Coalition for diversity

The Coalition for Diversity is the group that regulates the diversity of the student body and faculty of Boalt Hall, Law School. It was re-founded in 2000 from the group then known as the Coalition for a Diverse Faculty and Student Body. Its major aim is to overturn the effects of Proposition 209, which prohibits public institutions from discriminating on the basis of race, sex or ethnicity.

It sprang up in the depressed, yet oppressive, atmosphere of a post-affirmative action California. While the Coalition's original mission was one of racial justice, it quickly evolved into a group that fought for greater inclusiveness for all marginalized communities including women, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, as well as persons with disabilities and the socio-economically oppressed.

The group struggled to find a foothold under a hostile law school administration, but eventually went on to foster greater communication between students of color, to put into place mechanisms of student governance that embraced a more diverse student body, to make strong fundraising recommendations that led to a stronger social justice and public interest presence at the law school, to implement administrative changes leading to the hiring of more diverse faculty members, and finally to inspire law student involvement in the Grutter v. Bollinger case which determined the future of affirmative action in the Supreme Court of the United States. Specifically, the Coalition dealt with the question of "How to use the Master's Tools without Becoming the Master?" While no answer to this question has been found completely satisfactory, the Coalition was forged in the heat of different types of activism. Student activists struggled between embracing a more traditional civil rights route of systematic and systemic legal approaches AND taking the renowned "black-armband approach" which required both fluidity and a certain chaos.

The Coalition was a hotbed of identity issues, including forcing different communities to engage with the issues concerning privilege, racism, classism, homophobia and sexism in other people's communities. Today, the Coalition still has a presence at the UC Berkeley campus which, while it wanes in times of indifference, is always ready to become strong whenever its membership feels inspired by a sense of injustice. The Coalition for Diversity is a symbol for law students everywhere that the law itself is carried by the spirit of the people the law governs. By requiring the hard work of examining the self and differences within selves, the Coalition was ultimately a training ground for future leaders in the movement of justice.

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Coalition for Diversity Homepage

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