ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the debate surrounding the numbers of minorities and women appointed to law faculties. It also examines two competing models of how the legal academy functions: assimilationism and pluralism. The chapter also discusses the implications for each of small numbers of minority and women faculty. Because of the problems with a model of assimilationism for women and minority law faculty, an attractive possibility is reliance on a model of pluralism. As with assimilationism, the concept of pluralism defies simple definition. In fact, theories of pluralism have sometimes been formulated out of distaste for the implications of assimilationism. Just as Horace Kallen reacted to nativism, advocates of pluralism in American legal education frequently are responding to the rigidity and intolerance associated with assimilationism. Ironically, the problems associated with the politicization of faculty affirmative action hinder reliance on both assimilationism and pluralism.
