<Begin Segment 19>

MC: Throughout this interview, you've sort of described a continuum from when you were a child and sort of safely nestled within a Japanese American community, and then to, as you entered college, sort of experiencing shock at being a member of a minority community within the college campus and seeing that, that there were quite a few other types of people out there. And then now, with law school and even a higher degree of perhaps alienation or feeling outside the mainstream, during law school, did you ever experience any incidents of outright discrimination or negative experiences against you because you were either a woman or a member of a minority group?

LB: I don't think that I can recall a specific instance where I felt discriminated against because of my race, but I also know that discrimination works in very, very subtle ways. Certainly I think there was probably some type of sense perhaps from some of the professors that I might be a quiet student, that I might be someone who won't speak up. And I'm sure that that happened because I think that's pervasive in society, the stereotypes that people have of Asian Americans, and particularly Asian American women. But while I don't think I can identify an instance where someone was overtly racist to me, I think that law school in general can be a very racist environment, if only from the standpoint that at that point in time, there were very few minority students, there were very few minority faculty. I think that there's a sense and there continues to be a sense that there just aren't qualified minorities who can cut it in law school or there aren't qualified minorities who have accomplished enough to be law school faculty. So even if personally I didn't feel that I was discriminated against, I was certainly aware that law schools and the legal profession were not open to minority students or minority faculty because of the mere absence of them in the environment, which itself leads to a higher sense of alienation on the part of the minorities who are there.

MC: Sure.

LB: So, and certainly when I was there, it was a period of time of great struggle around the issue of affirmative action in law schools and special admissions programs. And the issue really divided the school. There were many people who were either opposed to affirmative action or felt that affirmative action/quotas were not the right thing to do, and in fact, was a bad thing for minorities because we'd be admitting unqualified minorities to the school. So again, even though I might not have experienced personal acts of discrimination against me, I felt those as personal acts of discrimination because I felt like they were looking at me and saying that people like me didn't belong there, and it was okay for me to be there, but we really had to watch how many we let in. And that to me was very personal. So I think discrimination certainly did exist, certainly still does exist. We're breaking down the walls now, but the fight isn't over yet.

MC: Did these debates about Bakke and about affirmative action in professional schools, about special admissions, politicize you more than you had been politicized in college about racial issues?

LB: Very much so. When I started my first year of law school, like I said, I didn't have any really great aspirations to be a political lawyer or an activist or anything. But when I started and people ahead of me started to reach out and share materials with me and help me and made me feel like I did belong there, I certainly became much more aware of the need for that kind of mentoring and that need for a critical mass of minority students in schools, the need for minority professors, and the important, the absolute importance of having minority lawyers.

Soon after I started law school, the decision in Bakke was handed down, and there was a tremendous outpouring of activism around that case. In addition, there was an attempt at my law school to cut back our special admissions program and to limit more the number of minority students at the school. Now, they would never say that it was an attempt to limit the number of minority students, but I think there was certainly an attempt to really say, "We can't lower our standards anymore. We can't take lower LSATs or whatever." It was, and we viewed that as, an attempt to cut back the program. And as a result, there was a tremendous amount of activism at the school to the point where students organized, students got together counterproposals to the administration's proposal, a huge, big demonstration in front of the school. They called out the San Francisco Mounted Police to respond to our assembly with megaphones, and a great big meeting in the school gym, I think it was to raise the different points of view on the affirmative action issue. Very impassioned speeches by people I respect tremendously. And they really became my models and my mentors about social change, about your ability to effect social change, about the need to speak out with what you believe, and that change can occur if you do speak out. And that really heightened my own personal political sense, and I think informed a great deal of what I went on to do after law school.

And if I can expand on that, there were, as I told you, very few minority professors, but there were some who were tremendously influential on me and my life. Chuck Lawrence is a well-known Constitutional Law scholar who was one of my professors, and really made me see the power of speaking out, the power of putting yourself out there personally, and about the law as a vehicle for social change. And there were other professors too, who took us under their wing, and really mentored us and guided us and supported us through some very difficult times.

MC: That's wonderful.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.