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6 Berkeley Women's L.J. 1 (1990-1991)
Images of Black Women in Legal Academy: An Introduction

handle is hein.journals/berkwolj6 and id is 7 raw text is: Images of Black Women in the Legal Academy: An Introduction Emma Coleman Jordant The story of black women law professors in the legal academy has yet to be told. This collection of essays begins the process of creating a record of our experiences as teachers, scholars, administrators and par- ticipants in the law school culture. Each author is a black woman law professor who has chosen a personal vantage point from which to explore our often conflicting roles in legal academia. These essays reflect the experiences of both senior teachers and recent entrants into the profes- sion. We begin with stories' of personal experience in our professional lives. We think that this is the firmest foundation on which to build our knowledge in the search for more general insights into legal issues affect- ing the lives of black women outside the legal profession.2 The essays t Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center. I Storytelling, the use of narrative and personal account, offers a powerful alternative vision to the traditional forms of legal persuasion. See Symposium, Legal Storytelling, 87 Mich L Rev 2073 (1989) (this collection of articles is tangible recognition of the growing influence of the storytellers' art upon legal scholarship). See also Milner S. Ball, The Legal Academy and Minority Scholars, 103 Harv L Rev 1855, 1858-60 (argues that storytelling by minority schol- ars seeks to transform legal scholarship by translating the particular and personal to the theo- retical). See generally Robert Coles, The Call of Storie Teaching and the Moral Imagination (Houghton Mifflin, 1989). 2 We surely recognize that our experiences as members of a relatively privileged intellectual community do not give us license to obscure the real economic differences that may exist between our daily lives and the lives of the majority of women of color. We have only tried, where possible, to heed the exhortation: It is time for Sapphire to testify on her own behalf, in writing, complete with foot- notes .... To testify means several different things in this context: to present the facts, to attest to their accuracy, and to profess a personal belief or conviction. The minority feminist legal scholar must be a witness in each of these senses. Regina Austin, Sapphire Boundl, 1989 Wis L Rev 539, 542 (1989). Man Matsuda characterizes the experience-based approach to ordering legal knowledge es the utilization of multiple consciousness as jurisprudential method. Mar Matsuda, When the First Quail Call Multiple Consciousness as Jurisprudential Method, 11 Women's Rts L Rptr 7 (1989). See also Angela Harris, Race and Essentialism in Feminist Legal Theory, 42 Stan L Rev 581 (1990) and Kimberle Crenshaw, Demarginalizing the Intersection ofRace and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics, 1989 U Chi Legal F 139 (1989). BERK ELEY WOMEN'S LAW JOURNAL

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