Harvard Law Dean Admitted He Had "Affirmative Action" On His Mind In 1994, Just Around the Same Time They Hired America's Whitest Native American

But none of that played any role in their decision, you understand.

The timing here isn't quite perfect, as she'd been hired (I think as a visiting prof) in 1992 and this statement was made in 1994. However, I think it's a fair deduction that this sort of thing was in his mind in 1992, too.

“We’re clearly trying to add more women to the faculty,” Clark told the Harvard Law Record in March 1994.

“Clark said HLS was engaging ‘affirmative action’ to the extent it was working to increase the number of women considered and interviewed,” wrote the Record’s Greg Stohr. “He also said the Law School would be willing to hire a qualified woman, even if her area of expertise did not fit an immediate need, but he stopped short of saying the school would lower its qualification requirements for women.”

“I guess what we’re not ready to do is to have a different standard,” Clark told the Record.

But Warren, now on a leave of absence from Harvard to run for office, is the only law school professor there who did not graduate from a top-ten law school. Of the 350 Ivy League law school professors, Warren graduated from the second worst ranked school — Rutgers, ranked no. 82 according to a May 2012 analysis by The Washington Examiner.

Clark had been feeling pressure. In 1992, positive tenure decisions about four white male faculty members touched off student protests and demonstrations which included taking over the dean’s office.

Warren’s first tenure offer in February 1993 coincided with a Friday vigil held by law students demanding more female and minority professors. Students agitating for more campus diversity praised Clark’s commitment to bringing more women on campus, but wanted more minorities.

The article also hits Warren's article on bankruptcy -- a deeply flawed article which Dances With Gross Academic Misconduct.

posted by Ace at 03:16 PM

| Access Comments