Stetson University Dean Emeritus and Professor of Law Bruce Jacob ’59 received the Delano S. Stewart Diversity Award on April 29 in Tampa, Fla. Stetson Law graduate George Hunter ’99 presented Jacob the award during the George Edgecomb Bar Association 30th Annual Scholarship Banquet.

While serving as Stetson’s dean, Jacob greatly increased the number of minority full-time faculty members. In February, Jacob was named a Power 100 Advocate by On Being A Black Lawyer for his efforts to make the legal profession more racially diverse.

He has taught more than 20 different law courses since beginning his teaching career in 1965, and he continues to teach courses on constitutional law, administrative law, criminal law and criminal procedure at Stetson.

Jacob began his career in 1960 as an assistant state attorney general for the state of Florida. He represented the respondent in the landmark Supreme Court case of Gideon v. Wainwright in 1963. He founded the Legal Assistance for Inmates program in Atlanta and the Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project. In 2006, the members of the American Inn of Court in Tampa named their inn the Bruce R. Jacob Criminal Appellate Inn of Court.

The bar association’s namesake, Judge George E. Edgecomb, became the first African-American judge in Hillsborough County in 1973. Judge Glenda A. Hatchett, recognized as one of the “100 Best and Brightest Women in Corporate America” by Ebony magazine, presented the keynote address at the banquet.