![handle is hein.journals/hlrec91 and id is 1 raw text is: rvard
Law
Record
Volume 91, No. 1 America's Oldest Law School Newspaper September 14, 1990
Clark Moves To Bolster Public Interest Programs;
EPIC Pleased, But Vows To Keep On Fighting
By Paul Tarr
Following a year of student
protest, Dean Robert Clark '72
this summer appointed a fac-
ulty public interest director and
created the first independent
public interest placement office
in HLS history.
The decision, announced in
an August 30 open letter to the
student body, seemed designed
to allay student concern over
the availability of public inter-
est career counseling and to
put to rest a year-old campus
controversy that had exploded
into a national issue.
As significant. as the moves
are, they still fall short of a full
implementation of the recom-
mendations of the student-
faculty Public InterestAdvisory
Committee (PIAC). PIAC, cre-
ated by the dean in the wake of
student protests last fall, rec-
ommended that HLS hire a
second public interest career
counselor as well as create a
mandatory clinical course on
some aspect of public interest
law.-The committee also en-
dorsed a pro bono requirement
as a second alternative to a
required clinical course.
PIAC was created to examine
ways in which HLS could en-
courage more graduates to take
public interestjobs. Currently,
nine out of ten HLS graduates
take jobs in law firms while a
recent study indicated 93 per-
cent of the legal needs of the
poor go unmet.
The dean has not ruled out
Professor Charles Ogletree '78 at t
rally on September 19,1989, that k
student protest against Dean Clar
the public interest placement pos
since created a new Public InterestI
implementing the remainder of
the PIAC' recommendations.
Instead he has said he will
submit them to the full faculty
for discussion.
Clark's reforms have won
cautious praise from a number
of students and faculty mem-
bers, who nevertheless vowed
to keep fighting for the other
recommendations.
We must remember that
students collectively shed
hundreds of pounds of sweat
fighting for these changes, said
Sand y
Hauser, 3L, a
leader of the
Emergency
Public Inter-
est Coalition
(EPIC), which
organized the
protest drive.
J Every stu-
dent on this
campus de-
serves to cel-
ebrate.
Neverthe-
less, we now
prefer to look
to the future
rather than
dwell on the
past, Hauser
added. With
that in mind,
we find Dean
Clark's deci-
sion ex-
he public interest tremely en-
fcked offayearof couraging
k's elimination of and we look
itIon. Clark has forward to
Placement Offee. having a con-
structive relationship with him
this year in order to implement
the other changes called for by
the committee.
Hauser, who served on the
PIAC committee, explained that
counseling was only one of
several areas the school needed
to improve on in order to en-
courage more graduates to take
public interest jobs. Curricu-
lar changes and an endowment
for LIPP are just as important.
We cannot look at counseling
in isolation, because counsel-
By Linda Popejoy
Prof. Derrick Bell officially
began his unpaid leave of ab-
sence last week as about 100
students held a silent vigil in
support of diversity outside the
first faculty meeting.
In the meantime, Dean Rob-
ert Clark'72 said in an interview
that under HLS rules Bell will
automatically lose his profes-
sorship in two years unless he
returns to the faculty.
Clark also said the protests
last year would have no effect
on the upcoming faculty deci-
sion to extend tenure to Prof.
Regina Austin.
If the faculty does tenure
Austin, a black woman who
was a visiting professor last
year, Bell's leave would effec-
tively end and he would return
tothefaculty. Clarkdidnotsay
when Austin, who has returned
to her tenured position at Penn,
would be considered.
ing alone will not solve the pub-
lic interest crisis at this law
school.
PIAC member and law lecturer
Gerry Singsen echoed the note
ofstudent support. He asserted
that the school today is moving
much more assertively and
consciously on behalf of public
interest concerns than any of
Continued on back page
Michigan Students Ask For HLS' Support
In New Boycott Of Baker And McKenzie
By (Geozge Paul
The law firm Baker &
McKenzie once again finds it-
self embroiled in an interview
controversywith a law student,
and several student groups at
HLS have been asked to boy-
cott the firm when it comes on
campus to interview this fall.
A coalition of student organi-
zations from Michigan Law
School is appealing for the
boycott after Baker& McKenzie
took the unusual step of refus-
ing to interview at Michigan
this year to protest the school's
finding that a hiring partner-
made inappropriate remarks
to a woman law student.
According to the student,
hiring partner Arthur Rovine
began questionning her about
her professional interest in
Japan during an on-campus
interview last fall. She stated
that Rovine asked her what her
parents' reaction would be to
her living in Japan for an ex-
tended period. He suggested
that her father would be upset
because ofa fear that she would
marry a Japanese man. He
then asked whether she would
consider marrying a Japanese
man. When she replied that
she thought the question was
irrelevant, he volunteered that
she wouldn't oppose the idea.
