Law Students Across U.S. Demonstrate for More Minority Faculty Members
Law students at USC, UCLA and other schools throughout California and the nation held rallies Thursday to protest what they said is a lack of minorities on law school faculties.
About 100 USC law students gathered in front of the school’s Law Center on Thursday to encourage increased recruitment of minority faculty there and nationwide. The law school’s full-time faculty of 39 includes eight white women and one black man.
UCLA Law School spokesman Ted Hulbert said about 100 students attended a rally there. Next fall, the school will have six minorities among its 53 tenured and tenure-track faculty members, Hulbert said.
At the Boalt Hall School of Law at UC Berkeley, about 75 students carried signs through halls reading “This Is Not A White-Only Club” and “Boycott Justice,” prompting some professors to come out of classrooms and complain about the noise.
At Harvard University about 125 students held a peaceful “study-in” in a law school hallway. Harvard Law School has 61 tenured faculty members; six are women and three are blacks.
UC Davis students scheduled a rally and an afternoon boycott of classes. The 29-member faculty there has no minority members. But university spokesman David Ong said this is the first time in 15 years that there have been no minorities on the law school faculty.
Women and minorities make up about 25% of the nation’s law school faculties, according to one estimate.
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