These are a few of our favorite things: Professor Rivera

Having been releases from the grips of the AG's office and back home at CUNY, Professor Rivera (along with Professor Gabriel and Maggie Ruperto) has launched The Center on Latino and Latina Rights and Equality (CLORE).

Not only does the center give us an awesome picture of Professor Rivera on the home page, but we also get the satisfaction of knowing that our faculty and staff are on the forefront of legal issues.

According to CLORE's info page,
"The Center on Latino and Latina Rights and Equality (CLORE) focuses on issues impacting the Latino community in the United States, with the goal of developing progressive strategies for legal reform. The Center seeks to educate lawyers, law students, scholars and the general public on the status of Latinos and Latinas, as well as to advocate for expanded civil rights in the areas that affect the growing Latino population."

Congrats Professor Rivera & Co.!

Read more!

LITBD: Letter Grades vs Pass/Fail

With Harvard and NYU dropping letter grades, this seems like a good time to look back at CUNY's own grading history.

After the jump there are documents from CUNY Scrapbook regarding the debates about our old grading system and the switch to letter grades.

In related news, there was a recent study showing that school rank and gpa are not the best indicators of success. Though the study has limitations, it is still interesting.

read more!

Robson on Grading and Disparate Impact available at cunyscrapbook.blogspot.com and below

10 - Upload a Document to Scribd

Discussion about grade appeals and grading standards

16 - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read more!

Word on the street: Tuition Hike?

Word on the street is that CUNY is going to see some more budget cuts in the next few days and a tuition hike.

Read more!

Another reason to love CUNY Law: Over 75 people commit to election protection

The level of participation in this event really says something about our student body. The numbers will probably still grow with other poll monitor trainings during the week like the CUNY DEMS training during SIT time on Thursday the 23rd.

http://www.law.cuny.edu/news-events/StudentNews/voter-interference.html

CUNY Law Students to Protect Voters' Rights on Election Day

October 21, 2008 (New York, NY) - More than 75 trained CUNY School of Law students will fan out at polling spots across New York City on Election Day to protect voters' rights and to ensure that there is no interference as voters cast ballots.

The students will be placed throughout the city by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF); the Voting Rights Department of that organization has trained the students in federal and New York State voting rights laws, as well as the skills of poll monitoring.

"As immigrant communities in New York begin to realize their political power and organize themselves to increase their civic participation, it is crucial that voter suppression and intimidation not thwart their momentum or their belief in the promise of America," said Ali Najmi, 24, a third-year CUNY Law student who is helping to organize the efforts.

Added Bright Limm, 28, a second-year student who is president of the CUNY Law Student Government: "Today many people fear that our voting rights are easily subject to violation. For communities that historically have been disenfranchised - in particular, immigrants, people of color, and the poor - the presence of poll monitors is not only valuable but absolutely crucial."

CUNY Law at the Forefront
Limm, who also is helping to organize the polling effort, added, "Law schools and other legal institutions should be at the forefront of protecting voters’ rights. By mobilizing at polling sites on Election Day, CUNY Law students are taking the initiative, and we ask that other law schools join us in this effort to protect the democratic process."

Unlike candidates' representatives, CUNY Law students will be stationed inside polling sites to enhance access to voting and to prevent the use of unlawful practices, such as demanding proof of citizenship, turning people away without photo identification when it is not required, or restricting access to language interpreters.

Past Polling Problems
According to AALDEF, such practices occurred in recent elections. For instance, in New York, identification is not required to vote except for a limited group of first-time voters. But, according to AALDEF, during the 2004 Presidential Elections, 23% of Asian American voters surveyed were asked to show ID, 69% of whom were not required to do so.

About half of the CUNY Law students plan to volunteer in the areas of Richmond Hill and Ozone Park in Queens, predominantly South-Asian and Indo-Caribbean areas. The other students will be placed by AALDEF in locations such as Flushing, Jackson Heights, and Elmhurst in Queens; Midwood, Kensington and Coney Island in Brooklyn; and Chinatown in Manhattan.

The students have selected these areas, not only because of the national election, but also because of the unusually high turnout that is expected. "These efforts are posed to be very fruitful," said Najmi, who is a Pakistani-American and a chief organizer of the CUNY Law project.

Work Reinforces Mission
The students' work reinforces the CUNY Law mission, said Dean Michelle J. Anderson. "Our students' commitment to protect the democratic process on Election Day expresses the core of our public interest mission. Students are, in a very real way, practicing law in the service of human needs," she said.

