Student lawyers sue
Harvard on hiring

Cambridge -- A band of Harvard Law School students, angry over the law school's lack of minority and female professors, arrived at Middlesex Superior Court at noon yesterday and followed through with their threat to sue their school.

"Today we use the only instrument of power Harvard Law School seems to understand. Today we take Harvard to court," said second-year law student John Bonifaz, one of 11 students to file the 38-page complaint.

The students, part of an activist group called the Harvard Law School Coalition for Civil Rights, allege in the suit that Harvard Law has been engaging in discriminatory hiring "to disproportionately exclude women and minority candidates for tenured and tenure-track appointments."

"The complaint does not have merit, and in due course we will submit a formal response to the Superior Court," Harvard Law School dean Robert C. Clark said in a statement. "The issue of diversity on the faculty is an important one, and the law school's record is strong." Clark pointed out that 45 percent of those hired in the past 10 years for tenured or tenure-track positions have been women or minorities.

But students have been protesting Harvard Law's lack of minority and female faculty members for the past year, whether in sit-ins at Clark's office or in demonstrations, such as one large gathering in the spring that included an appearance by Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Harvard professor Derrick A. Bell Jr., who stepped down from the school in protest over the lack of a black tenured woman on the faculty, joined the students yesterday and praised them for their suit.

"Make no mistake: These students are placing a number of career options on the line," Bell said, noting that the students used what they had learned at law school and put the lawsuit together when not in class or studying. "Their commitment is supported by a character of courage that the law school would do well to emulate."

Of the 66 professors currently at Harvard Law School, five are white tenured women, three are black tenured males and two are black males on the tenure track. There are no black women, Hispanic, Asian-American, Native American or openly gay or lesbian professors.

The students say that a tenured faculty that is predominantly white male leads to an overly narrow point of view. "Harvard is failing to educate us as lawyers" who must practice in an increasingly diverse world, said second-year student Linda Singer.

The lawsuit alleges outright discrimination by Harvard Law School in violation of Massachusetts state law and further alleges that the hiring practices injure women and minority students at Harvard because these students do not get called on by white male professors or are frequently offended by insensitive remarks.

The suit also cites recent court decisions that underscore the importance of diversity in institutions. One of those is the Supreme Court's conclusion this year, in the Metro Broadcasting Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission case, that minority ownership of media outlets is a worthwhile goal because it ensures that "varying perspectives" will get on the airwaves.

As to changes the students are seeking, Keith Boykin, a second-year student who has acted as a spokesman for the coalition of activist students, said Harvard has no written guidelines for hiring faculty members, so "the subjective nature of the policy allows the law school to do whatever it wants."

Also, Boykin asserted, there are several "implicit" requirements for faculty candidates, such as going to a prestigious school, being on a law review or being a clerk for a Supreme Court justice, "that have nothing to do with whether you can be a good teacher."

Clark has consistently said it is difficult to hire minority faculty members because there is not a sufficient pool of qualified candidates. Clark has said the law school cannot compromise its high standards in considering candidates, even in the name of creating diversity.

"The diversity vs. quality argument is a smoke screen to obscure the fact that these schools' faculties remain predominantly white and male and that the quality of their teaching and scholarship covers a wide range from excellent to abysmal," said Bell.

"The diversity vs. quality argument is also intended to deflect attention from the schools' time-honored hiring and promotional practices that are vague, inscrutable and indeterminate, serving less the ends of excellence than the replication of persons - mostly white, mostly male, mostly upper class - who are already there," Bell said.

Other law schools around the country are under fire on the score of minority faculty hiring, including Yale, Stanford, Columbia, the University of Michigan and the University of California at Berkeley. Student groups have been active on all those campuses.

PHOTO, GLOBE STAFF PHOTO/GEORGE RIZER: "Keith Boykin, a second-year student at Harvard Law School, speaks at a news conference yesterday. At right is Derrick A. Bell Jr."