Increasing numbers of women i
University School of Law exhibit increasing sense
of identity
The composition of the University’s
School of Law over the last three years has
been showing a steady increase in the
number of women admitted and enrolled.
From a total of 11 women of the 151
students enrolled in the fall class of 1970 to
the 40 women members of the 149-member'
fall 1972 entering class, the University, like
law schools across the country, is no
longer a solidly male domain.
Established in Portland in 1884, the law
school took up residence in Eugene in 1915
where it became a regular part of the
university system.
As far as available records show, 86
women have graduated from the law
school since 1896. For a 77-year period
that’s a little over one woman per year.
If most law schools have followed a
similar pattern, that is one explanation for
the 1963 count of the total number of
women practicing law in the United States.
At the time of that census 2.7 percent of all
practicing lawyers were female.
Diversity of goals
If anything characterizes the Univer
sity’s female student lawyers, it is their
wide diversity of goals and backgrounds,
their refusal to place themselves or each
other in a single pigeonhole labeled
“women law students.”
On just about every relevant issue —
from political stance to opinions on faculty
approachability and administrative
responsiveness — positions can be found
among the women on either end of the
spectrum and all degrees in between.
James White, while teaching at the
University of Michigan Law School
(Me to Joy
published an extensive research report in
the 1966-67 Michigan Law Review, seeking
to clear up what he saw as some of the
contradictory and confusing rumors
“about the composition and status of this
female segment of the bar.”
Bobbie Sheperd
Judging from the women studying law
here at the University, White might find it
interesting to run his study again and up
date his findings. There appears to be not
just an increase in the number of women
entering the law profession, but marked
differences between the women coming to
r
by social convention as belonging to men
requires self-confidence and deter
mination. A positive self image, one not
1
Stories by Paula Ross Photos by Trish Weisman
the law in the 70s and those of the 50s and
early 60s — the population from which
White drew his sample.
Women law students at the University
have advanced degrees in the sciences and
work experience in courtroom reporting
and journalism. Some entered law school
directly out of college and others have
taken time to marry and rear children
before beginning their law careers.
There is among these women a strong
awareness that as a group they command
a wide variety of viewpoints, experiences
and perceptions and that variety makes
them an extremely interesting collection
of people.
Wide range of interests
This wide range of social interests,
academic training and job experience is
certainly due in part to the simple increase
in numbers of women attending the law
school. And the growth of the women’s
movement can be given some credit for
creating an atmosphere in which more
women, if not actually encouraged to
embark upon “male” careers, are not
actively discouraged either.
But some other factor seems to be
operating with the women at the
University — something more basic than
feminism. The impression is that whether
or not women as a group had been moved
to initiate changes in their social and
economic positions, these women would
still be here.
The decision to enter a field designated
terribly dependent on social approval for
its maintenance, is necessary to ef
fectively deal with both overt and subtle
Julie Andersen
Law Professor
Barbara Aldive:
*She wouldn 7
acknowledge . . .
being different
than the men. '
Barbara Aldave, assistant professor, came to the Law School in
1970 from the Eugene law firm of Johnson, Johnson and Harrang
where she had been an associate.
Though she made the initial move in seeking out a faculty position,
she remembers that subsequent contacts eventually leading to her
appointment were carried on by the Law School itself. It was only
after she had joined the faculty that the School was interested, during
the time she was being considered, in hiring a woman. That was not an
obvious factor to her while negotiations were going on prior to her
engagement.
Like the women students she teaches, Aldave could not or would
not acknowledge any sense of feeling different than her male
colleagues — in spite of the fact that she is the only full-time female on
the faculty.
She originally planned a career in law but wound up in chemistry
for a while. She said when she attended high school, during the 50’s
Sputnik era, “anybody with scientific talents was strongly en
couraged, almost swept up into a science career.”
Even in her job as a chemist, however, she had many contacts
with lawyers, patent lawyers in particular. And when she weighed the
three years of law school against the longer committment required for
advanced training in chemistry, she decided to follow up her initial
interest in law.
There was little or no adjustment to make in coming from
chemistry to law — women are a minority in both fields.
And for the minority of legal women there have always been areas
of law considered to be their territory. One of those areas is juvenile
law.
Aldave found juvenile law “extremely satisfying” during her
practice. She feels that most other areas of the law require very basic
reforms before any one person can bring about change. But she thinks
individual solutions are possible in juvenile law.
And she feels that she was able to accomplish some of those
solutions herself.
The classes she is responsible for in the Law School, however, do
not fall into the category of “women’s subjects.” If any of her male
colleagues have reservations or think that she’s encroaching on their
turf she says they keep pretty quiet about it. But she adds there
probably just isn’t much objection to her presence in the school that
potentially could be expressed.
When asked if she saw any difference between the women who
dloose law as their profession today and those with whom she at
tended law school at the University of California at Berkeley, she
pointed out two major distinctions:
There seems today to be a much stronger emphasis on social
i*ues at the expense of being highly successful financially.
And the women she observes today just starting their law careers
seem to possess a definite group identity as women. They want to be
“women” lawyers dealing with legal issues particularly relevant to
women. Her classmates, she says, were a definite minority, but had no
sense of themselves as a conscious group.
