Jewel Hairston Bell, Rights Activist

BOSTON - Jewel Hairston Bell, minority-rights activist and former University of Oregon administrator, has died of breast cancer at age 58.

Mrs. Bell was director of the Council for Minority Education at the University of Oregon.

She served on the Oregon Commission of Black Affairs under Gov. Vic Atiyeh and also was a member of the state Department of Education's Equal Educational Opportunity Review Committee.

She received a bachelor's degree with honors from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1953, majoring in social work and psychology. She also did graduate work at Case Reserve University and was the co-editor of ``The Black Woman Myths and Realities,'' published by Radcliffe College Press in 1978.

She held a minority education post at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., at the time of her death.

Her husband, former Oregon Law School Dean Derrick Bell, joined the Harvard Law School faculty in 1986 and became its first black tenured professor.

``She was very courageous,'' he said, ``but the eight years since the diagnosis took their toll.''

The family requests that contributions be made to the Jewel Hairston Bell Scholarship Fund in care of the University of Oregon.