Many CUNY Law students groups have come together to support this effort, including the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association, the South Asian Law Students Association, National Lawyers Guild, Latin American Law Students Association, Muslim Law Students Association, Organization of Women Law Students, Third World Orientation, Black Law Students Association, and Student Government.

Read more!

Professor Robson: Total Domination of Law Prof Blog Network?

In addition to being a contributing editor to the Family Law Professor Blog,, Professor Robson recently started the Constitutional Law Prof Blog.

The Blog will focus on "matters of Constitutional Law, with an emphasis on pedagogy, as well as scholarship and current events."

According to Professor Robson, her contributions and interests include "rights rather than structures. . . judicial review, both in the United States and other nations. . . non-SCOTUS constitutional law litigation. . . [and] how constitutional law is being taught outside of the law school context."

Congrats Professor Robson!

Two blogs down, 55 to go.

Read more!

Dean Anderon's response

Below, Dean Anderson's response on Forum to the protests against CUNY Law's admissions policies.

The mission of CUNY School of Law is to graduate outstanding public interest attorneys and to enhance access to the profession for students from historically under-represented groups.

Historically, specific groups were excluded from the legal profession to preserve economic, political, and social privilege. One of the reasons CUNY Law was founded was to fight this exclusivity and to improve underrepresented groups’ access to the legal profession, and more broadly, access to justice. This mission is challenging, and every institution—including CUNY Law—is a product of its environment, with limitations and blind spots. However, we believe that CUNY Law contributes to the diversification of the profession and the fight for equality through our programs and the excellent work of our students, staff, and faculty. Here are the facts about diversity at CUNY School of Law.

Allegation: CUNY Law has only two Puerto Ricans and zero Mexican-American students in the first year class.

Fact: At the beginning of September, with 143 students, there were 14 Latinos in the first year class, including 4 Puerto Ricans and 1 Mexican-American. We made admissions offers to 64 Latinos, including 13 Puerto Ricans and 5 Mexican-Americans.

Allegation: There is no Asian American leadership at the law school in Flushing.

Fact: One Associate Dean and the Director of the Library are both Asian American. Overall, the Law School has six tenured Asian American law professors.

Allegation: No black tenure track faculty has been hired at CUNY Law in over 10 years.

Fact: We have four tenured or tenure track African-American law professors, including one Assistant Dean, plus one African-American affiliated scholar. One of these professors was hired five years ago. We have made two tenured offers to African American professors in the last two years; unfortunately each declined to accept the offer.

Allegation: Of the last 14 nyc area latino law profs that came up for tenure, zero got tenure!

Fact: It sounds as if this allegation is referring to Latinos at all NYC area law schools, so we cannot speak to that. Here at CUNY Law, we have three tenured or tenure-track Latina faculty, including one Associate Dean, plus a Latina Assistant Dean, plus a Latina Haywood Burns Chair.

More Information:

Rankings
Most diverse law school in New York State—ABA Official Guide to Law Schools (2008).
Top 25 most diverse law schools in the nation—U.S. News & World Report (2008).
Fourth most diverse law faculty in the nation—Princeton Review (2008).
Most welcoming law school in the nation for older students— Princeton Review (2008).

Percentages
Percentage of Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty of Color: 35%
Percentage of Students of Color in the First-Year Class: 42%

Programs of Note

CUNY Law has an innovative Pipeline to Justice Program to enhance access to the profession for students from groups under-represented in and under-served by the profession: http://www.law.cuny.edu/clinics/JusticeInitiatives/pipeline.html

CUNY Law is the only law school in the nation with a Center for Diversity in the Profession: http://www.law.cuny.edu/clinics/JusticeInitiatives/CDLP.html

CUNY Law is the only law school in the nation with a Center for Latino/a Rights and Equality (CLORE). See more information in the next CUNY Law Magazine.

CUNY Law has an Immigrant Initiatives Program
http://www.law.cuny.edu/clinics/JusticeInitiatives/CLII.html

and an Immigration and Refugee Rights Clinic
http://www.law.cuny.edu/clinics/clinicalofferings/ImmigrantandRefugee.html.

We hope you find this information helpful. These issues are very important to us. We continue to strive to improve diversity in the legal profession and to improve access to justice.

Read more!

CUNY Social Forum

The CUNY Social Forum is next weekend.

