Silence at Boalt Hall: The Dismantling of Affirmative Action. (Books).(Book Review)

By Andrea Guerrero

You've got to give U.C. Press props for publishing and promoting this frank, up-close portrait of the rise and fall of race-conscious admissions on its home turf. U.C. Berkeley's prestigious Boalt Hall law school makes a fine test case, as one of first institutions to conceive of affirmative action for students of color, and one of the first--30 years later--to rescind it.

Guerrero, a Mexican American immigration attorney, offers a unique perspective. She was a member of the last class admitted to Boalt under affirmative action and a leading organizer in student campaigns to revive it. Her exhaustively researched account begins with the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968 and takes us on a journey into the sociopolitical climate that created proactive programs to help realize equal access to higher education for underrepresented people of color and white women. Guerrero fleshes out the macro-impact of affirmative action upon the generation of alumni of all colors who attended Boalt, and the crushing impact of its demise. At the height of affirmative action, Boalt students of color founded innovative programs like La Raza Centro Legal, which combated the dearth of services in the Latino immigrant community. After proactive admissions was defeated, the editorial staff at Boalt's once booming African American Law and Policy Report dwindled to five.

We get the pedigrees of all the major players in the debate--everyone from Brown v. Board of Education-pioneer Justice Thurgood Marshall, to Ward Connerly, the ubiquitous anti-affirmative action poster child, to deans, students, and alums. Silence does a thorough job of untangling myths about the cultural objectivity of the LSAT, about fairness in numbers-based admissions, and the problems inherent in so-called colorblind programs that seek "merit" and "excellence" while overlooking the question of race.

For readers who still need convincing, Guerrero makes a compelling case throughout the book for the benefits of affirmative action to all students. A critical mass of professors and students of color broadens the curricula, opens up meaningful dialogue, and provides cross-cultural role models to enrich the legal field in the interest of justice everywhere.

In one scene, we see Alistair Newbern, a pro-diversity white student who entered Boalt in 1997--the year the law school enrolled one African American student--at a protest, her first day on campus. Newbern ...