Warren Hiring a Step Forward

With every appointment of a female professor at Harvard, there is cause for celebration and cause for dismay: celebration because each additional woman on Harvard's faculty represents a step toward balancing the male-skewed gender ratio, and dismay because men still make up the overwhelming majority of Harvard's faculty.

With the appointment last week of University of Pennsylvania legal scholar Elizabeth Warren, however, Harvard Law School appears to be giving cause for celebration. Warren will become the tenth female professor out of 69 law school faculty members, making women about 15 percent of the school's faculty. Compared to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, where women make up slightly over 10 percent of the total faculty, the law school is not doing that badly. Fifteen percent may not be much, but it certainly represents some progress.

In 1992 and 1993, law school students initiated widespread protests because they were so incensed by their school's small number of women faculty members. They even sued the law school, claiming that it had violated anti-discrimination laws through its hiring choices.

Since then, there has been a string of female appointments--two tenure-track positions in the 1992-93 academic year and three in 1993-94. And the trend is apparently continuing. Warren is the first person, male or female, appointed this academic year at the law school. Additionally, this hiring represents one step in meeting Law School Dean Robert C. Clark's stated goal of increasing the number of women on the faculty.

And gender aside, Warren is an ideal person to teach at the law school. Her teaching record is spectacular, and her scholarship is impeccable. When she was a visiting professor at Harvard two years ago, she was very popular with students, and last year she was awarded a University of Pennsylvania teaching award.

Warren has made major contributions to the fields of bankcruptcy and commercial law. Her research conclusions will have important ramifications for future legal policy making in this areas. It is good to see the law school hiring someone known for her teaching as well as for her research and contribution to current public policy.

Because female and male professors can offer different outlooks on the world, it is important for both female and male students to receive instruction and mentorship from professors of both genders. We applaud the law school for its recent hiring of qualified and superb women professors and hope the trend continues.