Queensland University of Technology Law and Justice Journal
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K Lee
Adams[*]
They thought the Great Wizard would send for them at once, but he did
not. They had no word from him the next day, nor the next,
nor the
next.[2]
Perhaps because of
the emphasis on precedent, law is a backward-looking profession. We members of
the legal academy tend to revere
tradition, time-honoured ‘truths’,
and consistency. Yet this approach to our profession has contributed to miring
legal
education in a stodgy inertia, slow to react to changing circumstance or
indeed to recognize the need to do so.
One of the changing circumstances
over the last several decades is the presence of women law students. It is only
within the past
thirty-odd years that women began to enrol in law school in
numbers significant enough to make their presence
felt.[3] The combination of the
removal of barriers to professional and academic entry and the
consciousness-raising of the 1970s saw dramatic
increases in females in the law
classroom. Women have made up a significant percentage in both American and
Australian law schools
for the past twenty
years.[4] The percentage of women is
now at or approaching parity with male law students in both
countries.[5]
Despite the
gains in female numbers, law schools have been slow to react to the potential
for different needs among students that
this represents. As women’s
presence in law schools increased, so did calls for change in the system. For
example, the work
of many early feminist legal scholars centred on giving women
a voice in part by asking the “woman
question”.[6]
The 1990s
saw efforts to make women’s voices heard in the legal academy. Teaching
about gender and the law was incorporated
into more curricula; the visibility of
female academics increased; more journals dedicated to feminist concerns were
launched. Though
there has been increased visibility in some sectors, the
overall institutional response to calls for change has been erratic. The
American academic hierarchy, still overwhelmingly white and male, tends to
resist substantive change proposed by women students.
This institutional inertia
inhibits law schools from moving forward in the effort to fully include women in
the legal academy. Despite
women being admitted to the classroom and to the law
degree, significant barriers remain to women feeling an integral part of the
law
school community.
Female students attending law school in the
twenty-first century may run up against obstacles in the legal academy structure
which
they are unprepared to encounter. Many women view law as the source of
fairness in our society and do not expect to meet structural
constraints that
block their voices in the legal academy. Others may have expected that their
pioneer predecessors had already wrought
sufficient change that they personally
would not need to prompt further
action.[7] Many women believe that a
legal education can provide them with power and independence and are surprised
when the system does not
assist them to achieve those
goals.[8]
Like Dorothy in
The Wizard of Oz, most women upon encountering these barriers rather
naively seek help within the academic structure, expecting to get it. Dorothy
goes to the “Great and Terrible Oz” asking to be sent home to
Kansas. Oz replies that he will help her IF she will kill
the Wicked Witch of
the West.[9] The Wizard of Oz
refused to respond to Dorothy’s request although maintaining an appearance
of receptiveness and demanding
superhuman performance of her in return.
Analogously, the traditional academic institution’s responses to female
voices are
often inadequate, as demonstrated by the experiences of women law
students themselves. Law schools still have a long way to go toward
making
their structures accommodating, much less welcoming, to many women.
This paper presents three stories of women’s interaction with the
American legal academy during the 1990s. [10] These stories typify modes of
response of the university community to demands by its female students and
illustrate the need for
further change in institutional structures. This paper
then calls for an alternative structure that could be useful for women, as
well
as other non-traditional students, in providing them a more effective voice
within the legal academy.
‘Oz himself is the Great Wizard’, answered the Witch,
sinking her voice to a whisper. ‘He is more powerful than
all the rest of
us together. He lives in the City of
Emeralds.’[11]
This
is a story from an American first-year criminal law
class.[12]
The class was discussing the merits of rape shield statutes, which make
certain evidence regarding a rape victim’s dress or
sexual habits
inadmissible at trial. The topic provoked strong emotions in many women in the
class. The professor became excited
because the class did not seem to agree
with his point of view that rape shield statutes impermissibly infringe the
rights of an
accused to a fair trial. He was adamant that evidence of a
woman’s dress or sexual history was clearly relevant to the issue
of
consent. He began to speak more heatedly.
Most women in the class were
visibly upset. Some raised their hands to respond to the argument but the
professor did not acknowledge
the raised hands. ‘They tell you down at
the Rape Crisis Centre -- if she says “no,” it’s rape.’
The professor’s voice was rising but his expression was a sneer.
‘Wrong, wrong, wrong!’ he shouted.
A brief, shocked silence
ensued. One female student spoke without raising her hand. This student almost
never spoke in class unless
called on. She hesitantly commented that what a
person wore did not have anything to do with whether she consented to be raped.
