A Three-Year Dispute

April 19, 1985: The Harvard Law School appointments committee refuses to recommend Assistant Professor of Law Clare Dalton for tenure. The seven-member committee split evenly three ways: two supporting tenure, two opposing, and two asking for a two-year postponement before considering her for tenure.

May 2, 1985: By a tight vote--said to be just more than the required two-thirds majority--the faculty votes, to grant Dalton a two-year extension rather than deny her tenure immediately.

May 6, 1987: Dalton is denied tenure by the Law School faculty, making her the second tenure track professor in 17 years to be denied a promotion, and the third Critical Legal Studies (CLS)-affiliated professor to have their tenure bid blocked by either Bok or the faculty. Although she receives a 29-20 vote of the faculty supporting her promotion, Dalton falls four votes shy of the two-thrids majority necessary for approval. Dalton says at the time that she will ask Bok to review the case, charging that the faculty discriminated against her because she is a woman and is affiliated with CLS.

The week of July 13, 1987: President Bok says that he will personally review the Dalton case. He says the he may convene a committee, which would include outside scholars, to then review his own resolution of the matter.

July 23, 1987: Dalton's attorney, Nancy Gertner, says Dalton will sue the University on the grounds of political and gender discrimination unless Harvard reverses the faculty's vote and grants the junior professor tenure.

Mid-August, 1987: Bok announces his plan to send the initial review by outside scholars--which was favorable--plus critiques of her work from three members of the faculty who oppose her tenure, back to those scholars to determine whether he should further review the case.

October 30, 1987: Dalton files a gender discrimination suit in Massachusetts court against the Law School, saying she would withdraw it if the review proved favorable. Dalton says she initiated the legal action to protect her right to sue, since state law requires that gender discrimination suits must be filed within six months of the alleged discriminatory act.

Late December, 1987: After receiving the results of the second review by the original group of outside experts, Bok announces that he will convene a new group of outside legal experts to review all of the evidence since the beginning of the Dalton dispute, and to hear testimony from faculty members.

March 6, 1988: The committee of outside scholars meets for more than seven hours, hearing statements from colleagues of Dalton's and then deliberating on the merits of Dalton's tenure for nearly three hours. President Bok participates in the discussions.

March 9, 1988: President Bok releases a memo to the Law School faculty stating his decison, after discussing the matter with the committee, that a consensus has been reached that Dalton's "record was not sufficient to merit tenure."