WAIT AND SEE

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

In the midst of obvious prosperity (reflected in new buildings, new professorships, etc.), Harvard Law School has proceeded cautiously on essential questions of purpose and principle. Its only recent addition to the first year curriculum is a semester of legal history which -- like the five other first year courses -- is compulsory. The second year curriculum continues to require courses in taxation, corporations, and accounting ... Proposals to increase emphasis on legal writing and argumentation, and to de-emphasize year-end examinations, have borne no fruit. Student contact with local attorneys, city government agencies and courts is almost non-existent. Experimentation -- innovation -- is left for the most part to other law schools, notably Stanford and Yale. . . .

The recent dispute over alleged discriminatory law firm hiring practices reveals another aspect of the Law School's "wait and see" attitude. The director of the placement office at the Law School has said that nothing can be done to erase patterns of prejudice. Students who found such a response unsatisfactory are seeking to require law firms to sign a statement pledging compliance to the Massachusetts law prohibiting discriminatory hiring practices. The problem of discrimination cuts deeper than local law. It may well involve factors within the profession that the Law School doesn't wish to take on. Clearly, Harvard has the power, should it choose to exercise it, to move the Legal Establishment to more than token compliance. It could well take the lead in denying the use of its facilities for hiring purposes to firms that after careful investigation are found to reject applicants on the basis of race, religion, or sex. Harvard could act -- if it wished to.

This letter is not an appeal for specific action, either for curriculum modernization or for confrontation of job discrimination. It is intended to question the prevailing thinking, which turns on a "wait and see" response. Such a response is hardly appropriate at Harvard Law School, where justly-earned prestige could provide support for the exercise of innovative leadership. David L. Kirp