Both practicing lawyers and legal scholars are taking note of a recent study of law professors' opinions of the tenure process, a study that was co-authored by UW Law School professor Elizabeth Mertz.
The National Law Journal reported the study on its Law.com website. That article is available here.
Additionally, the paper has been noted on two of the most heavily trafficked legal scholarship blogs, Brian Leiter's Law School Reports (available here) and Lawrence B. Solum's Legal Theory Blog (available here). Leiter, of the University of Chicago Law School, commented that he thinks the study will generate a great deal of discussion and debate.
Mertz and Katherine Y. Barnes, of the James E. Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona, are the authors of "Is it Fair? Law Professors' Perceptions of Tenure," forthcoming in the Journal of Legal Education and available now on SSRN. (SSRN reports that, in the first ten days after it was posted, the paper was downloaded more than 150 times.) The study, conducted with the American Bar Foundation, combines a national survey of more than 1200 tenured law professors and in-depth follow-up interviews with 95 of those professors. Although most professors thought the tenure process was fair, the study found that female professors and professors of color perceived the tenure process as more difficult and less fair than did their male and white colleagues.
Submitted by UW Law School News on December 18, 2010
This article appears in the categories: In the Media
