Claiming that "the time to act has come." Law School Dean Robert C. Clark announced in a letter yesterday that Harvard would offer tenure to four prominent minority legal scholars, including University of Oklahoma professor Anita Hill.

Or so thought a majority of law school students, who received the letter in their mailboxes yesterday.

But the letter, which seems to have been written by a group of law students that calls itself the Sojourner Truth Squad, is fake.

Clark clarified this to the law school community in a letter he released later yesterday.

"Many students have received in their mailboxes today a letter dated April 14, purporting to come from me," he wrote. "I am not the author of this letter."

Most law students were deceived. Or at least they wanted to be.

"We were in disbelief, but doing our best to convince ourselves," said Inga Bernstein, a member of the Law School's Committee on Gay, Bisexual and Lesbian Legal Issues.

Clark learned about the letter at a breakfast meeting he had organized with the committee.

"I referred to [the 'new' appointments] somewhat obliquely," Bernstein said. When it seemed clear that Clark had not heard of them, she said, she "passed the letter around to him."

"He looked a little puzzled with the letter," Bernstein said. She said Clark remarked, "Pretty good signature there," and then jokingly asked if the letter was dated April 1.

Students responded enthusiastically to the letter, bombarding the Dean's office with congratulatory phone calls.

"I certainly wanted to let him know how excited I was at his change of heart," said second-year law student Sarah Vonderlippe. "They did seem as though they'd received a lot of phone calls."

Third-year law student Elizabeth A. Moreno called the letter "the most brilliant political move by diversity activists in my three years at Harvard Law School."

"It was so shaming to Dean Clark. It we had the of dean we deserve to have, this is the kind of letter we'd get." She said "What an incredible crying shame that it isn't true."

The parody written on letterhead paper in a style typical of Clark's writing, also said the Law School would reduce its average class size and increase funding for students who want to go into public interest law after graduation.

At the bottom of the letter, however, were the words "RCC/sts" presumably a reference to the Sojourner. Truth Squad a mysterious group that had taken responsibility for the earlier outbreaks of grafitti on the Law Schools campus.

And while most law students were enthusiastic about or amused by the letter, others saw a darker side to the prospect of a diverse faculty.

"Oh god, I won't have anything to complain about I don't know what I'll do," one commente