Students from several of Harvard's graduate schools said they will boycott classes today in a call for more diversity among the University's graduate school faculties.

"Diversity Day" has been an annual Harvard Law School event for the past two years. This year, students at the Kennedy School of Government and the Divinity School are expected to participate for the first time in the boycott and a joint rally, student leaders said.

Diversity Day will begin with morning pickets and rallies at each of the three graduate schools. At noon, the groups will convene at the Law School's Harkness Commons for a larger gathering, which will include speakers and a band, graduate students said.

The one-day strike is organized at the Law School by the Coalition for Civil Rights (CCR), a group composed of the Women's Law association and six minority Law School student organizations.

The protest is designed to "raise consciousness, to promote outrage on the part of the student body and to get more attention for the cause of diversity on campus [and] at large in Boston," according to CCR member Keith O. Boyken, a third-year law student.

Members of the coalition for Diversity, a Kennedy School student organization, will organize their school's Diversity Day participation. The Divinity School student group, Communities Confronting Racism, is coordinating Divinity School efforts in the protest.

According to third-year Divinity School StudentCasandra S. McIntyre, a Communities ConfrontingRacism member, the event is designed to applypressure to the various graduate school facultiesto tenure more men and women of color.

"[Diversity Day is intended] to bring to theawareness of the faculty that it's not juststudents of color who are concerned about this,"she said.

In addition, she said, the boycott shouldeducate students about the need for facultydiversity.

"We're requiring [the students] to stick theirnecks out and make an effort," she said.

McIntyre said several Divinity School facultymembers are sympathetic to the strike.

"Many students in my classes were saying thattheir classes have been canceled," she said.

Bussey Professor of Theology Margaret R. Milessaid yesterday that while she supports thestudents' movement, she will be holding class asusual today.

"I consulted with a number of people...Theysaid [to hold class because] the students needsomething to boycott," she said.

In a memo released March 27, Kennedy SchoolDean Albert Carnesale said he supports the viewsof the student organizers.

"The Kennedy School has and will continue topursue open and aggressive efforts to identify,recruit and retain more women and minorities toour faculty," he said.