet one of the OGs, perhaps el único OG, Michael. Once Kevin introduced me, Michael proceeded as if I had always been a member of this community, of this family. He asked me about my family and growing up in the Bronx. He wanted to know about me, my story, not my academic one, but my formative experiences. I looked forward to our group gatherings each year as I became more acquainted with our community of Latino/a law profs, with their stories. Walking into the annual restaurant or venue of choice, I couldn't help but smile hearing the sounds of laughter before I even entered the front door. I was greeted to the sounds of English, Spanish, and, yes, Spanglish (quite familiar to the ears of this Nuyorican woman). It always felt like a family reunion, a foil to the day's main events at the conference hotel. A cathartic sigh as I approached the room itself. Thanks to the vision and commitment of Michael and his countless mentees, I had the privilege to enter a room where I was not the only one but one among others, a member of a vibrant and gracious group who shared similar origin stories.

Michael, rest in power and know we will work to keep the laughter alive, to amplify the sounds, and, with some luck, we'll keep needing to find bigger rooms along the way.

I got to know Professor Olivas in 2020, courtesy of Prof. Ediberto Roman, and he became my mentor as a new legal academic. We never met in person, but I will always remember our Zoom conversations and all that I learned from him. Prof. Olivas seemed to pack so much into those calls, and some of my fondest memories were discussions about his www.lawofrockandroll.com podcast and the best concerts he ever attended. Even though I had only two years with him, I grew tremendously through that period and could not be more thankful for all of the support he gave. And I'm fortunate to have a physical memento from him: soon after I got a law teaching job, he mailed me the book "The Academic's Handbook" (Lori Flores & Jocelyn Olcott, eds.) and included the following inscription: "You'll be a great & generous professor. I wish you the same happiness I've had in this vocation." I will endeavor to fulfill all of those aspirations, always guided by Prof. Olivas and his example. And I will do all I can to pass along his legacy of guiding future professors-to-be. Michael A. Olivas, ¡Presente!

I had the privilege and honor to know Michael Olivas, first as a facilitator and supporter of those of us of Latinx origin or heritage who thought about becoming a law professor, then as a mentor in the academy, as someone who continually inspired and provided leadership not just in the academy but in other contexts as well and who provided encouragement, sound advice and friendship. I am always grateful to Michael and Tina for their generosity during the Katrina year, opening their home to me for periods of time and welcoming me to Houston. Michael, you meant so much to so many and you meant a great deal to me. Tina, my heart goes out to you for your loss. My last email exchange was Michael was literally days before he died; he asked about my kids. Michael you are so missed! What a mark you have made in so many human lives!

I had the distinct honor to present Michael with the ASHE Special Merit Award in 2000. Below is an excerpt from it:

"...Dr. Olivas' perspectives on higher education are often ahead of the curve, and thus it takes a few years for mainstream scholars to catch up to it. For example, he used the metaphor of a river to describe educational access for underrepresented students in a1992 book chapter titled Trout Fishing in Catfish Ponds. Six years later, two well-known figures in higher education would use the same metaphor to describe the same phenomenon. I guess the lesson here is if you're looking for some good ideas to write about six years from now, read Michael's work--however, please remember to cite him.

Another example of being ahead of the curve is his ability to keenly dissect and to speak honestly as a presenter, discussant and chair at ASHE conferences. I'm among the many ASHE goers who have benefited greatly from his insightful comments. I must admit, however, the one time he served as my discussant several years ago, I thought he spoke perhaps a little too honestly. 

He has also served ASHE well in other ways, serving on numerous committees and heading a number of important programs. Perhaps, most remarkable, I've been told, is that Dr. Olivas has a perfect attendance record--the Carl Ripken of ASHE.

So, taken together Michael Olivas has not only supported in exemplary ways the purposes and goals of ASHE but has extended them in ways that help to keep our organization ahead of the curve."

Arte Público Press mourns the passing of its first Advisory Board president, Dr. Michael A. Olivas, who served in the mid-1980s but always continued his support for the press and Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage as one of our author/editors, as a keynote speaker at our conferences and as a researcher. Shortly before his passing, he and his beloved wife Dr. Augustina Reyes made a generous donation for the establishment of the endowed Reyes-Olivas Award for the best children’s or young adult book by a first-time author. While fundraising to match the gift is still underway, Tina and Michael arranged for the first award to be conferred in September 2022. Unfortunately, Michael will not get to officiate but his spirit will be felt.

