Law School Dean Wanted: A Woman for All Reasons
![handle is hein.journals/vllalr65 and id is 1123 raw text is:
2020]
LAW SCHOOL DEAN WANTED: A WOMAN FOR ALL REASONS
SUSAN HANLEY DUNCAN,* KAREN LOTT,** & CATHERINE PETTIS***
INTRODUCTION
UNEQUAL treatment of women in legal education still exists, whether
that manifests itself in salaries, service assignments, or the implicit
bias of colleagues or students. Challenges abound and can be demoraliz-
ing to women in the profession and those seeking to join the Legal Acad-
emy. Well-respected authors have documented these challenges for
many years and likely will continue for many more.' I will let others de-
scribe the very real inequities that still exist. With this Article, I instead
seek to join the dialogue by describing one of the bright points, the rise of
women deans in the Legal Academy.
Increasing gender parity in deanships is a fairly recent phenomenon.
Going back to May 1988, the spring before I started law school, the New
York Times published an article titled, THE LAW; Law School Dean Wanted: A
Man for All Reasons.2 The author did not interview a single woman dean.
Lucky for me, the University of Louisville appreciated that a woman could
also perform the job, and my dean, Barbara Lewis, helped forge the way
for future women. Statistics did improve by the time Herma Hill Kay
wrote a 2002 article, Women Law School Deans: A Different Breed, Or Just One
of the Boys?,3 chronicling the path of women deans. According to her re-
* Dean and Professor of Law, University of Mississippi School of Law.
Former Interim Dean, Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville
(2012-2017). A special thanks to the women deans that went before me in my
career and mentored me, especially Barbara Lewis, Laura Rothstein, and Debbie
Bell.
** J.D. 2020, University of Mississippi School of Law.
*** J.D. 2020, University of Mississippi School of Law.
1. See generally DEBORAH L. RHODE, ABA COMM'N ON WOMEN IN THE PROFES-
SION, THE UNFINISHED AGENDA: WOMEN AND THE LEGAL PROFESSION (2001);Janette
Barnes, Women and Entrance to the Legal Profession, 23 J. LEGAL EDUC. 276 (1970);
Meera E. Deo, Looking Forward to Diversity in Legal Academia, 29 BERKELEY J. GENDER
L. & JusT. 352 (2014); Herma K. Hill, Women Law School Deans: A Different Breed, Or
Just One of the Boys?, 14 YALE J.L. & FEMINISM 219 (2002); Christine Haight Farley,
Confronting Expectations: Women in the Legal Academy, 8 YALE J.L. & FEMINISM 333
(1996); Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Women's Work: The Place of Women in Law Schools, 32J.
LEGAL EDUC. 272 (1982); Sheila McIntyre, Gender Bias within the Law School: The
Memo and Its Impact, 2 CANADIAN J. WOMEN & L. 362 (1987); Laura M. Padilla, A
Gendered Update on Women Law Deans: Who, Where, Why, and Why Not?, 15 AM. U. J.
GENDER Soc. Poucy & L. 443 (2007); Robin West, Women in the Legal Academy: A
Brief History of Feminist Legal Theory, 87 FORDHAM L. REV. 977 (2018).
2. Douglas Martin, THE LAW; Law School Deans Wanted: A Man for All Reasons,
N.Y. TIMES (May 6, 1988), https://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/06/us/the-law-law-
school-dean-wanted-a-man-for-all-reasons.html [https://perma.cc/L3GW-8W6N].
3. Hill, supra note 1.
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Law School Dean Wanted: A Woman for All Reasons
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