Law School Unveils Forums; 1Ls Exposed to Controversies

During the law student protests last spring, law school Dean James Vorenberg '49 called the lack of faculty-student communication the most grievous problem at the Law school. Yesterday the administration unveiled a new monthly series of open forums intended to correct this fault.

Last night's debut "Inquiry," as the series is called, used the vague topic "What is Law?" as a springboard for student-faculty discussion. But more startling than the predictable student-faculty disputes was the intra-faculty dissension.

The four professors on the panel were carefully chosen to present a wide spectrum of political opinions, and the loudest student applause followed internecine faculty debate.

"We're asking 'What is law?' because there is a crisis of legitimacy at Harvard Law School and in society, " said Warren Professor of American Legal History Morton J. Horwitz, a popular "progressive" professor, in response to one colleague's attack on radicals. The audience of more than 500 loved it.

For the first-year students, the day was their introduction to the controversies that racked the Law School last year. In the morning, signs appeared around the School accusing the faculty of picking the two best Black law professors available for consideration and then rejecting them. Vorenberg and Horwitz, who is the chairman of the minority search committee, dismissed these claims as factually incorrect at the forum.

In the afternoon, the first-year students were bombarded by the claims of over 40 student groups peddling their wares at a student organization fair. The most popular groups seemed to be clinical public interest organizations, such as the Prison Legal Assistance Project, which collected almost 100 signatures