Florida Gov. Jeb Bush Signs
Law School Bill
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. —  Gov. Jeb Bush signed a bill last month creating new law schools at Florida A&M University and Florida International University in a bid to open up the legal profession to more minorities.
"We've got enough lawyers, the problem is we don't have enough African American and Hispanic lawyers," Bush said after signing the bill on the Florida A&M campus.
Bush signed the bill on a stage at FAMU, flanked by a coalition of Black and Cuban American lawmakers who pushed for the new schools.
In the past, the two caucuses have been at odds, with Cuban American lawmakers wanting a school at Florida International in  Miami and Black lawmakers fighting for the FAMU school.
As recently as last year, supporters from each university went to the Board of Regents, which oversees the state university system, seeking a law school. The board rejected the schools as unnecessary and too expensive.
But the Legislature had the ultimate say, and this year, with many lawmakers who had long sought one law school or the other leaving office because of term limits, the two groups cooperated on a bill calling for two new schools (see Black Issues, May 25).
For Florida A&M, the bill also was intended to right a historic wrong, returning to the school a law program that was taken away in 1968 when the mostly White university across town, Florida State, was granted a law school. FAMU, still predominantly Black, and its alumni have been pushing for the return of the school ever since.
"It's a day that closes a festering sore that's been open," says Bernard Kinsey of Los Angeles, the university's national alumni association president.
Where Florida A&M's law school will be located is still up in the air. With the Florida State law school already in Tallahassee, lawmakers decided the Florida A&M law school should be placed in an under-served urban area along the growing I-4 corridor between Tampa and Orlando. In addition to those two cities, Lakeland also is  vying for the school.
Florida A&M President Dr. Frederick Humphries says he is still considering proposals from all three cities and a decision likely will be made in the fall.
Classes at the new law schools are scheduled to begin in 2003.
Florida A&M now joins Howard University, Southern University, Texas Southern University, North Carolina Central University and the University of the District of Columbia as the lone Black colleges with law schools.
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