We love Michael, not only for his immense intellect and tireless academic and legal activism, but especially for his idealism, high moral standards and impatience with fools and racists. We will always cherish his wonderful sense of humor (Jimmy Smits would play him in a movie, because they look so much alike), his pride in everything New Mexican, his culinary talents (heavy on the red or green chile), his love of rock n roll, his prodigious memory, his quick wittedness… we could go on forever. Let us just say, Michael was larger than life and he has left a gaping hole in our lives. We will miss him dearly.

Email from the leadership of the Critical Race Studies in Education Association (CRSEA)

Our Sympathies
To members of our CRSEA village.

We would wish to honor and uplift the legacy of our deer colleague, mentor, and friend, Dr. Michael Olivas. Our friend and 2021 Derrick Bell Legacy award recipient Dr. Michael Olivas eternally transitioned on April 22, 2022 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Over his extensive career, Dr. Olivas has served in a multitude of academic capacities and held multiple leadership roles including his most recent leadership roles as the Interim President at the University of Houston-Downtown and Director of the Institute for Higher Education Law & Governance. Dr. Olivas was an anchor and relentless advocate for Latino civil rights, globally and locally. We at CRSEA mourn the passing of Dr. Michael Olivas and send blessings and restorative energy to his family during this time of remembrance and transition. An academic giant has joined with the great ancestors of past. We celebrate your journey and are grateful to have witnessed you touch so many on your path.

In Service to Our Communities,

CRSEA Leadership 2021

Critical Race Studies in Education Association

I am still in shock. We had grown into viejos together in the legal academy. He was so hard-working, effective at it and so very generous in helping others.

Alberto Cortez put it better than I ever could:
Cuando un amigo se va
Queda un espacio vacío
Que no lo puede llenar
La llegada de otro amigo

https://www.letras.com/alberto-cortez/413067/

¡Cuates siempre Michael!

Posted on behalf of Amaury Nora, University of Texas at San Antonio

“To Michael, With Love...”

Reflecting on the life and career of Dr. Michael Olivas, I remember him as my first mentor, professor, confidant, and above all, my friend. To pay tribute to him is to speak about such a remarkable individual and scholar that it is truly an honor and a joy. I also thought that this endeavor would be relatively easy because he has accomplished so much that is worthy of recognition and gratitude. At first, I thought that my task would not involve any difficult searching for significant accomplishments to enumerate but, rather, the hardest task would be selecting from the seemingly endless achievements and his powerful and persuasive writings. As a higher education scholar, he has published too many articles to count and authored nationally recognized books. On this occasion, I will focus on how Michael's mentoring provided me with professional opportunities and how it impacted my own scholarship.

If ever there is a person that embodies and defines the word mentor, I believe that person to be him. Michael has not only been my professor from whom I have learned so much, but he has provided the means by which I truly could become a part of my professional field. Michael provided guidance and direction in every phase of the process by which we each become a part of academia. I remember coauthoring with him and feeling so very honored to be able to work with him and feeling even more honored when he submitted the article with me as the first author. The truly remarkable thing about this whole experience was that he did not do any of these things simply as gestures of kindness, for I have never worked harder in my life than when I worked for him and with him. A true mentoring experience is one from which the student truly learns from the master. My work ethic, no, my addiction to work, my obsessive compulsiveness to exactness, quality, and empiricism, I owe to him.

It is difficult operationally to define what anyone means by mentoring. However, as I look back over the last thirty years of my career as a university professor, I lose count of the numerous times that he has influenced this aspect of my life. How would I define mentoring? Well, it was the time he offered me a postdoctoral fellowship with his institute so that I could further my research and publications. It was the time he spoke with the search committee for my first academic appointment, the time he introduced me to someone with the same research interest that I had, the time he nominated me for my first research award, the time he asked me to be a co-principal investigator on one of his grants, the time he got me involved with people in Washington, D.C. and Education Testing Service (ETS), the time he spoke to someone about me serving as co-chair for research paper proposals in a major professional organization, and the time he stood up in one of my presentations and declared that my work was as informative as that of Pascarella, Terenzini, and Tinto, giant scholars in the field of higher education. I cannot possibly include the many more mentoring experiences that Michael has provided to me over the years, for that would probably entail a whole book. What I have tried to do in the best way that I can, is to provide a glimpse across a spectrum of academically related issues that testify to his outstanding contributions as a mentor in academia.

