former professor Derrick A. Bell ,

"Once the president decided to reject my request for a third year, I knew it was going to be tough," he says.

By not returning to Harvard after his petitions were rejected, Bell automatically resigned his position. He now teaches at New York University's Law School, where he holds a visiting professorship.

These days, there is a certain resignation to Bell's writings. He seems less interested in fighting racism, whose existence he appears to take for granted, than in attacking attempts by liberal reformers to forcibly engineer social change.

"Harvard, in terms of diversity, is like any other institution," he says. "When there is pressure, they move; when there are other considerations that are more pressing, they don't."

He says during his final years at Harvard, the Law School's primary concern was not with diversity, but with ending the strife within its increasingly polarized faculty. The diversity effort, rather than becoming a victim of opposition, "fell in the cracks," he says.

Today, the faculty seems less polarized. And even the tone of the administration is shifting. More women and minority scholars have been offered positions than in any previous year.

As for Bell himself, he thinks it is probably time to make the transition to being a full-time writer. It is in this capacity, not affiliated with any one university, that he feels he will best be able to further his mission--one for which he has sacrificed a great deal