Guerrero was admitted in the last class at Boalt to use affirmative action before it was dismantled by Ward Connerly and the Board of Regents. The results were dismaying, as the diversity at Boalt plummeted to embarrassingly low levels. Although it has recovered somewhat through the efforts of the admissions staff, the white and Asian populations there now dominate the classes at the expense of African-Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans. This is greatly detrimental to the educational experience. How, for example, can Boalt adequately teach about the legal issues facing Native Americans when it has almost none in its student body to enrich the education of others?

This book is a particularly important read in light of the upcoming Supreme Court case on affirmative action at the University of Michigan. This book details what the negative impacts when affirmative action is abolished, even under the weak alternative offered by President Bush.

And by the way, [in my opinion,] another book on diversity at Boalt entitled The Diversity Hoax is a right-wing rant with factual errors rampant throughout.... Silence at Boalt Hall is a far better piece of investigative research. I highly recommend it.


Well written history of affimative action at Boalt   February 17, 2003
j.p. (los angeles, ca, usa)
3 out of 6 found this review helpful

Guerrero provides both a well-written account of the rise and fall of affirmative action at Boalt Hall, and an articulate argument for the merits, especially in law school, of affirmative action. Her writing eschews ideological hyperbole and throughout remains grounded in the real issues affecting the greater population by a lack of diversity in law schools and the law community at large. Even those who disagree with affirmative action will find this book of interest for the readable account of, and insight into, the students of Boalt Hall who felt compelled to fight for their beliefs.


Author undoes her own argument   February 25, 2003
4 out of 8 found this review helpful

Guerrero's book is self-effacing; she undoes her own argument.

Her thesis is a respect for a diversity of viewpoints is essential to the proper functioning of a law school, a university, and our society at large, and she argues that a certain mass of non-white students is necessary to foster that respect for a diversity of viewpoints. Sounds plausible.

How, then, does the author herself illustrate that respect for diversity she wishes us all to adopt?

Take the case of the then-dean of Boalt Hall, Herma Hill Kay, herself a pioneering woman in the legal profession who overcome discrination. When Dean Kay felt obliged to follow the law -- she was a dean of a school of law, after all -- forbidding use of race as a factor in admissions decisions, that made her, in Guerrero's view, a timid sell-out. Guerrero makes no effort whatsoever to understand, let alone respect, Dean Kay's position. Guerrero doesn't agree with Kay's position, and that is all the justification Guerrero needs to reduce Dean Kay to a caricature.

Likewise with the professors who favored a race-neutral focus on standard admissions criteria, either because they believe the government has no grounds for apportioning benefits on the basis of skin color, or because they believe that an elite graduate school should focus relentlessly on academic criteria. Guerrero portrays them as, at best, hopelessly outdated and complicit with racism, and, at worst, racist.

In short, if you disagree with Guerrero, you have a character flaw. That's the "new diversity" Guerrero embodies in her book. (Good luck to us all.)

Now, the fact that Guerrero's own intolerance undoes her argument does not negate the possibility that an increased diversity of racial backgrounds in any given institution generally will yield increased respect for others' opinions -- even if it does generate some Guerreroan attitudes as well. But there is strong reason to worry that this modern concept of "diversity" is generally marked by intolerance -- as in the case of Guerrero. To consider that important issue, visit the "Critical Mass" webiste of Erin O'Connor or read Peter Wood's new book.

In the end, then, Guerrero's book is a useful factual compendium, but displays an unintended irony that defeats her own argument.