All his guidance has touched every aspect of my career. At times when I have focused too much on one area, he has been there to redirect my attention to becoming responsible for research, teaching, and service. Even as a full professor, I found myself asking him for advice or receiving a phone call or email message about how I should consider this or that. The only thing that Michael has ever asked of me is that I do the same thing for someone else. That promise to him has influenced how I teach both in the classroom and outside of class, how I advise my graduate students, and how I work with other faculty.

Throughout his career, Michael endeavored to address social justice in different ways, striving not only to help those less fortunate and underserved, but also to mentor those who sought to follow in his footsteps. He has set a remarkable example in the way that he conducted himself, always open-minded, respectable and caring. In his classrooms, in his travels to educate in speeches and in his scholarship and writings, he mentored by example about commitment to ideals and dedication to purpose. As outstanding as he has been for his intellectual abilities and passionate commitment to fair treatment for all graduate students, his mentoring always stands foremost in the minds of his former doctoral students. To me, what makes him one of higher education's greatest scholars is not simply his extraordinary intellect, commitment, judgment and vision, but that he always gave of himself completely to ensure that education is fairly applied and that all students and educational institutions benefit from his intellect, passion and scholarship.

Throughout the years I have noticed that when one of his former students meets another one of his former students, there is an immediate connection. Each knows that they have benefitted from his mentoring, his wise counsel and, most of all, his unending love. For most of those former students, they know that Michael has, and always will be that person who has had one of the greatest influences on their lives. 
--by Amaury Nora

Like many others, Michael invited me to join the Law Roundtable in Houston one year. I still have very good friends and colleagues from that cohort and I still use Michael's book in the Legal Issues course I teach. His stories about finding his path in life (from priesthood to professor) have always been inspiring to me. His work with MALDEF and his passion for human rights is a strong example about how to intersect scholarship and practice, and that legacy and influence will go far. Thank you Sylvia for making this tribute available. Thank you Michael for the many ways you helped folks far and wide. 

From Johns Hopkins University Press, we send our sincerest thanks for the many, many ways Michael was a friend, advisor, and supporter. His contributions raised up so many personally and professionally.

He was also quick to make us laugh and poke us when we went astray. He was simply the best, and we are better for our knowing him.

Viajes seguros, mi amigo.

Michael was always a wonderful colleague, mentor, and inspiration to me. I've not many too many people as committed to the good works they do as was Michael. As committed as he was to the cause of equity in education, immigration, and the law, he always had the time to talk with me, encourage my work, and provide an outlet for my own publication. I'll always cherish the hospitality that he and Tina showed when I was a participant at one of his Roundtables at UH. 

Michael was much more than just an academic. I always enjoyed talking with him about John Updike, one of my favorite authors. And conversations with Michael about Mexican food could go on for hours!

I will miss Michael's warmth, sense of humor, and colleagueship, as I know will countless others. May his memory be a blessing to all of his family, friends, and colleagues.

I think I have known Michael for most of his research career and he has followed mine, with great support at every step. In our higher education professional organization, ASHE, he was the one that worked behind the scenes to drop my name to others in his network for professional opportunities when I was a postdoc and assistant professor. Our last professional conversation, in February 2022, was on advice that I sought about writing an expert witness report in a court case. I knew I was drawing on a wealth of experience here, and I appreciated how generous he was with sage advice. He believed that we each play an important role in making higher education and policies more equitable--because he did it spectacularly with his scholarship and action.

He was serious about the issues and his work, but also "muy chistoso." Although he was (beyond a doubt) a patriotic New Mexican, he adopted Texas as a home and even some of the lingo. "That dog won't hunt" he would say about someone's ill-formed strategy or disinformation. He proudly talked about his "mentee-rosos," who went on to great achievements, showed how he followed others in their career. We will miss his jokes and laughter, fantastic enchilada sauce, radio shows on NPR, and spirited conversations.  I also saw his appreciation, love, and devotion grow for Tina in these last few years as I spent more time with them in the Santa Fe summers.

