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Law School Silent After Activist Past

And many students feel despite Clark'sfriendliness, those unbalanced numbers are thereal issue.

"I don't think [Clark] is trying substantivelyto improve the situation, though he has made aconcerted effort to reshape his image," LambdaCo-Chair R. Bradley Sears says. "He is the masterof impostering to quell dissatisfaction."

For instance, Clark held a reception this yearfor students and has met with a number of studentgroups to "diffuse discontentment," Sears says.

"Dean Clark has adopted a more moderate andconciliatory stance to show he is a nice guy,"first-year student David Friedman says. "Mostfirst-years like him."

The first-years' affection for Clark is perhapsevidence of another factor in the Law School'sapparent apathy: the constant turnover of thestudent body. The third-years who led the proteststwo years ago have graduated, and their successorshave lost some of the original urgency, studentssay.

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"There isn't much institutional memory at theLaw School," says Asian American Law StudentAssociation (AALSA) President W. Ming Shau. Heattributes some of today's peaceful atmosphere tothis lack of memory.

"The year I came here was the year thediversity movement peaked...and once they [thoseinvolved in the sit-ins] graduated, the momentumof the movement was lost," Shau says.

The job pressures caused by a nationwide glutof lawyers and a still-recovering economy areanother reason that students might avoid theactivist path, students say.

"The job market today is very tight, and thatis student's first concern," second-year JimEastman says.

And some students say that at Harvard,careerist students are pushed mostly towardcorporate law, a field interested more in topgrades and business experience than in activism.

"This place is a mill turning out corporatelawyers...people tell me they can't live in L.A.on less then $60,000 a year," third-year Andrew S.Levin says.

"Structurally, the institution is set up forcorporate law," first-year David S. Kaplan says.

"It's easier to find a job in the corporatemarket because corporations have a lot of moneyand time to cater to students," he says.

The student concern with the corporate worldrepresents a shift in the type of student enteringthe Law School today, Oakes says.

Today's students are more interested in tax,international banking, securities and corporatelaw, than in public policy or in "law as a formof change," she says.

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