Black Law Students End Dean's Office Sit-In

The 50 Black law students who Tuesday occupied the office of Law School Dean James Vorenberg '49 ended their demonstration yesterday afternoon, after reaching a settlement that protest leaders said addressed their concerns about minority representation on the faculty.

The demonstrators yesterday afternoon spilled out of the dean's office--where they had been camped for nearly 24 hours--to a rally at Harkness Commons. At the rally, leaders of the Black Law Students Association (BLSA) announced that they were pleased with the progress made in a morning meeting with Vorenberg and Associate Dean Andrew L. Kaufman '51 and would not return to the office.

"The sit-in is over for now," Robert D. Wilkins, BLSA president, said at a rally yesterday afternoon. "We've accomplished what we can."

Under the terms of the settlement, announced by Vorenberg yesterday at a faculty meeting and released as a statement, the dean said he will act on the proposals made by the protesters that were "consistent with the school's long-standing policy of increasing the numbers of minority members of the profession."

Specifically, Vorenberg said the school agreed to:

.examine the possibility of creating a graduate fellowship to encourage minority students to teach law;

.ask Byrne Professor of Administrative Law Clark Byse to advise minority students interested in teaching law;

.address concerns of minority professors about living in the Boston area, and "continue to give high priority to minority hiring";

.consider ways to increase student involvement in faculty appointments, without allowing students to sit on appointment committees.

At the rally, Wilkins said, "We put together 12 demands which will institutionalize their commitment. In negotiations with [Vorenberg] and Dean Kaufman, we got them to agree to take specific action on seven of those 12 demands."

While the sit-in had been marked by the unusual cooperation between protesters and adminstrators--with the dean's secretary showing protesters how to use the office coffee machine--Vorenberg "regretted that the students had sat in, even if only briefly, since they had met together a month ago with the dean and some faculty and had agreed on an ongoing process," the statement said.

And in an interview yesterday, Vorenberg said the terms of the agreement were not the result of pressure from the protest, but rather the reiteration of the Law School's existing commitment to improve minority representation on the faculty.

"I don't think it was a compromise because I think we're all looking towards the same goals," Vorenberg said. "We have a special search committee for minorities. We already have a requirement that the appointments committee report every year to the faculty on the prospects for the hiring of women and minorities."

Kaufman agreed, saying "It was more a recapitulation of the discussion of what could be done."

However, five of the BLSA demands that called on the school to meet specific minority hiring goals--including the appointment of Professor of Law Derrick Bell as Vorenberg's successor--were dismissed in the settlement. "Matters related to specific faculty appointments are confidential and could not be discussed," Vorenberg said in the statement.

In addition to the promotion of Bell, the protesters had asked that the Law School hire 20 minority professors in the next four years, appoint a Black female professor by next year and extend a tenure offer to Visiting Professor of Law from Practice Charles J. Ogletree Jr.

"The dean expressed concern about setting specific goals," Wilkins said at a press conference after the rally. "That's a vague, ridiculous position for an administrator to take."

After the protesters moved their demonstration from Vorenberg's office to the doors of yesterday's faculty meeting at Pound Hall, Wilkins and two other BLSA representatives spoke to the professors for about a half-hour. According to Bell, who was at the meeting, the students were applauded for their arguments.

Bell said that one professor complained that the presentation by the students was not on the agenda.

The nearly 50 BLSA members began the "study-in" at the dean's office Monday afternoon and spent the night there, demanding immediate action on the 12 proposals they submitted to him.

When the dean's staff returned, they found an office largely unscathed.

While Vorenberg said that he regretted that the BLSA staged a sit-in and Byse said he was saddened "that society has developed so that law students think that this is necessary," BLSA leaders said they thought the sit-in was necessary to make the faculty act.

"The dean was somewhat disappointed that we felt that we had to sit-in to make progress," Wilkins said. "The dean will say he didn't think a sit-in was necessary, but some of the things he agreed to today he rebuffed a month ago in [another] meeting."

And Bell, who spent much of Monday night with the demonstrators, said that the sit-in worked as a protest.

"Any time you can get people to put their bottoms where their brains are, it's a success," Bell said about the protest.

Bell also said he thought the principles articulated in the BLSA demands might resurface at later faculty meetings, though the faculty might not attribute their origin to the BLSA sit-in.

"There is a substantial amount of faculty support for the proposals," Bell said. "People who have policymaking power often take action that they do not want to attribute to" student protests, he added.

Vorenberg said in the interview that the morning meeting with BLSA had made him more aware of their views on minority hiring.

"I think I have a somewhat stronger understanding of what issues are particularly important," Vorenberg said.

Wilkins said at the rally that BLSA had only started in their campaign for more minority representation, and that it was important the organization continue to work through the summer and next fall.

"The next step is to follow through on the seven demands that were agreed to by the dean," Wilkins said. "When we know where the faculty stand, we will know what to do next. We expect the faculty to act on the five proposals over the summer or early fall."

For more coverage, see tomorrow's edition.