Tribe to Lead Search for Dean

The six-member Law School faculty committee to recommend a replacement for Dean James Vorenberg '49 last week selected Tyler Professsor of Constitutional Law Laurence H. Tribe '62 as its chairman, Tribe said yesterday.

The committee will recommend candidates for the dean's post to President Bok, who will make the final selection sometime next year. Tribe said the committee plans to meet at least once a week throughout the summer and to meet with Bok for the first time today.

The committee was elected by the faculty at a meeting on May 12, two weeks after Vorenberg announced he would resign after the 1988-89 academic year. Dean search committees have traditionally been appointed by the outgoing dean, but in compliance with a 1984 faculty resolution, this committee was the first such board in Law School history elected by the faculty.

Although some faculty members have expressed concern that the committee will not work well because it represents such a wide spectrum of political views on the faculty, Tribe said that there were no problems at the committee's first meeting on May 17 and that he expected the members to continue to work well together.

"We've made a good deal of progress and I don't anticipate any problems," Tribe said yesterday. He would not elaborate.

The other members of the committee. Professor of Law Robert C. Clark, Professor of Law Gerald E. Frug, Professor of Law David W. Kennedy, Cromwell Professor of Law David L. Shapiro '54, and Fessenden Professor of Law Bernard Wolfman, were not available or would not comment yesterday.

In the past, the faculty members on the committee have differred in their views on Critical Legal Studies (CLS), a radical school of legal thought which holds that the law is not concerned with abstract values but instead reflects social and economic trends. Frug, Kennedy and Tribe were outspoken in their support of CLS adherent Assistant Professor of Law Clare Dalton's unsuccessful tenure bid. Clark has been one of the most vocal opponents of CLS at the Law School.

Tribe said he would not comment on specific deliberations of the committee but added "it's a matter of public record that the President of the University is ultimately interested in looking at every possible option, and that includes people both inside and outside the Law School." The Law School traditionally looks to its own faculty for its dean.

Tribe said he did not expect his work on the committee and his role as chairman to interfere with his teaching in the fall. He added that his selection as chairman "doesn't mean a great deal." He said his role will be primarily to conduct the meetings.

No specific timetable has been announced for the selection process.