After Law School Dean James Vorenberg '49 announced in April that he would resign from the deanship after next year, his colleagues at the Law School and around the nation praised him for his handling of a faculty plagued by deep ideological differences.

But to some of Vorenberg's peers, his tenure was a Pyrrhic victory at best. Because when the faculty became deadlocked over tenure decisions, it was President Bok who twice in recent years breached the Law School's traditional autonomy and stepped in to make the final decision.

And Bok--who will appoint Vorenberg's successor has said the next dean will have to do more than just keep order. In a recent interview, the president said Vorenberg's successor will have to be able to fashion faculty consensus to make improvements on important educational issues.

"There are a substantial number of problems that involve the quality of education, the quality of student life at the school, the future of the library, financial resources, building needs, that should not be deferred," Bok said. "The faculty must be able to put aside its divisive discussions which have focused on controversial tenure appointments and direct its concerns toward this other range of issues."

Bok, a former dean of the Law School, said he hopes Vorenberg's successor will force the faculty to change its focus.

"This range of issues needs to be addressed, and has been put to the side in the recent preoccupation with appointments matters," Bok said. "I would hope that the next dean would engage the faculty in a harmonious and productive discussion and resolution of these issues."

The faculty's narrow denial of tenure last year to Assistant Professor of Law Clare Dalton--upheld by Bok in February--showed just how difficult it was for Vorenberg to build consensus within the faculty.

Dalton's case was the latest chapter in the Law School's struggle over Critical Legal Studies (CLS), a radical school of legal thought which holds that the law reflects social and economic values, and not abstract principles.

Dalton, a CLS adherent, received support from a majority of the faculty, including Vorenberg, but not the two-thirds she needed for tenure. Eighteen professors subsequently petitioned Bok for a review, charging the Law School faculty with political bias.

Bok's decision to deny Dalton's appeal--based on the advice of a five-member committee of outside legal experts--reopened old wounds. More than 50 members of the Women's Law Students Association abruptly confronted Bok at a private Quincy House dinner two days after his decision, and in the most unusual episode of the debate, Professor of Law Charles Nesson made his views known through a tape recorded message distributed to the Law School faculty. They all said Bok's committee was prejudiced against Dalton's political beliefs.

But according to Vorenberg and other professors, the turmoil has been limited to tenure issues. The deadlocks over appointments, they say, have not impaired other faculty functions.

"The disputes had to do exclusively with specific appointments," Vorenberg said. "I don't think that's kept the faculty from experimenting with new aspects of legal education. If one looks at the 1980s, and asks whether it was a period of change or a period of standing still, I think the former is a fairer characterization."

Associate Dean and Bussey Professor of Law Frank E. A. Sander agrees with Vorenberg's view, saying, "I think the politics have not been a serious distraction."

But Sander did say that the new dean will have to continue to unify the Law School's diverse faculty, a job he said he thought Vorenberg had done well. "One of the challenges for the new dean--which was also a challenge for the old dean--will be to harness that diverse group and make it function together," Sander said.

Deans at other law schools have said that Vorenberg's handling of the conflicts over appointments was as good as anyone's could have been.