Via Concurring Opinions, the ToC
ARTICLES
Originalism Is Bunk
Mitchell N. Berman
Class Certification in the Age of Aggregate Proof
Richard A. Nagareda
Temporary-Effect Legislation, Political Accountability, and Fiscal Restraint
George K. Yin
NOTES
Limiting Preemption in Environmental Law: An Analysis of the Cost-Externalization Argument and California Assembly Bill 1493
Brian T. Burgess
The Implementation of “Balanced Diversity” Through the Class Action Fairness Act
Jacob R. Karabell
New Dirty War Judgments in Argentina: National Courts and Domestic Prosecutions of International Human Rights Violations
Margarita K. O’Donnell
It appears “balanced diversity” is of interest only as pertains to federal subject matter jurisdiction.
In order to not be misleading, you might want to look at more than one issue. For instance, from 2005-2007, the N.Y.U. Law Review published 35 notes by male authors and 34 notes by female authors. Data on Note publication by gender at the top 15 law reviews is available in Nancy Leong’s, “A Noteworthy Absence,” as noted on this blog, http://feministlawprofessors.com/?p=8414.
Well Drew, in order for YOU not to “be misleading” you might provide gender data on note publication that is not limited to a 3 year period. And, perhaps you’d like to provide gender data on authors of articles (rather than notes) for the past ten years or so?
Sorry, I don’t have the data on articles authors.
I also don’t have more data on note publications. I used 2005-2007 because this data was recently collected for Nancy Leong’s piece. Of course, this data is nothing more than a snapshot of that time period. But surely it is more helpful than 1 issue!
Actually, student scholarship is a better way to judge a Law Review than professor’s scholarship. How much quality scholarship by women (or for that matter, by younger scholars, by LGBT scholars, by minority scholars, or by any other group) is the function factors beyond a Law Review’s control. How many women are being given fellowships at law schools that give them the time to research and author an article? How many women are being invited to workshop their articles and being given quality comments by experienced scholars? How many women are being admitted to law schools to begin with? Are women being given sufficient mentorship and support at law schools to enable them to advance? All of these are questions which are so frequently given answers that result in less scholarship by women. It cannot be expected that a Law Review can ameliorate all these factors, which together reduce the quantity of submissions by female authors considerably. This blog’s project of attacking the Law Reviews just shield the law schools and the institutional structure that makes it harder for the non-straight white male. It scapegoats the symptom and ignores the disease.
On the other hand, student scholarship is a way that a journal can contribute to gender balance, because students on the journal stand on equal footing. It’s simply a question of whether a Senior Notes Editor and other Notes Editors work hard to shepherd the notes of every student through the process regardless of gender (or race, or sexual orientation, or 1L grades). Done well, the notes process can be a strong equalizer, whereas the articles process can unfortunately do little when systemic factors have made it very difficult for female authors (lack of funding, lack of support, lack of equal admission to top law schools).
As to the three years versus ten years. Drew responded to a post that drew conclusions about a Law Review on the basis of 1/6 of a year of articles and notes by providing three years worth of data. Kind of strange to say the person providing three years is misleading, but the person providing 1/6 of a year is making a good point. Also worth noting that all Drew was doing was quoting an article featured on this blog that happened to discuss this Law Review as the only one that achieved gender parity during the studied period. Perhaps we should go back and accuse the entire blog of being misleading for citing an article that only used three years worth of data. Why would ten years be not misleading? Why not a hundred?
Wow, your level of defensiveness is staggering. And speaks for itself.
“Wow, your level of defensiveness is staggering. And speaks for itself.”
Why does it speak for itself? What does it say?
Do you think it is right to be so glib about this issue or these thoughtful responses?
I strongly disagree with Drew that the mix of female and male Article authors is largely out of law review hands, but that the number of Comments/Notes reflects a balance that can be explained by some combination of “control” and a sensitivity to gender…. But we could talk more about that later.
In the meantime, some time ago I had a research assistant pull numbers from 2001-2006 for authors by sex for NYU, Michigan, Stanford, Columbia and Pennsylvania. The numbers we came up with were:
Michigan:
articles: 17 female; 70 male
essays: 5 female; 14 male
comments/notes: 17 female; 23 male
Columbia:
articles: 19 female, 50 male
essays: 11 female. 37 male
comments/notes: 38 female, 45 male
Stanford (who had no female editor-in-chief any of these years):
articles: 32 female; 104 male
essays: 0 female; 1 male
comments/notes: 20 female; 42 male
NYU:
articles: 25 female; 45 male
essays: 0 female; 4 male
comments/notes: 45 female; 61 male (ahem…. Drew, even on your terms???)
Pennsylvania:
articles: 16 female; 38 male
essays: 1 female; 6 male
comments/notes: 21 female; 38 male