The reply was swift and brutal: ‘You are so wrong I can’t
even tell you how wrong you are.’
The student tried to respond
but instead began to cry. She walked out of the class. The women in the class
were frozen. One woman
later remarked that ‘We were so shocked we
didn’t know what to do—whether we should protest or walk out. I
felt
like I had been slapped.’
The professor, apparently realizing
temperatures had gotten too high, attempted to continue with class, but he had
lost the women.
They were whispering mutiny to each other: ‘I
can’t believe he said that!’ ‘He made her cry!’
‘Should
we walk out?’ ‘No, he won’t even let you in
class if you come late. What would he do if you walked out?’
Shortly
afterward, he dismissed the class.
A group of women congregated
afterward, talking of this professor’s behaviour. It was not just the
legal and political implications
of the professor’s statements that
angered the women students. It was his utter disregard for any pedagogical
purpose in his
responses. It was rumoured that he graded women harder than men.
He bullied the students. Today was the last straw. They all agreed
he had gone
over the edge of acceptable professional behaviour. But could they do anything
about it?
One woman suggested that they should go to the Dean and protest
what happened in class. The other women objected: ‘You will
be branded a
troublemaker.’ ‘He’s got tenure. They can’t do
anything to him.’ ‘You still have
to take this man’s class.
He can fail you.’ ‘Going to the Dean could wreck your
career.’ So no one went
to the Dean.
They decided to discuss the
matter with the only female teacher they had as first-years: their part-time,
non-tenure-track instructor
of legal writing. She, however, advised them to
‘just take it’. Years later, one woman related she is angriest
about
‘doing nothing’.
From this incident the
fledgling women law students learned a lesson in ineluctable logic. (1) No one
will fight your battles for
you. (2) Even you should not fight battles if they
are risky. (3) All clashes with those in power over you are risky, (4) so you
just take it. Although one could argue that it was the students’ choice
to remain silent, with the imbalance in power between
first-year law students
and a professor or administrator, it is questionable whether that
‘choice’ was truly authentic
or voluntary. From a student’s
perspective, the power of a law professor is awesome. Not only is a tenured
academic in a
‘job for life’, but also can hold significant power
over immediate consequences, such as marks, as well as long-term
consequences,
such as job recommendations.
In the face of such power, our first
response as women is often to censor ourselves. In so doing, we deny our own
voices and needs.
Some researchers suggest that women’s silence can mask
psychological distress with clear implications for academic
performance.[13] Commentators have
also suggested that the law is itself diminished by the absence of women’s
perspectives.[14]
Importantly, silencing ourselves denies the institution an opportunity
to respond. Without giving the institution ‘notice’
of the problem
and an opportunity to be heard, the academic hierarchy is denied its
natural justice. Thus, in the paradigm of legal procedure, any real criticism
of the system without this due process can be dismissed
as illegitimate and
effectively ignored. However, as the following stories demonstrate, women law
students who find their voices
don’t fare much better in moving the
academic hierarchy.
‘When you came to me I was willing to promise anything if you
would only do away with the other Witch; but now that you have
melted her, I am
ashamed to say that I cannot keep my promises.’ ‘I think you are a
very bad man,’ said Dorothy.
‘Oh no my dear; I’m really a
very good man; but I’m a very bad wizard, I must
admit’.[15]
I will
never forget the first time I walked through my law school. Down each hall, at
appropriately dignified intervals, hung huge,
gilt-framed portraits of important
alumni in judicial or academic robes or dark suits. They were, with a single
exception, middle
aged white males: only one woman, no people of colour. For
the first time I felt strongly my position as ‘other’.
The
presence of these portraits was a powerful symbol for me. It said that those
alumni who were valued by the law school and who
made significant contributions
to it were people who were not like me. My first thought was, they’re not
going to let me play
this game. I doubted that success as the law school
measured it was within my grasp because I did not look like a member of the
club. Other women felt the same as well. The women’s organization went
to the administration to see whether the symbolism
of the portraits could be put
to some positive use by giving those of us who did not look like the figures in
the portraits someone
to look to.
The university’s response was
first, ‘well, one must fit certain criteria to have a portrait hung. No
women meet that
criteria.’ ‘What criteria?’ we asked. The
official did not really know, but said no women had achieved places in
the
profession equal to that of the males represented. ‘How about Judge
X?’ we suggested. ‘Oh, she has not been
on the bench long enough;
she has not proven herself yet,’ was the reply.