CUNY Social Forum Highlights after the jump (full schedule here)

The Use of the LSAT Produces Unequal Access to CUNY Law School
A. Beltran
Room 1/211A

The Law School disproportionately denies admission to black, Latino, Asian American and Native American students, in part, on the basis of the LSAT. In our workshop, we will briefly present a history of the use of the LSAT as a factor in admissions at CUNY Law School and then invite participants to share their thoughts, experiences, and recommendations with respect to the use of the LSAT in admissions. Participants that are interested in a more formal brief discussion of the failures and biases in standardized testing at the senior colleges are advised to attend the "Standardized Tests Produce Unequal Access to CUNY's Senior Colleges" workshop.

Affirmative Action: Responding to Institutional Racism In Pedagogy, Faculty Hiring and Graduate Admissions 40 Years After Open Admissions
Speakers: Professor Leonard Jeffries, Jitu Weusi
Moderator: Hank Williams
Room 0/201

The panel will focus on effectively identifying and responding to faculty racism that generates unnecessary student failure and maintained racial exclusion in faculty hiring and graduate admissions at CUNY. In particular, the panel will consider the effects of faculty racism on African-American students and faculty. The panel will largely draw on The Education of Black Folk (1973); Allen Ballard's seminal critique of racism at CUNY. Panelists will include; Professor Leonard Jeffries (Former Chair of CCNY Black Studies) and Jitu Weusi (Community activist who organized campaign for community control of public schools and the campaign to establish Medgar Evers College in Bedford-Stuyvesant. CUNY Grad student Hank Williams will moderate.

CUNY Total Access
PSC International Committee
Room 5/108

This panel will focus on obstacles to access to CUNY for poor, working class and immigrant students and begin a mobilizing committee formed of faculty, students, parents and community activists to plan specific actions to reverse detrimental policies. Recently major banks voted to deny loans to community college students. In addition, the NY State legislature voted this summer on budget cuts, including $50.6 million in cuts to CUNY. Chancellor Goldstein said that CUNY could "absorb" these cuts, despite the fact that they will inevitably lead to more tuition hikes. We will discuss the effects these policies will have on students, and begin to chart a specific course of action to force the banks, our state representatives, and Chancellor Goldstein to be held accountable and to reverse these decisions.

CUNY Law School: Responding to Institutional Racism In Pedagogy
Speaker: A. Beltran
Moderator: A. Beltran
Room 1/211A

This workshop will focus on effectively identifying and responding to faculty racism that generates unnecessary student failure. In this workshop we will discuss the history of testing at the law school and the manner in which faculty racism combined with testing are (1) linked directly to dismissals and (2) raise a barrier to the achievement of students of color. As one observer has keenly noted,"CUNY Law's academic policy, also disproportionately affects people of color. Naturally, women are often the most affected by these situations. Both in preparation for attending school, taking the LSAT, and then, succeeding in law school... consider a woman of color that relies wholly on financial aid, has children, and is going to school full time. Not everyone has the financial resources to apply to ten billion schools, reapply, retake their LSATs, restart and repay tuition, or to attend a one year Pipeline class."

Read more!

Protests agasint CUNY Law

This came up on a Google Alert about CUNY LAW:

Join LSAT Justice en Rose on
10/17 FRI to Protest CUNY Law LSAT admission policies at SEIU!
Protest the use of the LSAT in admissions policy in a manner that has a disproportionate impact on economically disadvantaged students! Also protest the failure to hire a Black Law Professor in more than ten years (on a tenure-track line)!

Protest the CUNY Law Reunion
Protest the upcoming CUNY Law Reunion 2008. Don’t forget to mark your calendar!

Friday, October 17, 2008
6:30 pm

SEIU Cherkasky-Davis Conference Center
330 W. 42nd Street, New York City.

protest on sidewalk 6:15 pm to 7:15 pm

Theme: LSAT Justice en Rose

bring pink placards wi
suggested placard slogans:

Enroll Mexican-American Law Students!

Hire Black Law Professors!

Admit more Puerto Rican Law Students!

for more information

email LSATJustice {at} aol.com with subject line “subscribe”

to join LSAT_Justice_en_Rose yahoo group list-serve.

(from nyprotest.flactivist.org/)

Read more!

These are a few of our favorite things...

After receiving some feedback from folks about the blog, we have decided to depart from our normal obsession with transparency and muckraking and introduce another new feature: Our Favorite Things.

We hope to have one post a week dedicated to something good about CUNY because at the end of the day, we don't want to be anywhere else.