I last spoke with him about a week before his passing, to check on him and Tina, and learn of his good progress after the surgery. At the close of the call, he said "love you" and looked forward to seeing me in Santa Fe. It was touching and has taken a while to process the loss of a longtime friend and mentor. But I am not alone. Michael was special to many of us. He looked out for others in their quest for scholarship and action to right the injustices that affect many of our communities.

Remembering Michael...https://shobawadhia.medium.com/remembering-michael-dd1190f66fc0

My first job after graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Madison was at the office of institutional research at the University of Houston. My director, Dennis Hengstler, introduced me to Michael along with several senior UH college administrators.

Noticing I was the only Hispanic at IR, Michael immediately paid attention to me. He asked for my dissertation, read it, and then took upon himself that I published it. To be honest: I could not escape from him. He kept calling me and encouraging me to submit papers before ASHE. He also made a point of introducing me to Amaury Nora, with whom I collaborated in several research projects across the years.

Along the way, Michael introduced me to Los Lobos, impressed me with his mastery of Mexican cuisine, and wowed me with his collection of fine Southwestern art.

Michael’s kindness and wisdom knew no limits. I shall miss my dear CUATE.

Submitted by Alicia Dowd, Penn State University:
As Michael was formally retiring and he asked me to take up the work of the IHELG – Univ of Houston Higher Education Law and Governance Mentoring Roundtables at Penn State, I updated the Roundtables alumni contact list and surveyed them to ask for expressions of appreciation for Michael’s mentoring. This resulted in the tribute on the web site at the following link

https://sites.psu.edu/cshe/mentoring-roundtables/

…including a ‘flip book’ with testimonials from Roundtables ‘alumni’, and from Amaury and Ron Ehrenberg, two of the longstanding Roundtables faculty. If you have a chance to view it, you will see many other familiar names.

https://www.flipsnack.com/58DC97FF8D6/michael-a-olivas-testimonials.html

I presented the site and flip book to Michael at the ASHE Grad Policy Seminar in 2020 when he came (virtually) to give a keynote address. I can share that he was very moved by these testimonials and appreciated the love and respect expressed here from this scholarly community, to which he had given so much.

Michael will be greatly missed, as a friend, mentor, scholar, community member, and colleague.

Alicia Dowd

I met Michael right after completing my degree, he was already a professor. I sent him a paper to read which he promptly ripped apart. After that experience, I never expected we would become friends but somehow we did. He supported all my efforts over 30 + years. As the chair of the Social Justice and Action AERA committee I had the distinct honor of presenting him with the Social Justice in Education award. Michael is one of the most intelligent persons I have met. His discourses on politics, immigration, the academy, Little Richard, food, and most of all human rights were always mesmerizing. Michael was prolific. His article on white liberals writing about racial justice and not citing the scholarship of scholars of color is a classic. I will miss Michael, in particular his laugh--resounding with gusto. Michael, te adore siempre y te recordare por el resto de mi vida. Estela

RIP Michael Olivas: Scholar (Immigration and Much More), Mentor, Friend, and Colleague By Immigration Prof https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2022/04/rip-michael-olivas-scholar-immigration-and-much-more-mentor-friend-and-colleague.html

I learned earlier today that we had lost a great one, my friend, colleague, and mentor Michael Olivas. It is with a profound sense of loss that I reflect on how much he has meant to me personally (including to my family, who he always asked about individually by name) as well as professionally. Michael followed by son Tomas's Little League baseball career and asked for annual updates at the annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools, mentored me through tenure, and helped me land the deanship at UC Davis (by calling the Chancellor and putting in a good word).

Michael was a wonderful scholar, including but not limited to immigration law. He once was this blog's Immigration Professor of the Year. The book Law Professor and Accidental Historian: The Scholarship of Michael A. Olivas (Editor Ediberto Román, 2017) brought together a group of scholars to analyze Michael's path-breaking scholarship. The publisher encapsulates the anthology as follows:

"Law Professor and Accidental Historian is a timely and important reader addressing many of the most hotly debated domestic policy issues of our times—immigration policy, education law, and diversity. Specifically, this book examines the works of one of the country's leading scholars—Professor Michael A. Olivas. Many of the academy's most respected immigration, civil rights, legal history, and education law scholars agreed to partake in this important venture, and have contributed provocative and exquisite chapters covering these cutting-edge issues. Each chapter interestingly demonstrates that Olivas's works are not only thoughtful, brilliantly written, and thoroughly researched, but almost every Olivas article examined has an uncanny ability to predict issues that policy-makers failed to consider. Indeed, in several examples, the book highlights ongoing societal struggles on issues Professor Olivas had warned of long before they came into being. Perhaps with this book, our nation's policy-makers will more readily read and listen closely to Olivas's sagacious advice and prophetic predictions." (bold added).

