Rudenstine Defends Clark

President Neil L. Rudenstine yesterday defended Law School Dean Robert C. Clark's performance at his job, one day after a number of faculty members criticized the dean's leadership and a week after nine student groups called for his resignation.

Clark's critics have hit hard this spring, calling his efforts to promote faculty diversity woefully inadequate. The issue has bitterly divided the campus, prompting a hiring discrimination lawsuit, a series of protests and, most recently, a call from nearly a quarter of the faculty for drastic change in the appointments process.

Fifteen professors condemned the Law School environment as sexist yesterday and urged the administration to eliminate the faculty appointments committee immediately and replace it with a new group committed to increasing women and minority faculty hiring.

In a three-page letter to the Law School community, the scholars condemned a Harvard Law Review spoof issue containing a parody of an article by slain feminist scholar Mary Joe Frug. Calling the article misogynistic and insensitive, they said it reflected the general climate on campus.

The 15 senior professors joined nine student organizations in criticizing Clark's response to the parody, and urged the dean to create a special committee to investigate the incident. The nine student groups also asked Clark to resign.

But in an interview yesterday, Rudenstine gave a very positive assessment of the embattled dean.

"I think that he's really working extraordinarily hard to do an excel- lent job and I think that he is reallycommitted to the kinds of ideas and ideals that alot of people over there share," Rudenstine said.

"I simply hope that everybody will recognizehow good he is and how much he really wants to dosomething productive and fruitful and I think itcan be done," he said.

In the week following the parody's publication,on the anniversary of Frug's murder in Cambridge,Clark issued two statements condemning it. Thisweek he said the students responsible for thepiece will not be disciplined.

Several students said his response was weakcompared to action taken to discipline studentswho participated in a sit-in protesting theschool's faculty hiring record.

In a statement released yesterday, the LawSchool's administrative board said it would notproceed with disciplinary hearings against thoseprotesters because such hearings would fail toserve "any constructive purpose."

Rudenstine defended Clark's efforts to promotefaculty diversity during an Undergraduate Councilmeeting yesterday, saying that a political"bottleneck" at the Law School made it difficultto appoint anyone

"I simply hope that everybody will recognizehow good he is and how much he really wants to dosomething productive and fruitful and I think itcan be done," he said.

In the week following the parody's publication,on the anniversary of Frug's murder in Cambridge,Clark issued two statements condemning it. Thisweek he said the students responsible for thepiece will not be disciplined.

Several students said his response was weakcompared to action taken to discipline studentswho participated in a sit-in protesting theschool's faculty hiring record.

In a statement released yesterday, the LawSchool's administrative board said it would notproceed with disciplinary hearings against thoseprotesters because such hearings would fail toserve "any constructive purpose."

Rudenstine defended Clark's efforts to promotefaculty diversity during an Undergraduate Councilmeeting yesterday, saying that a political"bottleneck" at the Law School made it difficultto appoint anyone