Aldave expressed general sympathy with the goals of the women’s
movement. She believes the increase in the number of women ap
plying to and entering law school may well be due in part to the
movement.
certain radical fringes, as she called them, are responsible for
some unreasonable demands that she cannot accept as valid. But she
said any movement is going to have its fringes and those people serve
a purpose. Not only do they call attention to the movement or group as
a whole, she said, but the radical or “far-out” demands and goals of
those on the edge make by comparison the majority’s views that much
more acceptable.
As far as discrimination in the legal profession goes, Aldave feels
that it is not the law schools that present the major obstacles.
Academia tends traditionally to be more liberal on issues of equality of
treatment than does the society at large, she said. It is legal firms and
businesses in which the greatest amount of resisance to women in law
is to be found, she added.
And that is one reason why Aldave is emphatically against the
preferential admission of women to the law school. Admitting women
who ha ve little possibility of success when they have to compete on the
job market will furnish law firms with a perfect excuse to continue
their discriminatory hiring practices, she stressed.
As it is now, complaints that there just aren’t many qualified
lawyers who also happen to be women, are invalid, she observed.
Aldave believes women in law are as a group more qualified and
highly motivated than men as a group. They have had to be, she said,
in order to survive.
Aldave will be on leave from the University during the 1973-74
academic year.
But her replacement will be another woman.
disapproval of such a course of action. It
appears these women possess the requisite
assurance and motivation to pursue
whatever goals they see as appropriate.
General approval to them is hardly
relevant.
The women also display a much stronger
sense of determination and motivation to
succeed than is found in men of similar
backgrounds and capabilities. Realizing
that, in addition to the rigorous training
and long hours of study expected of law
students, they are also flying in the face of
social expectations of what are considered
fitting career pursuits for women. By the
time they reach the point of actual
professional training, they have narrowed
themselves down to a pretty tough group.
No sex discrimination
None of several women law students
interviewed were willing to attribute any
feelings of differentness or discrimination
to their sex. Although most readily ad
mitted that prejudice against women
exists, none felt they as individuals had
been or were victims of prejudice.
Florence King will be entering her
second year of law school this August. She
has two daughters, one a graduate music
student in Boston. Third year student
Joyce Benjamin’s family has been
growing up in the years prior to her en
trance into law school. These women
expressed a consciousness of being older
than their colleagues — both male and
female — rather than feeling any distinc
tion due to sex.
Jennifer Wyman
her somewhat apart from the majority of
her fellow students.
Analysis
Jo Pickford, a second year law student,
feels that her scientific training, if
anything, is the significant factor setting
And for Wendy Weiss, second year, there
is a tremendous gap between her in
volvement and continued interest in non
conventional politics, and what she per
ceives as a much less energized and
radical climate for politics and social
movements at the University.
The emphasis, it appears, is on
dimensions other than sex, which by itself
seems to exercise little, if any, influence
on these women’s perceptions of their
positions in law school.
Success ‘not unfamiliar'
Success is not unfamiliar to most of the
women. They are accustomed to academic
competition and achievements. And often
they have been involved in other male
dominated fields prior to their entrance
into law school.
So, whereas there is a general consensus
that prejudice against women in the
profession exists, it appears irrelevant to
the individual women who succeed. Their
qualifications and credentials, along with
their own refusal to acknowledge anything
unusual about themselves, tends to
neutralize the fact of their sex. They seem
to have developed somewhat of a buffer
between them and experiences of sex
discrimination.
“It just never enters my head to think
that I won’t be listened to, or my opinions
won’t be counted simply because I’m a
woman,” summed up Wendy Weiss.
That attitude seems to discount the
complaint of some social critics who feel
that men in society, not women, are en
couraged to be verbally aggressive and
analytical, and are reinforced for taking
strong positions and logically defending
them.
These skills are assets in going after a
legal degree.
Having actually sought out and achieved
admission to a graduate program, odds
are that women have some ability for
debate.
The aggressive, verbally agile students,
termed “the articulate minority” by Jo
Pickford, do have an edge over the less
aggressive majority. However, the women
students agreed that most male students,
as well as female, must deal with and
attempt to avoid being buried beneath the
barrage of legal pyrotecnics engaged in by
a few of their classmates.
The women at the University Law School
emerge as competent, self-confident,
highly individual people. They possess
their sex in common, but little else.
Competing in a so-called men’s world is for
most of them a comfortable, familiar
activity.
Jo Pickford
Women assume administrative roles
A large part of the responsibility for the smooth
functioning of Oregon’s law school is in the hands of
two women — Lois Ackerman, administrative
assistant and Becky Anderson, admissions officer.
Ackerman’s job, which she has held for some
thirteen years, involves a lot of student contact and
problem-solving. She does some class scheduling',
handles transcripts and manages staff. In general,
she can answer just about any question having to do
with the law school, or at least knows where to start
looking for the answers.
Beginning as assistant admissions officer,
Anderson became admissions officer a little over a
year ago. She describes her position as partly public
relations — explaining law school policies and
decisions — and partly advisory.
Senior undergraduates wanting information
about different law schools, what they offer, how to
apply to them, go to Anderson for help. There is also
a mound of paper work involved in admissions
procedures. She either does or sees that it all gets
done — a rather formidable job all by itself.
EXTRA
EXTRA
FRESH NEWS
GET YOURS NOW IN THE
ODE