Graduation focuses on diversity

Monday, May 20, 1996

Controversial jurist ignores partisanship at ceremony speechBy
Phillip Carter

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

Despite expectations that he would preach the values of
political conservatism, Federal Judge Alex Kozinski instead imbibed
the virtues of non-legal professions to the 1996 graduates of
UCLA’s School of Law on Sunday afternoon.

Prior to the weekend ceremony, word of Kozinski’s appearance
provoked an ideological backlash within the law school’s students,
faculty and staff. Appearing to preempt whatever he might say, each
speaker before him espoused the importance of diversity to UCLA’s
law school.

But instead of speaking on affirmative action or legal reform,
Kozinski humbly came to UCLA to give advice as an alumnus.

"Part of modern legal training ­ the type of rigorous
training these graduates have received for the last three years
­ is to take into account the tides and eddies of a dynamic
legal system," Kozinski said. "The craft of being a lawyer is not
only figuring out what the law is now, but what it will be when
your client’s case winds up in court."

But in an age where job prospects for lawyers appear gloomier
than they ever have, speeches extolling the law fell flat with the
audience. Instead, Kozinski spent the majority of his speech on
what could be done with a law degree ­ outside of the law.

"UCLA has done an exceptionally fine job of giving you the
necessary training to discharge your professional
responsibilities," Kozinski said. "You may not realize how much
else (other than law) your legal education has prepared you to
do."

Citing UCLA School of Law graduates who had left their legal
careers for entertainment, journalism and teaching, Kozinski said
that more than anything, UCLA presented an opportunity to prove
students’ skills in a stressful environment and make contact with
other success-bound scholars.

But while Kozinski’s remarks steered clear of politics and his
own widely-known conservatism, UCLA officials and those in
attendance made their more-liberal views well known.

With help from the school’s administration, the 1996 Graduation
Steering Committee handed out thousands of multi-colored Guatemalan
cloth swatches to attendees, to be worn on their clothing as the
case for other causes’ ribbons such as AIDS or domestic
violence.

The swatches came pinned to a card which read, "a class whose
remarkable cultural and intellectual diversity has brought
distinction to UCLA School of Law."

Opening Sunday’s ceremony, Dean Susan Westerberg Prager
congratulated the 1996 class for studying at UCLA because of its
rich tradition of diversity. But she warned that its graduates must
help California continue its quest for excellence through
diversity.

"In your law school years, anti-affirmative action winds have
built considerable force," said Prager, referring to the UC Board
of Regents’ July 1995 decision to scrap affirmative action and
recent court decisions directed against race and sex-based
preferences.

"Because we believe so strongly that UCLA’s racial diversity is
an essential element in our greatness as a law school," Prager
continued, "We will ­ in complying with the regents’ directive
­ continue to strive to pursue the goal of achieving
significant diversity."

Despite his renowned political conservatism, Kozinski told the
Daily Bruin in an earlier interview that he was not particularly
opposed to affirmative action, but could not specifically comment
on the UC system because of his position as a federal judge.

In a more general sense, Kozinski said that affirmative action
could be a reasonable system if applied in a way consistent with
the landmark 1978 Supreme Court decision: Bakke v. University of
California.

For affirmative action to work legally, Kozinski said
institutions can give preferences, but only in a loose subjective
way that reflects diversity ­ not a rigid system of rules and
guidelines that gives automatic preferences.

Currently, the UC system plans to institute its new admissions
guidelines next year, which would eliminate affirmative action at
the undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels as it now
exists today.

At the same time that this issue has consumed the university, it
has also entered the political realm through the California Civil
Rights Initiative, an anti-affirmative action ballot measure on the
Nov. 1996 ballot. If passed, that initiative would write
anti-affirmative action language into California’s constitution
­ irreversible except by future vote of the state’s
citizens.

GENEVIEVE LIANG

Federal Judge Alex Kozinski of the 9th Circuit Court spoke at
the 1996 UCLA School of Law graduation on the virtues of not
practicing law. His conservative ideology was markedly absent from
his address before more than 1,000 people at Sunday’s ceremony.