Summers planned to provide an update on his search at a ''town hall meeting'' Tuesday night on the law school campus. The next dean will succeed Robert C. Clark, who announced last November he will step down in June after 14 years at the helm.
About 60 students gathered outside to protest before the meeting.
''I think that President Summers should really pay attention to what the students want at Harvard Law School. We're there every day, and we know the institution as well as anyone else,'' said Lacey Schwartz, a third-year law student.
The demonstrating students said they want more input into the search, and more information about Summers' criteria for choosing a dean.
''We need President Summers to be more transparent in his selection for a dean,'' said Jasleen Kohli, 26, a third-year law student from Pasadena, Calif.
Summers' spokeswoman, Lucie McNeil, said the president has been receptive to comments throughout the search.
''We've said all along that we want the process to be as open as possible, and we welcome all comers to the meeting,'' she said.
McNeil declined to comment on the status of the appointment, or the number of candidates under consideration. Summers, who will appoint Clark's replacement, recently held meetings to update law school faculty and staff.
Last year, a student's use of the slur ''nig'' in an online course posting sparked an uproar at the 1,800-student law school. The posting generated a back-and-forth that resulted in a second student sending an e-mail to a protesting peer, saying that ''if you, as a race, want to prove that you do not deserve to be called by that word, work hard and you will be recognized.''
The e-mail exchange and a crudely drawn swastika later appeared together on a leaflet distributed to school mailboxes.
The episode eventually led to a student walkout and the professor stepped aside from teaching the class, a first-year course on tort law.
The Black Law Students Association also asked for a reprimand of another professor, who was quoted as saying in class that ''feminism, Marxism and the blacks have contributed nothing to tort law.'' The professor, David Rosenberg, has said he was referring to a body of legal thought known as critical race theory.
The school has since instituted a Diversity Committee made up of six faculty, six students and three law school staff members which has held more than 10 meetings and has met with Summers. The committee is weighing a ban on offensive speech, but a recommendation is not expected until spring.
The school has also set up workshops on multiculturalism for professors, and sessions for new students on negotiating ''difficult conversations.''
Law school spokesman Michael Armini said ''it's not accurate to say that nothing's being done to address these issues.
''It's just that not everything has come to fruition yet,'' he said. ''We are in the midst of a process, and we share the concerns of the students, but we want to make this a thorough process and not a quick fix.''
Sam Halabi, 26, a second-year law student from El Dorado, Kan., said he'd like to see the new dean step up outreach efforts.
''We are here today to make sure they know that we want a dean who has a commitment that's been lacking a commitment to diversity,'' he said.
