Minority Law Forum Begins

Hundreds of lawyers from around the world arrived yesterday at Harvard Law School for Harvard Alumni Placement's second annual Minority Recruitment and Placement Conference.

Approximately 380 lawyers will attend a series of workshops held yesterday and today on gender, race and physical disability in the legal profession.

The conference's keynote speaker, A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., talked about what it takes for a minority to succeed at law. Higginbotham, who is Black, is a justice of the U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Higginbotham warned his listeners not to let their concerns about pluralism overshadow the greater issue of educational quality.

Higginbotham, who has been a federal judge for 27 years, discussed Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who in the past has sparked controversy with his criticisms of liberals and of civil rights organizations.

Higginbotham read the group a letter he plans to deliver to Thomas, in which he criticized Thomas's disparaging remarks about civil rights organizations. Regarding Black conservatives, Higginbotham joked, "Other than their own self-advancement, I don't know what they are so eager to conserve."

On a more serious note, he said, "If the conservative agenda had been achieved...it would have been a tragedy."

Saying that he hopes Thomas has not abandoned the civil rights movement, Higginbotham said, "Some people are willing to let the whole ship sink, to let all the passengers drown, to get safely to shore. I trust that you are not one of them."

He concluded his speech by quoting from a poem by Langston Hughes, "To save the dream for one, is to save the dream for all." Higginbotham received a standing ovation.