Chicano Lawyers Will Hold First Forum

The first Chicano Lawyers Symposium on the East Coast will be held at the Harvard Law School on Thursday and Friday, addressing itself to the legal, social, economic and educational problems of the Chicano community.

Five lawyers-including Cruz Reynoso, director of the California Rural Legal Assistance; James De Anda, a school desegregation litigator in Texas; Vicente T. Ximenes, commissioner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; Mario Obledo, general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund; and William Higgs '58, personal counsel to Reies Lopez Tijerina-will participate in the Symposium, which is open to the public.

Although there are only about 80 Chicano law students in Boston, including 14 at the Law School, the Chicano Law Students Association is presenting the Symposium to help educate the University on the situation of the nation's second largest minority. "Many of the Chicano Law students became aware of the 'innocent ignorance,' and lack of knowledge concerning their people when they first came to the University," a spokesman for the Association said.

Of the 14 Chicanos at the Law School, nine are in the first year. Only one Chicano has graduated from the Law School, according to the Association spokesman. The Law School has not confirmed or denied this.

As head of the California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA), Reynoso helped to coax $200 million from the state government of California to supplement inadequate or nonexistent welfare payments for needy families.

Reynoso will discuss the CRLA as well as the socio-economic condition of migrant farm workers in California, most of whom are Chicanos.

Texas

De Anda, a Texas lawyer, has worked on a substantial number of civil rights cases involving racial and ethnic discrimination in his home state. One of the first lawyers in Texas to bring de facto segregation school cases to court, De Anda will discuss his civil rights experience in Texas.

Higgs - who represented James Meredith in his battle to gain admittance to the University of Mississippi - has been the legal counsel to Tijerina's Alianza Federal De Pueblos Libres since 1968. Tijerina - perhaps one of the most controversial Chicano leaders - has claimed that 100,000,000 acres of New Mexico's common lands belong to Indo-Hispano people of the Southwest.

Higgs will discuss the land grants issue, as well as Tijerina's status with the courts concerning an October 1966 case against the Forest Raugers and the Tierra Amarilla Courthouse Raid of June, 1967.

As Commissioner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Ximenes will discuss job discrimination against blacks, Chicanos, and women.