Since the
administration could not even tell us what the alleged criteria were, we
researched the issue and discovered there were
no criteria. There was no
uniform standard about what attainments had to be made or even an indication at
what point in a career
the portraits had been placed. In fact, one man was up
on the wall simply because he left his portrait to the law school in his
will.
When we returned to the administration with this information, the
response changed. This time the answer was more practical: to
get a new
portrait there would have to be fundraising. ‘Could you help us with
that,’ we asked? No, the law school
was stretched too thin for that.
There was no attempt to put the women’s group in touch with possibly
sympathetic alumnae
or law firms with deep pockets. We were given no
explanation of how one approached the process of raising funds. In fact, we
were
actively discouraged from even beginning such a process of fundraising
because the administration feared we would draw off alumni
who would otherwise
give to the school’s general fund.
Ten years later, there is
still only one female portrait.
This incident reminds me of the way young children were taught to swim when I
was small. “Jump”, our parents would say,
“I’ll catch
you” and when you start to swim toward them, they back away. Sometimes it
worked. Sometimes panic
ensued. You might be learning to stay afloat, but at
the cost of trust in your parent and in the water. I question not only whether
this method is necessary but also whether it produces competent and confident
swimmers.
The only surprising thing about this story is its persistence
over time and among numerous law schools. Issues surrounding law school
portraits have been prominent in the minds of female students and graduates for
decades.[16] Yet the universality
of the issue for many has failed to lead to its resolution. While many women and
men of colour attempt to ignore
or suffer the portraits in silence, if students
do express dissatisfaction, they are often dismissed as strident, radical, or
worse--trivial.[17]
The
response of the academic hierarchy in this story is typically Janus-like. On
the one hand, the academy tends to dismiss the significance
of this issue as
‘mere decoration’. Typical responses are that the portraits have
always been there, they merely reflect
the reality of a previously (white)
male-only profession, and that dwelling on the issue suggests a certain
unlawyerly over-sensitivity.
Simultaneously, as occurred in this story, the
administration defends the sacredness of the portraits by investing them with a
meaning
they do not independently possess: the illusory
‘criteria’. Thus, American legal academia has both tended to deny
any symbolic significance of alumni portraits and to invest the portraits with
symbolic meaning. Once the unstable character of
the criteria is exposed,
Dorothy is then expected to conquer the Wicked Witch of Fundraising without any
assistance or advice from
the academy—hardly a fair fight.
Most
academics and administrators would acknowledge the significance of alumni
portraits with respect to the ‘typical’
law student—the
portraits give them role models to strive for, a sense of history to belong to.
Yet those same people often
fail to recognize the obvious converse—that
‘atypical’ law students (including women and men of colour) find it
difficult to model themselves on a conservative white male, and that for them,
the history of the portraits reinforces a strong sense
of not belonging. In
matters where a law school risks alienating a significant portion of its future
contributors by lack of responsiveness
to their concerns, it seems short-sighted
at least to cling to tradition for its own sake.
On the fourth day, to her great joy, Oz sent for her, and when she
entered the Throne Room he said pleasantly: ‘Sit down, my
dear; I think I
have found the way to get you out of this country.’ ‘And back to
Kansas?’ she asked eagerly.
‘Well, I’m not sure about
Kansas,’ said Oz, ‘for I haven’t the faintest notion which way
it lies’.[19]
The
law library normally closed at midnight. However, due to the large demand for
further access to the library, the policy developed
that law students were
permitted to stay in the library after the staff left at closing and could
essentially be ‘locked in’,
using a push-bar door which remained
locked to exit after hours. There was a car park next to the library where those
using the library
at night usually parked.
Thus, it was commonplace for
one to twenty students to remain in the building after closing: doing research,
meeting in study groups,
or using the computers. However, when the staff left,
after-hours students had no access to a telephone, as it was locked up in
the
office, and students could not re-enter the building once they had
left.
One night, as a female law student left the library at 1am to walk
to her car, a man grabbed her from behind and tried to tear her
clothing off.
She screamed. Several male students, hearing the scream, ran out of the library
and into the car park. The attacker
then let the female student go and began to
run. The male students chased him down and held him until the police
arrived.
The following day, a group of female students requested a
meeting with the Dean of the law school regarding the attack. The students
had
several suggestions regarding improving the safety of the area around the law
library. The administration later met with the
students.
