New Minority Fellowship Created

Dean of the Law School Robert C. Clark yesterday announced a new fellowship program aimed at improving the diversity of the school's faculty.

The Charles Hamilton Houston Fellowship is "designed to promote the development of new channels of entry into law teaching in order to enhance the diversity of the professions," Clark said in a written statement.

The fellowship will be awarded each year to an attorney or recent law school graduate to spend one or two academic years at the law School working toward a LL.M. degree. The program covers tuition and includes a stipend of at least $25,000 per academic year.

The Law School announced the program after facing weeks of criticism and protests against its lack of minority and women faculty.

The fellowship had been in the works for a few years, according to Law School spokesperson Michael J. Chmura.

Of the 64 tenured and tenuretracked professors on the faculty, six are Black men and five are women.

Third-year law student Caroline Wittcoff, a member of the student group which has been urging faculty diversity, praised the new program.

"I think it's a wonderful step on the part of the Law School and hopefully it'll be a first step for a lot more action that needs to take place," Wittcoff told The Associated Press.

"I hope the Law School will recognize there are already many accomplished women and minorities out there who are qualified for tenured and tenure-track positions," she said.

The fellowship is named after Charles Hamilton Houston who graduated from the Law School in 1923 and was the first Black student to serve on the Harvard Law Review.