In an introduction to Accidental Historian, I offered some thoughts on how much Michael had done for so many, myself included. Here is that intro. Download Law Professor and Accidental Historian

Michael also worked for change. At great personal cost, he created the "Dirty Dozen" law schools without a Latina/o on the faculty. Michael recruited many Latina/os into legal academia. He mentored, advised, read drafts of articles, and much more for countless professors of color (myself included). Among many other service activities, Olivas helped lead an effort to file an amicus curiae brief on behalf of immigration law professors in the Supreme Court in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) case. As he was in that case, Olivas in my view was on the right side of the trajectory of history.

There no doubt will be many stirring tributes to Professor Michael Olivas in coming days. Many will miss him immensely. I sure will miss my guiding light and guardian angel. RIP Michael Olivas.

KJ

I was trying to recall the first time I met Michael. I wish I had his ability to remember details. I picture him doing that thing where he’d be talking with his hands but have his eyes squinted shut; I imagine he was trying to recall with photographic precision who was present at a meeting, who asked what question at a lecture, or the order of songs at a rock concert.
Unlike so many of my Latino/a/x colleagues in law teaching, I didn’t meet him when I was considering entering the profession or when I was on the job market. By a quirk of fate, I never went “officially” on the job market (aka the AALS’s meat market); instead, I tested the waters with letters to a dozen law schools the year I was clerking. By sheer accident (that’s another story), I landed the job at UCLA in 1993. Maybe the reason I had so many call-back interviews was because of Michael’s Dirty Dozen list. This was his annual list of the “top 12” law schools in cities with large Latino populations but zero Latino law professors. Granted, when I was hired UCLA’s faculty included Cruz Reynoso (1930-2021), former California Supreme Court Justice, but maybe they were a little ashamed to only have one or to have no female Hispanic professor in a city and state with so many Latinos. Certainly, I was helped because of affirmative action, since I was lucky enough to be hired prior to Prop. 209, the 1996 constitutional amendment that banned race and gender preferences in state higher education and employment. 
I probably met Michael at my first AALS annual meeting in January 1994. Michael would organize our Latino law professor dinners—he would find a restaurant in the host city, let us know the time and place, and then lead us in sharing news of the past year: who had gotten tenure, become a dean, new hires, etc. If we, Latinx law professors, had been formally organized [we never have been], Michael would have been our president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer all rolled into one. He mentored scores of Latinos seeking to become law professors, he counseled us as we went through the tenure process, through dean searches, and at every career stage. There are nearly 300 Latinx law professors today, and my guess is that Michael personally mentored 250 of us at one or more of those various stages. This is Michael the academic godfather.
Fourteen years my senior, Michael was like a young uncle (or much older brother) to me. We both hailed from New Mexico and bonded over green chile and flour tortillas (the latter never quite measured up in our new hometowns of Los Angeles and Houston). Michael graduated from the all-boys St. Pius X High School in Albuquerque in the late 1960s. His classmates included Ramón Gutiérrez (whose 1991 book When Jesus Came the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico, 1500-1846 transformed how we conceive New Mexico history) and Rubén Rumbaut (the Cuban American sociologist of immigration). After high school, he spent two (I think) years in the seminary. He would have made a great priest—I imagine him as a Jesuit professor who would have been one of the good guys in every sense, a beloved teacher, and a scholar.
Michael the scholar was at his best in 2004 when he convened a group of us, both scholars (law professors and historians) and practitioners (lawyers and judges) at the University of Houston to mark the 50th anniversary of Hernandez v. Texas. Thanks to Michael’s conference and the book that resulted in 2006—Colored Men and Hombres Aquí: Hernandez v. Texas and the Emergence of Mexican American Lawyering—this important case has been resurrected as essential reading in constitutional law, critical race theory, and race and the law courses. And Michael worked with filmmaker Carlos Sandoval in the early stages of the 2009 film A Class Apart that tells the story of Hernandez and the first Mexican American legal team at the Supreme Court.