Among other
suggestions, such as better lighting of the area at night, the women students
suggested that, as the university already
provided an escort service which could
be called to walk students to their cars, the best way to prevent a repeat of
the incident
would be to install a pay telephone in the library so that students
who used the library after hours could either call a friend or
the campus escort
service before leaving.
Administration officials were sceptical:
students would abuse the phone and disturb library patrons. The women
countered: you could
make it a campus-only phone. No, it would still disturb
readers. The women then suggested installing it in the vestibule of the
exit so
that it would not be near library patrons. No, the administration said, not
really giving a reason why this was not possible.
Finally the women suggested
having library staff place their phone out only when locking up at night and
have students remaining
sign in so any abuse of the phone privilege could be
traced. The answer was no.
The solution the Dean’s office proposed
was that students would no longer be allowed to stay in the library after
closing.
The women protested that this was in effect punishing all the law
students for what an outsider did, but the policy was implemented
immediately.
The new policy angered students who used the library after hours, and most
students tended to blame the women’s
group for bringing the issue before
the Dean, rather than attribute the closing to Dean’s restrictive response
to their suggestions.
The general feeling seemed to be if the women just had
not complained, everything would have been ok in the end. After all, they
caught the rapist.
None of the suggestions put forward by the
women’s group were implemented. The students were left with feelings of
frustration
and diminishment: Isn’t this what we are supposed to do--be
assertive and communicate our needs; go through the proper channels;
be
reasonable? Why were we ignored?
Somewhat incredibly, despite the fact
that the students in question were all in training for the law, the women never
considered filing
a lawsuit against the university for creating or allowing
conditions that facilitated the commission of crime. The university was
likely
vulnerable on that point and, if for no other reason, should have given more
consideration than it did to the students’
requests. Instead of being
helped by the administration, the women students were made worse off by voicing
their concerns.
This story is, I think, an illustration of the
ostrich-like approach with which many legal academies address problems. From
the institution’s
perspective the tenure of an individual student is
brief; perhaps ignoring students will make the issue ‘graduate’.
However, the morality of ignoring or discounting the student’s perspective
is dangerous. Student fees enable us to pursue
our research. It is at bottom a
patronage system, though the students frequently do not realize it. Beyond
sheer moral questions,
the legal academy is at risk of alienating its women
students—nearly half of its market at present--and thus foregoing the
benefit of expanded experience and perspective, if we in the academy fail to
act, misdirect, and, most importantly, fail to listen.
‘Your silver shoes will carry you over the desert,’
replied Glinda. ‘If you had known their power you could have
gone back to
your Aunt Em the very first day you came to this
country’.[20]
Essentially what these stories have in common is that the institution has
failed women students. These stories are not uncommon.
They are all the more
troubling because of that. The sheer fact that the same difficulties have
persisted over time and across
campuses dramatises the long-overdue need for
positive change. Women students either do not express dissatisfaction out of
fear
or find expression fruitless when institutions fail to engage with or
respond to what students are saying. As noted by several feminist
academics,
the continuing exclusion of women’s voices from the legal
academy—despite presence in equal numbers—may
be reflected in
different academic outcomes along gender
lines[21] and go a long way toward
explaining differences in professional opportunities and the so-called glass
ceilings in all aspects of
the legal
profession.[22] Indeed, the legal
profession will not realise the potential benefits of its female members as long
as it educates in conformance
with practices which perpetuate the silence of
women.[23]
The institution could
have turned these experiences into a positive if it had provided avenues for
presenting grievances which would
(1) give women a legitimate and sympathetic
forum to air their views free from negative repercussions, and (2) require real
response
from the institution. Having the traditional academic hierarchy as the
sole avenue for seeking response from the academy simply
does not work for most
women. Research that suggests that many women do not respond well to
authoritarianism and formal structures
in law schools may provide some guidance
here.[24] While networks and
avenues for reporting sexual harassment which bypass the typical power structure
of the Dean’s office
have certainly taken root in law schools over the
past ten years, recognition that there may be other issues of concern primarily
to women students which also require non-traditional routes of action has been
slow in coming.
The stories of women’s experiences as law
students demonstrate that there are indeed issues of concern to women that
simply
are not covered under the rubric of harassment. A reasonable step toward
eliminating the barriers to women in the profession would
be for law schools to
create from the tenured staff a position as student advocate, placed to advise
and support women on issues
of concern to them within the context of the law
school. It would be her task to help students find a voice and to show them how
to make that voice count. This advocate should not be directly responsible to
the Dean but to the university’s governing body
so as to obviate any
conflict of interest inherent in those responsible for the status quo of law
school policy. Although some may
question the need for a special advocate
within the law school or faculty itself, as members of a profession which
advocates equality
under the law, it is important for legal academicians to
demonstrate a commitment to substantive
equality.[25] Offering alternative
means of dialogue with the academy is one way law schools may show evidence of
this.
