i've just posted the beginning of the article. rest can be found at
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercu...g/14999997.htm
More Muslims going into law
SEPT. 11 FALLOUT FUELS CIVIL RIGHTS EFFORTS
By Kim Vo
Mercury News
Minal Hasan was exploring careers -- teacher? journalist? -- when two planes sliced through the World Trade Center.
In the days and months that followed, friends and relatives exchanged tales of harassment, dubious arrests and assaults nationwide. Someone threw rocks at Hasan's car. Someone else spat at her.
The Fremont woman then followed an increasing number of American Muslims, rocked by the fallout of Sept. 11: She applied to law school.
The ``civil rights of our community are being encroached upon, and we don't even have enough lawyers in our community to help us. A lot of people in our community thought that,'' said Hasan, who graduated from Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law in May. ``I thought that, too.''
Though firm numbers are elusive -- law firms and schools don't ask about an applicant's religion -- the number of Muslim lawyers and law students is growing. The National Association of Muslim Lawyers, which began in 1996 with 24 members, now has 500. Half of the 100 members of the Bay Area Association of Muslim Lawyers, known as BAAML, are law students, a sign of the swelling ranks. And Muslim law student associations are sprouting from Berkeley to Yale.
Muslims' growing interest in law is also part of social evolution that occurs as children of immigrants explore professions beyond the medicine and engineering paths available to their parents.