About
Bruce Quan is a fifth-generation Chinese American, attorney, and former law professor. As a student, Quan was a leader among Asian American student strikers in the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF) strike at UC Berkeley. Quan became involved in the TWLF strikes in 1969 through his involvement in the Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA), which partnered with the Afro-American Studies Union (AASU), the Mexican-American Student Confederation (MASC), and the Native American Student Alliance to form the Third World Liberation Front coalition. When the university first suspended the strike leaders, Quan was asked to step into a leadership role on behalf of the Asian American student strikers. Through this role, Quan became one of four student leaders who negotiated with the UC Berkeley administration on behalf of the TWLF strikers which ended the TWLF strike and brought about the establishment of the Department of Ethnic Studies in 1970. After the department had been established, Quan was asked to draft a plan for a Third World College. This was one of the original demands of the strike, the creation of a Third World College, which would provide a liberatory education by and for communities of color. During its formative years, the Department of Ethnic Studies was managed by students, and Quan became one of the first Asian American Studies instructors at UC Berkeley.
After obtaining his bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley, in Sociology, Zoology, and Asian American Studies, Quan went to UC Berkeley School of Law. Quan served as the general counsel of the Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA) for a period of time and as the interim City Attorney for Alameda. Driven by his passion for advancing civil rights, Quan co-founded the law firm Katz, Quan, and Kors dedicated to defending the rights of LGBTQ+ community members. From the late 1990s until his retirement, he worked as a visiting and adjunct law professor at Peking University Law School and UC Hastings College of Law, commuting between Beijing and California. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Quan authored the book, Bitter Roots, chronicling his family’s experience of systemic racism from 1850 to the present. Quan currently resides in Oakland, California.