Cristina Rodriguez Could Be Yale Law School's First Tenured Hispanic Professor (VIDEO)

According to the Yale Daily News, renowned immigration law professor Cristina Rodriguez has been offered tenure at the Yale Law School, one of the top law schools in the nation. Should she accept, Rodriguez would be the first tenured Hispanic faculty member at Yale Law School since its founding in 1824.

In recent years, however, law school classrooms have become less diverse. So much so that non-profits like Los Angeles based For People of Color, Inc. were founded to increase the enrollment of students of color in law school. Even the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC) -- the non-profit organization that facilitates the law school admissions process and administers the law school entrance exam (LSAT) -- dedicates a page on their website to discuss the dearth of minority students in the legal profession.

Which makes small victories like this welcome news to some.

Although the announcement of Rodriguez's offer is not yet official, the Yale Daily News claims that six anonymous sources who were present at the town hall confirmed the events.

Rodriguez has taught at New York University Law School since 2004; including courses in Constitutional Law, Immigration Law, and Comparative Constitutional Adjudication.

She received her B.A. in History from Yale College and J.D. from Yale Law School. As a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, Rodriguez also earned a Master of Letters in Modern History.

WATCH: Cristina Rodriguez Discusses Immigration Reform

Comments

[AntonioSaucedo]

08:02 PM on 03/03/2012

Stop the use of the nonsensical term people of color, especially when referring to people of H descent.

[NKNK]

04:32 PM on 03/15/2012

But why is it nonsensical? To me, it means all people who do not benefit from white privilege, so it refers not just to race but to ethnicity too. And people do judge others even if they've never seen them, just based on their names and implied ethnicity. Sad, but true.

[Karen1]

02:38 PM on 03/17/2012

White Hispanic benefit from white privilege too, ie Cameron Diaz. I think it's silly to use the term people of color when describing white people.

[Yankeebrown]

09:11 AM on 03/02/2012

She should run for office!

[arecibo48]

11:18 PM on 03/01/2012

I wish Cristina well.

[mira chancleta]

02:11 PM on 03/01/2012

Certainly an "accomplishment" for her.

However,

1. It is well known in the Ivy circles that most departments look BEYOND their own ivy-covered walls for faculty and administrative hires. The reason for this is to encourage a broader, more expansive intellectual, experiential base and scope of their faculty and NOT an "intellectually" incestuous "just us" club. It is a bit awkward to profess knowledge of anything beyond what one is exposed to intellectually, experientially if one never leaves the backyard.

2. It is very telling of the authors of this article to indirectly brand her as "person-of-color", without any information about her familial background , other than the tired label of "La Tina", as if that were any more informative than a foot note on the Taco Bell menu.

3.I would bet that some intelligent and archival research at Yale would yield a "La Tino" or two amongst their faculty over the last 2 centuries, particularly among the Spanish Sephardic scholar communities of the East Coast which have been leaders in commerce (Founders of Wall Street's Stock Exchange), the legal world (several notable supreme court judges) and the world of scholarship and intellectual pursuit.

4. But perhaps they were looking for a different kind of "La Tino"?

[Jetwash]

09:21 AM on 03/03/2012

Maybe one who is Latino Americano? Probably. That would be very different from the Spanish Sephardic scholars you speak of. Latino identity is complex, shifting, changing, it is in flux. Perhaps it would be better to look at things in terms of recent migration. Latinos of the Great Migration of the Late 20tht Century might be more what the author is looking for. That would be representative of the demographic shift occurring in the U.S. today.

[mira chancleta]

08:27 PM on 03/03/2012

"Great"?
By what metric is that quantified?
Slithering under a border?
Yeah, real "great".
As for what the "author is looking for".
My only response is that in Journalism the "author" has a NUMBER ONE responsibility and that is to present facts and not replace them with politically-correct fictions that make lots of tails wag.
By that logic, we should be reading comic books for all of our historical and contemporary insights.

[mira chancleta]

09:26 PM on 03/03/2012

...and one more thing...the language of these Sephardic colonists, scholars and merchants was "Ladino" which is a "locked-in-time", archaic form of Spanish that they transplanted to other parts of the world when they fled Spain during the late 15th century to escape the persecution of the CATHOLIC-driven Inquisition to expel all NON-Catholics from Spain (Arabs, Gypsies, Jews).

Many of these "Ladinos" were among the earliest Spanish settlers into the new world.
Archeological evidence is found from the American Southwest to the contemporary countries in Central and South America as well as the Caribbean former Spanish Main colonies.

Aruba & Curacao are EXCELLENT sources of this history with very prominent Synagogues in existence TODAY with accompanying cemeteries.

These are people of hispanic cultural roots who by even the loosest and most corrupted definition of "Latino" are WAAAAAYYYY more valid "Latinos" than ndidgenous "immigrants" to the US, that have NEVER spoken Spanish.

[researcher1000]

01:55 PM on 03/01/2012

Cristina Rodriguez is inspirational! This is how we can and will improve. Setting the example.

[RickCadena]

12:00 PM on 03/01/2012

This is certainly a step in the right direction and hats off to Ms. Rodriguez.

[freedom1947]

10:36 AM on 03/01/2012

Good Luck

[Eddie Martinez]

10:22 AM on 03/01/2012

All the best to Cristina Rodriguez.