Vorenberg Earns Award; Cited for Minority Policy

The dean of the Law School has received an award for increasing diversity in the community from a group committed to promoting further integration of Blacks at Harvard.

The Association of Black Faculty and Administrators at Harvard presented Dean James Vorenberg '49 with its fourth annual C. Clyde Ferguson Award last week for his efforts to increase minority representation at the Law School.

Since Vorenberg assumed his position in 1981, the number of minorities on the faculty and staff of the Law School has increased by almost 50 percent. The Law School also has pursued an aggressive minority recruitment program, said Association Co-Chair Dr. Joseph L. Henry.

Members of the Law School community applauded the choice of Vorenberg, citing his good record on minority hiring and promotion.

"Dean Vorenberg is someone who cares a lot about increasing minority representation on the faculty and has tried his best to implement that desire," said Assistant Professor of Law David Wilkins, who is a member of the 291-person association.

"Of all the past Deans [at the Law School], he has been the most successful" in attracting minorities, said Charles Ogletree, visiting professor of law. Ogletree, whom Vorenberg recruited to come to Harvard, said he believes Vorenberg is capable of meeting the challenge of increasing minority representation at the Law School.

"We've worked very hard to try to be in touch with minority law professors around the country to follow their work and to bring people here on a visiting basis who we think are promising minority candidates," Vorenberg said in an interview last night.

But although Dean Vorenberg "has done a tremendous amount for increasing the diversity of the Law School and has made significant gains in minority representation, we are still a long way from where we should be on this faculty," Wilkins said.