The dean of the Michigan law
school, Lee Bollinger, and three
administrators had conducted
a six-month investigation into
the allegation. At the end they
concluded the student's ver-
sion of events was true.
The school, however, declined
to sanction the firm saying the
comments were not of such a
character as to constitute
egregious misconduct. Al-
though they were insensitive,
there is no indication that they
represent any improper policy
or practice of the firm or the
intreviewer.
In a letter to Dean Lee
Bollinger, Baker hiring partner
Robert Dilworth wrote, The
interviewer and the firm will
not and cannot accept respon-
sibility for charges which are
entirely untrue... [The]
student's credibility is open to
the most serious doubt. Your
conclusion is wrong, and you
have done a grave injustice to
the interviewer and the firm.
In response, the firm said it
would boycott recruiting at
Michigan.
A letter signed by six student
leaders at Michigan said their
school'is a victim of a lock-out.
Rather than choosing to con-
front the firm's poor recruit-
ment practices and employ-
ment policies, Baker &
McKenzie has chosen to con-
front the law school's anti-dis-
crimination policy.
Their strategy is to isolate
Michigan - to punish it for
taking the concerns of its stu-
dents seriously - while con-
tinuing to reap its yearly sup-
ply of bright young graduates
from the nation's other top law
schools - like yours.
Baker & McKenzie's chal-
lenge to our Dean's findings is
a challenge to the validity of all
policies which take a stand
against racist-. sexist,
homophobic, and anti-Semetic
recruitment and employment
practices ... By taking a united
stand this year, we will make
Baker & McKenzie think twice
next year before thumbing its
nose at equal access, equal
opportunity, and equaljustice.
Letters have been sent to the
HLS Black Law Students Asso-
ciation, the HLS Asian Ameri-
can Law Students Association,
La Alianza, the National Law-
yers Guild, the Woman Law
Students Association, and the
Jewish Law Students Associa-
tion.
Last year. Baker & McKenzie's
presence at Harvard and many
other law schools was protested
by students after the firm ad-
mitted that one of its inter-
viewers had made improper
remarks to a black law student
at University of Chicago law
school.
The Chicago student was
asked by a Baker & McKenzie
partner, who is no longer with
the firm, how she would react
* Continued on page 11
Most people liked Austinvery
much, Clark said. She was a
good colleague. Most were sorry
she unwillingly became the fo-
cus of the controversy. How-
ever, that shouldn't have an
effect on any hiring decision.
Clark added: A woman of
color will be hired. It's just a
matter of when.
At the vigil, students from the
Coalition for Civil Rights (CCR)
seemed intent on making sure
that hiring is sooner rather than
later. After one professor
walked by and stuck his fist in
the air, CCR member John
Bonifaz proclaimed: We are
back, we are serious, and we
are as strong as ever.
Bell decided to take his leave
in late April to support student
efforts to increase diversity on
the HLS faculty. He has said he
will not return until the law
school extends a tenured offer
to a woman of color.
Currently. HLS has three
blacks on its 65-person tenured
faculty. The tenured faculty
Includes no Latinos, Asian-
Americans, Native Americans,
openly gay or lesbians, or dif-
ferently-abled persons.
Last semester several dozen
students from the CCR twice
held all-night sit-ins in the
Clark's outer office to protest
the lack of diversity. Clark re-
portedly was set to have the
students arrested until a group
of professors intervened.
The protests and subsequent
decision by Bell attracted na-
tional media attention, Includ-
ing a front-page story in the
The New York Times andea
lengthy segment on The McNeil-
Lehrer News Hour.
In an interview this week with
the RECORD, Bell summed up
his philosophy by saying, You
haven't lived unless you've
taken risks forwhatyou believe.
Taking risks is it's own re-
ward. Sometimes you're right,
sometimes you're wrong.
Sometimes it pressures change,
but most of the time it does not.
But the enhancement of the
spirit makes it worthwhile.
This fall, Bell is teaching his
popular seminar Civil Rights at
the Crossroads without credit
or grades to a group of about 20
students.
Bell believes that continued
student insistence, and not
his symbolic protest will bring
a woman of color to the tenured
Continued on back page
Placement Office .. ....................... 3
Fenno .................................................. 4
Restaurant Guide...................... 5
Professor Derrick Bell, 1990-91:
The Spirit Of Protest Continues
I I](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/hlrec91&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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