Eileen Olds: BALSA Holds Demonstration

"But we had a demonstration about the fact that there was so little diversity here. And I can still remember my speech that I said at the time. There were 13 Blacks in the whole law school. So all three classes, there were 13 Blacks, there were only 31 alums at that time. And no Black faculty and no other minorities on the faculty whatsoever. So that gives you an idea. We're not talking about hundreds of people, but the small group was able to do a lot of very impressive things, I think.” -- Eileen Olds, Class of 1982, on protesting the lack of diversity at the law school in the early 1980s Kochman, Philip J. “Lawyer’s Guild, BALSA Hold Demonstration Against Racism.” The Advocate, vol. 12, no. 10, 26 March 1981, p.1. When Eileen Olds came to William & Mary Law School, she was one of six Black students in her class. By her second year, there were only four. There were no Black faculty members and a very limited network of Black alumni. Olds, as president of the Black American Law Student Association (BALSA), organized this demonstration with recent graduate Bessida White (J.D. ’80) to call attention to the lack of diversity at the Law School and insist on changes that would prepare students “to function in a multi-racial society.” Unfortunately, little changed prior to Olds graduating in 1982. It was not until the late 1980s that the Law School hired its first Black tenure-track faculty. Listen to Eileen Olds's oral history online.