Still, another law school professor said that while Jackson's "presence certainly keeps the issue alive and certainly generated a lot of interest among the faculty," the professor was "not sure what impact it will have on the pace of the process to appoint a woman of color to the tenured faculty."

And legal scholars around the country were also uncertain about the benefits of increased publicity.

"It's very easy to go out and hire if you put your mind to it," said John R. Kramer '58, dean of the Tulane Law School. But it's "tough if you've got your back against the wall," Kramer added.

According to Jesse H. Choper, dean of the University of California-Berkeley's law school, Harvard has as diverse a faculty as most other law schools.

"I don't think there's a single law school in the country that has a diverse faculty," Choper said. "I think Harvard's making a strong good faith effort."

Nonetheless, Kramer said the latest wave of publicity has hurt Harvard's reputation around the country.

"The dean has got the worst P.R. [public relations] sense of any dean in the country," Kramer said.

Although Clark has shown no signs of budging and Bell has shown no signs of staying, Bell said yesterday he is confident he will soon be able to return to Harvard. Bell said that in addition to Visiting Professor of Law Regina Austin--the Black woman visiting law professor who has become the focus of recent activism--Harvard will have another Black female professor visiting next year, as well as "two or three others [outside Harvard] whose work merits consideration."

"I can't believe that one of them won't prove worthy," Bell said.

"Lawyers who must face the social and legal problems of the 21st century deserve more than a faculty modeled after what was termed the ideal 50 years ago," Bell said at the press conference.