As here at Pace we prepare for tomorrow’s Faculty Teaching Day, when, under Bridget Crawford’s able leadership, we will explore issues such as enhancing and assessing active learning in the large law school classroom, this newsflash caught my eye:
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/04/24/yale-law-study-finds-gender-imbalance-in-student-participation/
The actual study can be found on the Yale Law website at http://www.law.yale.edu/documents/pdf/Student_Organizations/YLW_SpeakUpStudy.pdf
The WSJ report includes some additional numbers that may be quite familiar to most who frequent this blog but which, I confess, can still set me back:
“Last fall, LexisNexis reported that while women make up 45% of law firm associates, they account for only 6% of equity partners in the AmLaw200. Women make up less than one-third of American lawyers, despite accounting for almost half of law school graduates for the last two decades, according to the American Bar Association’s 2011 Commission on Women in the Profession report.”
Talk about a leaky pipeline . . . and I guess this disparity can’t be ascribed solely to Yale, eh? I am just so tired of seeing such numbers . . .
At Pace I may be a bit insulated from the persistent reality. Our student body has long been well above 50% female, even flirting with 60%; the faculty is roughly 40% women and we’ve had nearly half as many women deans as men. (These are numbers that compare favorably with Yale’s, I cannot resist adding.) At one time we had a rather cool Webpage celebrating the particular woman-friendliness of our law school, but I see that it’s gone now. I suppose someone decided that it was no longer necessary . . . after all, we have arrived, haven’t we?
The Yale study is chock-full of fascinating tidbits of data, well worth a few minutes of your time. I’d like to see a similar study at Pace, and at many other law schools. It is always good to know where you really are.
— Vanessa Merton
