Making Way for a New Standard: Women Redefine the Ideal Professor

Unfortunately for most women, the profile of an ideal law professor is a married man with a stay-at-home wife. A profile very like that of ideal workers in other legal settings. It is common knowledge that women who teach law, including very able and committed women, do not achieve tenure and promotion at the same rate as their male counterparts. Although some institutions actually discriminate against women, in most, women lag behind because the committees and administrators deciding promotion and tenure view all applicants through the same lens. Their focus is driven by their law school\u27s need to compete with scholarly departments for both respect and resources. And it is epitomized by the change in law degrees from the Bachelor of Laws to the Juris Doctor. Although some schools have begun to define new standards, most continue to judge faculty against the ideal professor. (The ideal professor was first identified in the writings of American University law professor Joan Williams.