In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy learns that she has had the
power all along to help herself achieve her goal of getting back to Kansas.
Yet she did not
discover this power by herself. Dorothy was instructed by
Glinda the good witch, an older, wiser woman. The women’s advocate,
modelled possibly on structures already in place for harassment complaints,
could serve in such a role as to give women back their
voices and empower them
to create legal academies with space for us all.
We academics have
learned the feminist lesson of the eighties and nineties: that we must ask the
woman question. What the academy
must now do, and what it is failing to do, is
really listen to the answers.
[1] An earlier version of this paper was presented at the F-Law 2001 Conference, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Qld, Australia on February 15 2001. Thanks go to the participants at the conference for their helpful comments, especially to my husband and colleague at Deakin University, Dr Chris Geller. I am also grateful for the comments of the anonymous referee for the QUT Law and Justice Journal. Most importantly, thanks also go to the women whose stories are told in this paper.
[*] Associate Lecturer, School of
Law, Deakin University.
[2] L F
Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, first published 1900, J M Dent edition
1966 at 101.
[3] C Fuchs Epstein,
Women in Law 2nd edn 1993 at 59; J A Scutt, Women and the
Law, 1990 at 31; M Thornton, Dissonance and Distrust: Women in the Legal
Profession, 1996 at 94.
[4] In
Australia, females have made up greater than 40% of the beginning students
studying law since at least 1983: DEETYA, Higher
Education Division, Higher
Education Students Time Series Tables 3rd edn 1998, Table 13.3.
The figures for women completing a law course during that period are lower, but
still represent a substantial
presence: Ibid, Table 18.3. By the close
of the 1970s, the top US law schools began to have graduating classes between 20
and 40% female, with
the average US law school having 30% of its degree
recipients female: Epstein, supra n 3 at
53-58.
[5] J D Glater,
‘Women are Close to Being Majority of Law Students’ March 26, 2001
at 1, available at <http://www.lawschool.com/femalemajority.htm>
(visited 26 July 2001, on file with author) (citing American Bar Association
statistics); DEETYA, supra n 4.
[6] See eg K T Bartlett,
‘Feminist Legal Methods’ (1990) 103 Harvard Law Review 829; C
Menkel-Meadow, ‘Portia in a Different Voice: Speculations on a
Women’s Lawyering Process’ (1985) 1 Berkeley Women’s Law
Journal 39. Using the word ‘voice’ in a feminist paper calls to
mind the work of Carol Gilligan, who has been highly influential
in the
development of modern feminist legal theory. See C Gilligan, In a Different
Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development 1982. My use of
the word here is not intended to suggest a single perspective owned by women,
but rather to encompass the many perspectives
represented by women law students,
practitioners, and teachers as, quite literally, expressed in their voices or
speech.
[7] The pioneers in this context
are women who attended law school during the so-called second wave of feminism,
also known as the ‘women’s
liberation’ movement, in the late
1960s and 1970s. This era of feminist thought emphasised formal equality and
the elimination
of legal barriers to equal rights for women. Second-wave
feminism, generally speaking, began in Europe with the publication of S
de
Beauvoir’s The Second Sex 1949 and gained steam in the United
States with B Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique 1963 and the passage
of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 USC s 2000e, outlawing
discrimination based on sex. In Australia, this stage of feminism may be
roughly dated by the
Equal Pay cases of 1969, 127 CAR 1142, and 1972, 147
CAR 172, and the passage of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth). See
generally M Thornton, The Liberal Promise: Anti Discrimination Legislation
in Australia 1990. For further information and bibliographies on the second
wave of feminism, see the website for the International Archives
of Second Wave
Feminism at
<http://home.att.net/~celesten/2ndwave.html>
,
visited on 10/10/2001, web page on file with
author.
[8] See Thornton, supra
n 3 at 88.
[9] Baum, supra n 2 at
68-70.
[10] The stories related
herein are the real stories of women who were law students in America during the
1990s. Names are not used
and some details have been altered to protect the
privacy of the persons involved. The narratives were not gathered as part of a
formal study, but rather are the product of conversations with several female
legal practitioners over a period of years. The specific
words used to tell the
stories are my words, unless indicated by quotation marks. My commentary on
the narratives is slight, as
I prefer to let the stories speak for themselves.
