After a career as a university history professor for many years, Patrick J. Gilpin was admitted to the Texas State Bar and began practicing law in 1980. While still a history professor, he became a named plaintiff in the class action suit, Sanders v. Ellington, 288 F. Supp. 937 (1968), which successfully sought to preserve Tennessee State University, a historically black school, and direct the state of Tennessee to apply the decision in Brown v. Board of Education to higher education. The experience kindled in him a lifelong interest in constitutional and civil rights law. Since becoming a lawyer, he has tried more than 150 cases to judgment, prosecuted more than 40 appeals with the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and filed Writs of Certiorari with the United States Supreme Court. Gilpin's practice today is mostly in the Federal court system in the area of civil rights where he represents employees.

Patrick J. Gilpin has maintained an active interest in the study of history. In 2003 he published a biography of Charles S. Johnson with Marybeth Gasman of the University of Pennsylvania.

Why Not?

"Some men see things as they are and ask, "why?" I dream things that never were and ask "why not?"
- - Robert Francis Kennedy