UC Berkeley Names Law School Dean

UC Berkeley on Thursday named prominent Harvard University civil rights scholar Christopher Edley Jr. as dean of its Boalt Hall, making him the first African American to lead a top-ranked U.S. law school.

A Clinton administration official who helped fashion the former president’s “mend it, don’t end it” position on affirmative action, Edley was named to the post nearly a year after the previous dean’s resignation over a sexual harassment complaint.

Edley, 50, said Thursday that he was delighted with his appointment and excited at the prospect of working at UC Berkeley and in California, which he called ground zero in the nation’s dramatic demographic shift to a multiethnic society.

A founder of Harvard’s Civil Rights Project, Edley also said that one of his priorities would be to establish a West Coast version of the research center at UC Berkeley. The Harvard center is dedicated to studying issues of race and social justice.

The new dean, who will take his position in July, is the first leader to be chosen from outside Boalt since the middle of the last century. He will arrive at a school roiled in recent years by complaints that it has not done enough to maintain racial or ethnic diversity among students and that it has too few female faculty members.

Minority Admissions

With the statewide ban on affirmative action in 1996, the law school saw its numbers of admitted black and Latino students plummet. Although the figures have rebounded among Latinos, critics note that the number of minorities is still not representative of the state’s overall population.

Edley, a Harvard faculty member since 1981, said his new job’s challenges -- from the state’s potentially devastating budget crisis to UC’s inability to use affirmative action -- made it all the more appealing to him.

“The fact that the school and university face fiscal pressures means that it’s a tough job and that is part of the attraction,” Edley said in a conference call with reporters Thursday. And maintaining diversity at UC Berkeley in the absence of affirmative action, he said, “is an absolutely critical challenge.”

Edley, who serves on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, served as a special counsel to President Clinton, overseeing the administration’s review of affirmative action policies. He is a top advisor to Howard Dean’s presidential campaign, and served in the Carter administration as the assistant director of the White House domestic policy staff. He will resign from the Dean campaign before July.

Edley, whose father was the longtime head of the United Negro College Fund, said he was attracted by the idea of working at a top public research university. He said he wants to use the intellectual capital there to help address society’s most significant issues, from racial tensions to budget shortfalls.

“A great public law school should be immediately and powerfully engaged in tackling the toughest problems that are facing the public and the private sector in California, the nation and the world,” he said. “And I think Boalt is poised to play that role in a way that will stand out.”

While Edley is a strong proponent of affirmative action, his research interests extend beyond his primary focus on racial and social justice to include administrative law and the role of law in public policy issues.

The appointment, which was the culmination of a nine-month search that produced 180 candidates, was warmly welcomed by Boalt Hall faculty members and students. It was also praised -- with regret -- by several of Edley’s Harvard colleagues.

“It’s the best thing to happen to the state of California in quite a long time,” said Lawrence Tribe, Harvard law professor and constitutional scholar. “It’s wonderful news for Boalt Hall Law School, and very sad for Harvard and for me.”

Edley, Tribe said, will be a creative and energetic dean at Boalt and is likely to find new visibility for his views, which Tribe described as “progressive and politically sensitive at the same time.”

Fellow Harvard Law professor C. Lani Guinier also said Harvard’s loss is Boalt’s gain. “He’s going to be doing something new and bold and he’s exactly the right person for this job,” Guinier said.

In 2003, Harvard ranked No. 3 in the widely consulted U.S. News & World Report rankings of top law schools; Boalt tied for seventh with three other schools.

At UC Berkeley, Chancellor Robert M. Berdahl said the appointment was one of singular importance to the campus and underlines the public university’s commitment to top-quality leadership in issues of social justice and the law.

As word of the appointment spread Thursday, Berdahl said he was receiving congratulatory e-mails from across the campus.

Edley will succeed John P. Dwyer, who resigned abruptly in November 2002 after a former student accused him of sexual harassment. Boalt Hall law professor Robert Berring will continue to serve as interim dean until Edley arrives on campus July 1, university officials said.

Scholarly Values

Jesse Choper, a Boalt professor and former dean, called Edley extraordinarily smart and said the appointment had broad support within the law school.

“His culture is one of legal education that aspires to the highest intellectual and scholarly values,” Choper said.

Rachel Moran, another Boalt professor who served on the search committee, said Edley would bring a new perspective to the school and a national visibility that will help with fundraising.

In separate statements, Boalt’s student association and student Coalition for Diversity applauded the appointment.

It “is a decisive step in reestablishing Boalt Hall as a leader in legal education committed to progressive social change,” said Guy Johnson, head of the diversity coalition.

Praise also came from another direction as well -- from conservative UC Regent Ward Connerly, a frequent opponent of Edley in forums about affirmative action. “It’s an excellent, excellent appointment,” Connerly said. “He’s bright, he understands legal education, he’s creative and he has excellent credentials.”

Berdahl said Edley’s race played no role in his selection but that his appointment nonetheless marked a significant milestone. Edley agreed.

“The reality is that these top-tier law schools are important gatekeeper institutions to the highest levels of the public and private sectors,” he said. “It’s important that the leadership reflects the diversity of America.”

Edley’s wife, Maria Echeveste, a Boalt alumna who served as Clinton’s deputy chief of staff and is an advisor to the Dean campaign, also will join the Berkeley faculty, officials said. Her academic interests include Latino politics and public policy.