HLS Students Protest Lack of Hispanic Profs

As professors gathered inside Pound Hall yesterday afternoon to promote a Black and a woman to the Law School's senior faculty, about 50 law students gathered outside to protest the school's lack of a Hispanic faculty member.

The protest, sponsored by Alianza, the school's Hispanic student group, marked the group's first public demonstration against the Law School's hiring policies.

"It's a matter of trying to highlight the fact that there are no Hispanics in the faculty. The message is, 'It's okay for Latinos to be students, but they are not good enought to be professors,'" said Alianza Co-Chair Ana Maria Salazar.

Although there are no Hispanics on the law faculty, Hispanic students comprise about 6 percent of the school's student body.

Alianza plans to participate in a national minority group protest on April 6 that will include over 30 law schools, said James Vigil, a third-year student. Stanford, Chicago and Yale are among the law schools whose minority groups are participating.

Vigil said Harvard Law students will protest in the form of a "study-in," but that students at other schools may hold different types of demonstrations, including strikes.

Professor of Law Derrick A. Bell, who led a sit-in in 1987 to protest the denial of tenure to Critical Legal Studies adherent Clare Dalton, said the nationwide protest promised to be be "very effective."

"If you want to get a point across, you just have to do things to disrupt business as usual," said Bell, who is one of two Blacks currently holding lifetime posts at the school. "It's very important to keep reminding those who have policymaking power," he said.

Bell said it is "the school's responsibility to recruit Hispanic professors...Not many have been asked." He cited Stanford Professor of Law Gerald Lopez as the only professor offered a post in recent years. "But he turned it down and went over to Stanford," said Bell.

Professor of Law Robert C. Clark, who will succeed outgoing Dean James Vorenberg '49 this July, said the students' message "is certainly getting through."

"I intend to do all I can about it," he said.

Alianza, which organized the protest this Tuesday, has been actively publicizing its cause in the past two weeks, Salazar said.