Merritt, D J; Reskin, B F --- "New Directions for Women in the Legal Academy" [2004] LegEdDig 39; (2004) 13(1) Legal Education Digest 10

New Directions for Women in the Legal Academy

D J Merritt & B F Reskin

[2004] LegEdDig 40; (2004) 13(1) Legal Education Digest 10

53 J Legal Educ 4, 2003, pp 489–495

For almost a decade the authors have been tracing the careers of women and men in the legal academy. This research, which focused primarily on race and gender relationships to career progression, examined the careers of more than a thousand people who began teaching at accredited law schools during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

There is no doubt that women have progressed in the legal academy since 1970, and that some progress has been made by women of all races. Another positive note is that, once the study controlled for credentials and some personal characteristics, the institutions that hired women were just as prestigious as those that hired men. The top-ten list of scholars, as measured by citations, included four African-American women and one white woman.

But there is a shadow side. During this period — 1986 to 1991 — women were far more likely than men to take non-tenure-track positions at law schools. Problems also emerged on the tenure track. While women matched men in the prestige of the institutions that hired them for tenure-track jobs during the late 1980s, they did this during a time when faculties talked loudly about the need to use affirmative action to hire white women, women of colour and men of colour.

More disturbing, faculties regularly hired women at lower ranks than equally credentialled men. The authors also found differences in the courses men and women were assigned to teach: men were more likely to teach constitutional law, and women more likely to teach trusts and estates or skills courses. Perhaps most disturbing, white women, women of colour, and men of colour were all more likely than white men to abandon teaching.

The associate professor rank was disproportionately occupied by white women, women of colour, and men of colour. The most distressing part of this story is the especially disadvantageous position of women of colour. On most measures, women of colour fared even more poorly than white women.

First, we need to preserve and even strengthen affirmative action. Second, we must focus on multiple outcomes, not just the one being the initial hire of a faculty member. Third, we must face the issues of retention and promotion. Fourth, we need to expand our concern for women and men of colour, as well as for people of differing economic background, sexual orientation, religion, and physical ability. Finally, and most important, we need to recognise women’s potential for leadership.

There are two personal attributes necessary for leadership, and a large number of women in legal education have them. The first essential quality of leadership is self-knowledge. Who many women are, of course, is dissonant with the legal academy. So this may seem a prescription for stress. On the contrary, this brings us to the second attribute of leadership. The capacity for leadership develops when individuals encounter dissonance with their environment and work to change it.

The authors are not suggesting that we make a virtue of disadvantage. Instead, they are encouraging women in the legal academy to look deep within themselves and recognise the leadership that is there. It’s a force that, if we let it, can dramatically change the world we know.