So what are our favorite things about CUNY?

some people are concerned about being on the internet, so if posters feel the need to name individuals, maybe we can try to do it in a way that is un-googleable (i.e. dean Anders0n or And#erson)

Read more!

Clarfification: Undergrads in the Clinic

see email from Professor Ashar below explaining what is going on with the undergrads in the clinics.
--

Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 11:25:38 -0400
From: "Sameer M. Ashar" 
Subject: [DEF] Students from Brooklyn College

I write to clarify the role of Brooklyn College (BC) students in our
clinical program this semester.

By way of background, last summer Saru Jayaraman, a professor in the BC
political science department and an advisor to pre-law students,
approached me about an internship program for BC students in our clinic.
IRRC students and I had worked with Saru on successive immigrant
worker litigation and policy campaigns when she was at the Restaurant
Opportunities Center of New York.  Saru was hoping to expose BC students
to public interest legal practice in an educational setting by having
them spend eight hours per week with us.

I agreed to bring the idea to my colleagues on the clinical faculty and
to seek their input about the possibility of hosting a small number of
BC students.  My thought was, first, that this kind of collaboration
would add valuable and cross-disciplinary resources to student teams
representing our clients.  A secondary benefit would be that this kind
of collaboration on social justice issues would advance our recruitment
of prospective students within CUNY.  We think you do cutting edge legal
work on behalf of marginalized clients and communities and believe that
exposing undergraduate and graduate colleagues to that work helps build
our movement.

When I consulted with the clinical faculty, they were generally
supportive of the idea.  Nevertheless, we found it hard to forecast what
the BC students would do until they indicated in which programs they had
interest and then actually arrived at the Law School.

Last week, nine BC students sat in on classes in three clinics: IRRC,
CED, and Defender.  Based on my consultation with clinical faculty and
clinical law students, at this point I have decided that we will not
place more than two BC students in any clinic.  Additionally, a law
student team and its faculty supervisor must fully agree to adding one
of these students to the team before a BC student is added.  These
students will be a part of Main Street Legal Services and bound by the
professional responsibility rules that apply to other non-lawyer members
of law firms.

The intensity of your relationships with clients and supervising faculty
makes our clinical program the best in the country.  We think that the
addition of a small number of BC students to support the progressive
work of the clinic will not dilute that experience, but will enhance it.
As a result, we expect to have six BC students (noted below) working
with us through December, mostly on Tuesdays.  Please welcome them to
our work spaces and help them find ways to further our clients'
interests.  We will collect input on how well this works throughout the
semester and make decisions about any future collaboration with BC based
on that input.

Please come to me with any questions, comments, or concerns about this
or anything else.  I appreciate your honesty and your insights.

Sameer


CED:  Melissa Gibson
Defender:  Nancy Tang
IRRC:  Donelle Benjamin, Renee Murdock
IWHR:  Latifa Lorene, Nneka Brown

Read more!

Word on the street: Library books and the ABA

Word on the street is that since the school annexed the section/clinic libraries for office space, the school is dangerously low (for ABA standards) on books.

Word also has it that someone from the administration asked for some of David's books.

Read more!

I love my librarian

We are the only public law library in the city and as such our librarians work hard helping us and the general public.

Lets show our appreciation by nominating them for the Carnegie Corporation of New York/New York Times I Love My Librarian Award!

Up to ten librarians will be honored. Each will receive $5,000 and be recognized at an awards ceremony hosted by The New York Times at TheTimesCenter in December 2008.

The deadline for Colleges and Universities is OCTOBER 15th!

Nominate here
http://www.ilovelibraries.org/lovemylibrarian/cccu.cfm

Thanks Ryan!

Read more!

Light Is The Best Disinfectant (LITBD)

Last week we emailed cunyscrapbook.blogspot.com and asked if they could write something about why these issues are still important for CUNY, especially since most of use have only been around a few years.

cunyscrapbook responded "Light Is The Best Disinfectant" and agreed that we don't really have a sens of cuny history.

So, with that is born our new feature: LITBD. Though we strongly encourage folks to read all the documents posted at cunyscrapbook.blogspot.com , we are going to cross-post some items here for discussion.

If anyone has any documents about CUNY history, please sent them to cunyscrapbook@gmail.com.

Our First LITBD post is a 1990 student government response to changing academic standards for students but without correlated standards for professors. A similar issue was raised last week at the Dean's forum.

Is it fair to have such a strict academic policy for students while professors are not accountable to students? Is this even a fair assessment?

6 - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read more!