[11] Baum, supra n 2 at
9.
[12] For a suggestion on
how to teach about the crime of rape without gender bias, see N S Erickson,
‘Sex Bias in Law School Courses:
Some Common Issues’ (1988) 38
Journal of Legal Education 101 at
114-115.
[13] L Guinier, M Fine
and J Balin, Becoming Gentlemen: Women, Law School, and Institutional
Change 1997 at 59-61. Several studies have reported that women law students
experience greater levels of stress and anxiety than male law
students: S
Daicoff, ‘Lawyer, Know Thyself: A Review of Empirical Research on
Attorney Attributes Bearing on Professionalism’
(1997) 46 American
University Law Review 1337 at 1376-1377.
[14] L M Finley,
‘Women’s Experience in Legal Education: Silencing and
Alienation’ [1989] LegEdRev 9; (1989) 1 Legal Education Review 101; R F Moran,
‘Diversity and Its Discontents: The End of Affirmative Action at Boalt
Hall (2000) 88 California Law Review 2241 at 2342; C Tobias,
‘Respect for Diversity: The Case of Feminist Legal Thought’ (1989)
58 University of Cincinnati Law Review 175 at
182.
[15] Baum, supra n 2
at 107.
[16] M Harrington,
Women Lawyers: Rewriting the Rules, 1993 at 45; L Guinier, ‘Models
and Mentors’ in L Guinier, M Fine and J Balin, Becoming Gentlemen:
Women, Law School, and Institutional Change, 1997 85 at
85-86.
[17] As noted by some
feminist commentators, many legal academics and lawyers are uncomfortable
discussing issues relating to emotional
reactions. See eg C L Hill,
‘Sexual Bias in the Law School Classroom: One Student’s
Perspective’ (1988) 38 Journal of Legal Education 603 at 605; L M
Finley, ‘Breaking Women’s Silence in Law: The Dilemma of the
Gendered Nature of Legal Reasoning’
(1989) 64 Notre Dame Law Review
886 at 897; R F Moran, supra n 14 at 2332-2333.
[18] With apologies to Carmen
Agra Deedy, whose wonderful children’s book about the guardians of
libraries provided the inspiration
for this title. C A Deedy, The Library
Dragon, 1994.
[19] Baum,
supra n 2 at 114.
[20]
Ibid at 144.
[21]
Guinier, Fine & Balin, supra n 13 at 75. According to empirical
research as well as anecdotal reporting, women speak in law school classrooms
less frequently
than men. T Lovell Banks, ‘Gender Bias in the
Classroom’ (1988) 38 Journal of Legal Education 137 at 141; C
Menkel-Meadow, ‘Feminist Legal Theory, Critical Legal Studies, and Legal
Education, or “The Fem-Crits Go to
Law School” (1988) 38 Journal
of Legal Education 61 at 77. This is evidence that the ‘voices’
of women are literally heard less than their male counterparts within the
legal
academy.
[22] C Grant Bowman and
E M Schneider, ‘Feminist Legal Theory, Feminist Lawmaking, and the Legal
Profession’ (1998) 67 Fordham Law Review 249 at 257-58; T Lovell
Banks, supra n 21 at 138.
[23] See C Menkel-Meadow,
supra n 21 at 74-81. There is interesting evidence to suggest that the
traditional method of legal education currently employed (the Langdell
case-Socratic model) homogenises expressions of difference between the genders
and may preclude reformation of the legal profession
simply by increasing
numbers of women. See S Daicoff, supra n 13 at 1401-1402; L E
Teitelbaum, A Sedillo Lopez, and J Jenkins, ‘Gender, Legal Education, and
Legal Careers’ (1991) 41 Journal of Legal Education 443. Such an
operation of the legal academy may explain why some studies have not found a
correlation between gender and ethics. Compare
W J Turnier, P Johnston Conover
and D Lowery, ‘Redistributive Justice and Cultural Feminism’ (1996)
45 American University Law Review 1275. For an explication of various
theoretical constructions of law, including Langdell’s theories, see G B
Wetlaufer, ‘Systems
of Belief in Modern American Law: A View from
Century’s End’ (1999) 49 American University Law
Review 1.
[24] See
Guinier, Fine & Balin, supra n 13 at 58-59.
[25] See C Menkel-Meadow,
supra n 21 at 67; C L Hill, supra n 17 at 608.
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