U. of C. law students boycott over minority hiring

Dozens of law school students boycotted classes at the Universityof Chicago Thursday to protest the lack of minorities and the lownumber of women on the faculty, student leaders said.

But university officials said the boycott by some of theschool's 550 students was ineffective. They also said it wasunnecessary, because school officials share student concerns.

"Teachers that I've talked to said they didn't notice anyappreciable difference in class attendance," said Law School DeanGeoffrey Stone.. "I've walked through there (where boycottingstudents gathered), and there are relatively few students."

However, said Stone, "I think the issue is a very real one, onethat faculty shares with students. There's little doubt in my viewthat the educational process and the legal community are enriched byhaving people from different backgrounds teaching."

The school will get a black full-time professor next fall, hesaid.

The boycott culminated a week of activities by students callingattention to the fact that the U. of C. is the only one of thenation's top law schools without a tenured minority professor, andthat it has only three women among its 30 tenured law professors.

Last week, that issue and the low number of minority and femalestudents being recruited by law schools were highlighted in AwarenessDay activities nationwide. At the U. of C., 11 percent of the lawstudents are minorities, 38 percent female.

"It's a nationwide problem, but we have the worst record interms of tenured minority faculty," said student Craig Singer. "Someviews can best be reported by a more diverse factor, and we don't getthat here."

Students differed with Stone's assessment of the boycott.

"There were many empty seats in some classrooms," Singer said."Many students cared enough about this issue to give up somethingthey value very much."

The students welcomed news that the school is hiring a blackprofessor, but said they don't buy an explanation for the situationgiven to them by administrators - that the pool of qualified minorityprofessors is small.

Said student Amanda Pratt, "We all seem to support diversity asthe end, but we disagree on the means. The school says, `We supportdiversity when a good candidate comes before us.' That is, if(Supreme Court Justice) Thurgood Marshall applies to teach here,we'll allow him."