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78 Harv. L. Rec. 1 (1984)

handle is hein.journals/hlrec78 and id is 1 raw text is: 49RAR 495 RE-CORD America's Oldest Law School Newspaper FEBRUARY 10, 1984 25 CENTS ILs Urge Grade-Blind Law Review By Beth Bergman The Harvard Law Review is once again under fire, but this time its assailants are 60% of the first-year class. Members of the Class of 1986 are circulating the following peti. tion: We the undersigned iLs pledge to withhold our first-year grades from consideration by the Harvard Law Review if 75% or more of the class of 1986 signs the pe- tition. The short petition is designed to undermine the grade-based track in the controversial two-track se- lection process for eligibility for the Harvard Law Review. The grade-based track precedes the annual fall writing competition for second-year students. Typically, four or five students from each sec- tion are chosen after first-year ex- ams conclude, and approximately 20 more are elected to the Law Re- view based on an intensive two- stage research and writing com- petition. The originators of the petition, Susan Keller and Carol Steiker, do not want their eligibility for Har- vard Law Review to be judged on grades, but rather on criteria that are more relevant to journal-writ- ing. These include research, writing, and, perhaps most importantly, an expression of desire and commit- ment to do the job. Keller criticized the system for its unbalanced bestowal of Law Re- view membership on a few select students who have no input in the (Continued on Page 15) Madtlne Th.oa First-year students caucus to discuss Law Review selection and con- troversial no-grade petition. Workig Class Students Find AdjustmentDifficult By Mike Isbell For a small but distinct minority of Harvard law students, enrolling here requires more than the stan- dard degree of coping with new sur- roundings. These students must deal with an alien environment which often ignores their own cul- tural experiences. Sometimes I feel myself trans- lating to try to hear people and speak to people who come from privileged backgrounds in class terms, said Muhammad Kenyatta, 3L, who grew up in an inner city working class neighborhood. There is a sense of foreignness. Kenyatta and others who were raised in working class surround- 983 BY THE HARVARD LAW SCHOOL RECORD CORPORATI ings are strangers to much of what happens at HLS. Their interests here are unrepresented by any stu- dent organization. Their concerns and perspectives are often ignored in the classroom. When you get here, an assump- tion among most of the faculty and your fellow students is that you are of middle class stock, said Paul DiDonato, a second-year student who comes from a working class neighborhood in south Philadelphia. That assumption and all the as- sumptions that flow out of that shapes those individuals' reactions toward you, You are out of sync when you come from a long history of a working class family and when (Continued on Page 13) VOL. 78, NO. I

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