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Freedom to think at Harvard Law
THE WASHINGTON TIMES - Wednesday, JULY 17, 1991
Author: Eric Felten, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Dean Robert Clark was not about to see his Harvard Law School office be turned into the Columbia University president’s office of the 1990s. No cigar-smoking students with their feet up on his desk. So when student protesters staged sit-ins blocking his office lobby for the second time in a semester last fall, he cracked down.
The students were following the lead of Professor Derrick Bell , who has taken a leave of absence from the university until a black woman professor is appointed to the law school. Mr. Bell is protesting the school’s unwillingness to offer tenure to Anita Allen, a visiting professor from Georgetown University and a black woman.
“We took pictures of the students in the office so that we would know who they were, and [we] told them they were in clear violation of university rules,” Mr. Clark says. The students also were told that if they did not leave the office by the end of the day, they would be disciplined. They were sent letters saying such protests would not be tolerated in the future.
“They waited a little past the deadline, to show they weren’t intimidated,” Mr. Clark says. With a hint of mischief, he adds, “Maybe I shouldn’t say this - because I don’t want to encourage them to try it again - but they haven’t been back.”
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_L._Allen
Anita LaFrance Allen-Castellito (born March 24, 1953)[1] is the Henry R. Silverman Professor of Law and professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She is also a senior fellow in the bioethics department of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, a collaborating faculty member in African studies, and an affiliated faculty member in the women’s studies program. In 2010 President Barack Obama named Allen to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. She is a Hastings Center Fellow.
Courageous visitor needs your support
Chicago Sun-Times - Tuesday, October 22, 1991
Author: Vernon Jarrett
Yes, this indeed is an unsolicited commercial, an urgent appeal to all ye brothers and sisters of all races and faiths who don't like the revival of sexism and racism that is promoted both arrogantly and subtly in our country today. One small plea:
Please contact the Community Renewal Society, and purchase your tickets for its annual banquet this Thursday at the Palmer House. The featured speaker is Professor Derrick A. Bell Jr., a distinguished sage whose courage ranks as high as his academic accomplishments.
This is the same African American author of several monumental studies and volumes of research on human rights who took leave of his Harvard Law School professorship last year in protest of Harvard ‘s shortage of women and racial minorities among its law faculty. Professor Bell has since joined the law faculty at New York University.
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I had to go out for a while this afternoon, but Bell was right up Obama’s radical alley. I found it interesting that Bell was a Carter guy and that he spent a lot of time in Mississippi during the school integration.