Marina Angel’s Call For Action: Addressing the channeling of women of all colors and men of color to non tenure track law school teaching and administrative positions.

There has been an explosion in the number of non tenure track teachers at law schools. These are predominately clinical and legal writing positions, but the number of lower level administrators (associate and assistant deans and directors) with 1/2 to 3/4 teaching responsibilities has skyrocketed.

Tenure provides the freedom to write, teach, and serve that is essential to the vitality of an academic enterprise. So called long term contracts do not provide the same security, especially since many of them are actually short term, one to three years. There are growing numbers of at-will full time faculty.

Those last hired, women of all colors and men of color, are disproportionately represented in non tenure track positions (AALS Statistics, Year 2004-05, Job Security Status of All Faculty in the 2004-05 Directory of Law Teachers). In 1990, there were 92 new minority law school hires nationally; in 2004, there were 70 (AALS Statistics, Year 2004-05, Last 14 Years: New Minority Faculty in Directory of Law Teachers).

In the past, it was possible to estimate the number of tenured faculty by title. Now we have full professors, associate professors, and associate deans on contract or at will. It was impossible to tell how bad the situation was without hard data. For the first time, the AALS has published detailed statistics by job title, job security status, gender, and race. The ABA Consultant on Legal Education has yet to post such information, despite requests. The ABA statistics give the total for all full time faculty, all part time faculty, all deans and administrators, and all librarians by gender and minority status. This reporting method misrepresents the massive discrimination against all women and men of color that exists in legal education and that is increasing. Lumping together all full time faculty masks the fact that women are in the lowest paying, lowest prestige, insecure positions. The AALS for the first time posted detailed information for the 2004-05 academic year (see particularly Tables 3-4C). The AALS gives statistics for Deans, Associate Deans, Assistant Deans, Full Professors, Associate Professors, Assistant Professors, and Lecturers and Instructors, among others, by title, security status (tenured, tenure track, contract, and no data, which I assume means at-will), race, and gender.

The AALS data show that only 25% or the tenured Full Professors are women. Women predominate in insecure, low status, low paying positions. Women are only 46% of tenured Associate Professors but 62% contract Associate Professors. Women are 46% of tenured Assistant Professors but 65% of contract Assistant Professors. Women are 68% of contract Lecturers and Instructors.

In the early 1990s, there were very few contract teachers. In 1991-92, women were 48.7% of all the new faculty hires. Women reached a high of 55% in 1993-94 and fell to 47.9% in 2004-05, even with the increasing number of contract teachers. See Richard A. White, AALS Statistical Report on Law School Faculty, Table 8A, Last 14 Years: New Women Faculty in the Directory of Law School Teachers (2004-05) at 77, available here.

Similarly, there were 92 new minority faculty (25.6%) in 1991-92. Minority hires reached a high of 98 (25.6%) in 1995-96 and have fallen to 70 (22.9%) in 2004-05. White, supra note 18, at Table 8B, Last 14 Years: New Minority Faculty in Directory of Law School Teachers (2004-05) at 77, available here. The numbers of both African American faculty and students in American law schools are falling drastically.

CALL FOR ACTION: Interested law professors should begin to gather statistics at their own schools and to educate their colleagues on this form of discrimination through discussions, articles, and presentations.

Conclusion

We are losing some of our best and brightest women of all colors and men of color from law teaching. Those who are hired are being relegated to low status, low paying, low prestige positions. Law schools have been graduating almost 50% women for many years, and, until recently, the number of minority graduates was also increasing.

Young women, like young men, should have the ability to choose to have a family without giving up their careers. Illegal channeling, unrealistic job requirements, and systematic discrimination are excluding all women and men of color from high prestige, high pay positions in law schools and law firms. The profession, at its top levels, is becoming more monolithic rather than diverse. We need to fully utilize the talents of everyone.

–Marina Angel