When my six-year-old son Alejandro and I moved to New Mexico in 2002, I got to see another side of Michael and his wife Dr. Augustina Reyes. Michael and Tina both came from large families and were a beloved tía and tío to many biological nieces and nephews as well as godparents to others. During my second year back in New Mexico we lived in Santa Fe (in an amazing house near the plaza that was owned by the School for Advanced Research, were I was a fellow), and my son and I frequently hung out with Michael and Tina, who owned a home in Santa Fe. I appreciated them for the love and acceptance they showed Alejandro, who was a bit of a tough cookie. But those two always got him talking and engaged, master aunt and uncle that they were. Tina had been a radical teacher in Houston’s Huelga Schools in the early 1970s. Chicana/o activists organized parents to keep their children out of school to protest a farcical desegregation plan; thousands of Mexican American kids boycotted the public schools for months, instead attending alternative schools where Chicano history was taught. As a professor of education at the University of Houston, Tina carried out research on schooling inequality and unfair disciplinary policies.
Sometimes we visited Michael and Tina at their welcoming home, which was filled with Santa Fe style but also art and trinkets from their worldly travels. Other times, we would meet at Tecolote, a family-run Mexican restaurant where Michael would regale his guests in the dining room as if it were his personal living room. It never failed that people he knew would stop by to say hello—New Mexico políticos, scholars from around the country who had second homes in Santa Fe (does every anthropologist have a home in Santa Fe?), folks he knew from church.
Over the years, I enjoyed many wide-ranging conversations with Michael. We loved arguing about New Mexico politics and history; we never papered over our disagreements (about Bill Richardson and Reies Lopez Tijerina, for example), but we knew those disagreements didn’t define our friendship. I loved hearing about the latest concert he and Tina had attended; like me, he had eclectic tastes in music, from Abba to Freddy Fender. (I recall his hearty laugh when I told him the story of my father being mistaken for Fender one September when Fender was in town to perform at the New Mexico state fair.) In one of our last phone conversations, last fall, I told Michael about seeing the Rolling Stones at SoFi Stadium—just about my only indulgence during the pandemic years. We compared notes about our knee replacement surgery—mine in June 2021, and his upcoming in 2022. He reflected on retirement life after 38 years at the University of Houston and how it was great to be back in New Mexico full-time. As always, he told me how in love he was with his Tina.
Our professional lives crossed at various points, such as when he was a finalist in UCLA’s failed immigration law search in the late 1990s. I was on the dean search committee at UNM when Michael was one of four finalists (all people of color). I know Michael wrote outside reviews of my work at various times, for which I am grateful. Such letters are part of the unsung work we do as faculty, but I know from having read many of his letters for others and from general conversation that he wrote an inordinate number of such letters, whether for tenure or lateral moves. Michael was truly an equal-opportunity mentor; he was the dean of Latino law professors but he cultivated, recruited, and mentored scores of African American and Asian American colleagues as well and played a prominent role in the AALS Minority Groups Section as well, of course, as AALS President.
I honestly don’t know how Michael did it all. He was an expert in at least three distinct fields in which he published articles, books, and casebooks: immigration law and policy, higher education law, and Latinos and the law. Even to say it that way flattens it a bit, because each of those areas is trans-substantive and inter-disciplinary by nature. But Michael was no dilettante; he read deeply in all these areas and many more. He was a voracious reader. I know I am among many who, up until his retirement about a year ago, received packages from Michael--law review articles, peer-reviewed journal articles, sometimes an entire journal issue courtesy of Michael. There would always be a note of substance about the piece and how it might fit in with my new project or ongoing interest. I imagine the postage the University of Houston spent because Michael’s intellectual curiosity crossed with his generosity.
My colleague Pedro Malavet sent a photo around the day Michael died. It was from one of our Latino law professor gatherings (the AALS annual meeting in New York City in 2016) and shows Michael standing against the wall and Sandy Guerra Thompson and me in the shot. All three of us are smiling broadly, no doubt listening to one of our colleague’s annual updates. I will remember Michael at these events, holding court for those whom he loved and who loved him in back. One big embrace from the community he did so much to create.
Laura E. Gómez 4/23/22