Confronting Expectations: Women in the Legal Academy

Christine Farley

Abstract

Women constitute only sixteen percent of full professors, while they constitute almost fifty percent of law school students nationwide. Even those women who do secure tenure-track positions on law faculties receive less pay, are denied tenure at higher rates, and are disproportionately concentrated in lower-ranked schools. Beyond these tangible discrepancies, many women faculty members feel like tokens who are in the uncomfortable position of breaking their way into a male domain. Hence, women law professors still experience some of the types of problems that their foremothers did three decades ago. In spite of all the progress that we have made, how is it that these problems persist?