Ferguson's Legacy

Last spring, as they staged a four-hour sit-in at the Law School's Griswold Hall, 200 or so law students got into a heated debate over tactics: Should they demand immediate easy reforms or push or deeper, more basic long-term changes at the school?

Following the advice of the late C. Clyde Ferguson, the Law School's only Black tenured professor, the students resisted the temptation to claim a quick victory and have held out for the more difficult underlying issues.

The death of the Stimson Professor of Law the week before Christmas leaves law student activists, particularly minority students, without the leadership of perhaps the only faculty member they fully trusted. Ferguson's accessibility and his sane advice will be sorely missed as student activists continue to push for the hiring of minority faculty members, increased student input on Law School administration, curriculum changes, and other weighty reforms.

In addition, Ferguson's efforts on the inside will not soon be duplicated. He served on the faculty's minority search committee as an energetic proponent of changed hiring criteria. Through his position on the admissions committee, he was one of the main reasons for the Law School's admirable percentage of minority students. In addition, he served as a progressive force on the board of directors of numerous organizations.

Ferguson's very competence and his activism often obscured the still pressing need for more minority professors at the Law School; as an involved and highly respected scholar on human rights, affirmative action, and the new international economic order, he transcended the ugly word "token." The Law Faculty should take his death not as a setback but as an inspiration to carry out the reforms he endorsed.