This outline describes the experiences of women and men who joined the legal academy during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Sections I and II examine law teachers who began their first nontenure-track law school position between 1989 and 1991. Sections III-IX describe the progress of teachers hired onto the tenure track between 1986 and 1991.³ By comparing the experiences of women and men in each of these groups, we illustrate both women's achievements and some of the challenges they continue to face.

I.    Nontenure-Track Jobs

A.     At least during the late 1980s and early 1990s, women disproportionately filled nontenure-track positions. Between 1989 and 1991, a total of 486 individuals began their first law-school teaching post. For men, the majority of these jobs were on the tenure track: 62% of the men first hired during these two years assumed a tenure-track position, 38% took nontenure-track posts. For women, the percentages were reversed: 42% of the women found a tenure-track job; 58% assumed a nontenure-track position.

B.     The sex difference affected both white women and women of color -- although white women were especially likely to fill nontenure-track posts. Thus, 63% of white women (compared to 42% of white men) took a nontenure-track position; 37% of minority women (compared to 20% of minority men) assumed a nontenure-track job.⁴

C.     Controlling for academic achievement and professional background did not eliminate this sex difference. Women were significantly more likely than men to assume nontenure-track positions - even when their credentials were identical to those of men.

D.     Women's greater geographic constraints did help account for the difference. Teachers who confined their job search to a single city or state were significantly more likely than other teachers to accept nontenure-track positions. Controlling for this variable eliminated the sex differences identified above.

II.    Moving from Nontenure-Track to Tenure-Track Positions

A.     Women appear less likely than men to move from nontenure-track to tenure-track positions. Among the 207 white teachers who began nontenure-track posts 1989-91, 30% of the women and 37% of the men had moved into tenure-track jobs by 1997.

B.     Only 25 teachers of color began nontenure-track positions during those years, so it is harder to draw firm conclusions about their progress. 8 of the 15 women (53%) and 5 of the 10 men (50%) moved onto the tenure track.

III.    Tenure Track Beginnings

A.     Law schools started 1094 new tenure-track professors between 1986 and 1991. More than half (53.1%) of these new hires were white men, 30.3% were white women, 9.0% were men of color, and 7.6% were women of color.

B.     The men in this group were hired at significantly more prestigious schools than the women - and women of color were particularly disadvantaged. For example, 13.1% of the white men started teaching at one of the top 16 law schools, compared to 10.3% of white women, 10.1% of men of color, and 2.4% of women of color.

C.     Men were also significantly more likely than women to begin their tenure-track careers as associate, full, or even chaired professors. 43.7% of the white men and 40.4% of men of color obtained initial appointments at one of these higher ranks. Only 30.5% of white women and 30.1% of women of color secured these higher level appointments.

D.     Significant differences also emerged in the courses men and women agreed to teach. Men were significantly more likely than women to teach constitutional law. Women were significantly more likely to teach trusts and estates or skills courses.

E.     Controlling for academic credentials, professional experience, and mobility constraints explained the fact that men were more likely than women to be hired at the most prestigious schools. These controls, however, did not explain differences in initial rank or teaching assignments. Men, in other words, were significantly more likely than women to be hired at higher ranks and to teach different subjects - even when men and women had identical credentials.

IV.    Tenure-Track Retention

A.     Of the almost 1100 professors who began tenure-track jobs between 1986 and 1991, one quarter had left the tenure track by the fall of 1998. The departure rate, however, varied by sex and race. Just 22.3% of the white men had left the tenure track, compared to 26.5% of white women, 28.6% of men of color, and 32.9% of women of color.

B.     These differences are particularly disturbing because white men began with the largest share of tenure-track positions, while women of color started with the smallest share (see above). Differential departure rates skewed these proportions even further. By the fall of 1998, white men held 55.1% of the positions in this career cohort; white women, 29.3%; men of color, 8.6%; and women of color, 7.0%.

[The remaining analyses focus on professors from the original cohort who remained on the tenure track in fall 1998.]

V.    Promotion

Of the 816 professors who remained on the tenure track in fall 1998, most had risen above the rank of assistant professor. Again, however, race and sex differences emerged. The following table shows the distribution of each demographic group across four ranks. White men were considerably more likely than their female or minority colleagues to have become full or chaired professors. White women and men of color resembled one another in their rank distribution. Women of color were the least likely to have secured chairs and the most likely to remain in the associate professor rank.

VI.    Administrative Positions

A.     White men in this cohort were far more likely than their female or minority colleagues to have served as deans or acting deans. Twenty white men (4% of those who remained in teaching) had held one of these positions by the fall of 1998. Just one white woman, one man of color, and no women of color had held a deanship.

B.     Women, on the other hand, matched men in serving as associate deans - and men and women of color were particularly likely to hold these positions. 13% of men of color, 12% of women of color, 9% of white men, and 9% of white women had served as associate deans by fall 1998.

C.     White women, men of color, and white men appeared equally likely to have served as program or institute directors. 10% of white women, 9% of men of color, and 10% of white men had done so. Women of color were somewhat less likely to have held these positions: just 5% had.

D.     In absolute numbers, women still lagged behind men as associate deans or program directors. By the fall of 1998, forty-one white men had served as associate dean, compared to 22 white women, 9 men of color, and 7 women of color. Similarly, 47 white men were program directors, compared to 23 white women, 6 men of color, and 3 women of color. It is also possible that men and women fill different types of associate dean positions; more information is needed on this.

VII.    Teaching

A.     Even after 8 to 12 years on the tenure track, men and women differed in the subjects they taught. By the fall of 1998, men in this cohort were still significantly more likely to teach constitutional law; women disproportionately taught trusts and estates or skills courses.

B.     White men taught slightly more credit hours (11.9) than did white women (11.6) or women of color (11.6), but men of color averaged somewhat fewer credit hours (10.9).

C.     Men were more likely than women to report receiving a teaching award, with women of color particularly disadvantaged in this category. 40% of white men, 39% of men of color, 32% of white women, and 19% of women of color reported receiving a teaching award.

D.     Women, however, rated achieving success in teaching as more important to them personally than men did. White women gave an average rating of 4.7 (on a scale of 1-5) when asked how important it was for them to achieve success in classroom teaching. White men averaged 4.6; men of color, 4.5; and women of color gave the highest average rating: 4.9.

E.     All four demographic groups stress doctrine, legal reasoning, and analysis more than any other perspective in the classroom. White men, however, are significantly more likely than women or minorities to add economic analysis. Conversely, white men are significantly less likely than white women, women of color, or men of color to discuss feminist or critical race theories. The latter three groups resemble one another in their likelihood of teaching these alternative perspectives, although white women are the most likely to stress feminist theory and women of color are the most likely to stress critical race theory.

F.     White women and women of color are as likely as white men to spend a semester as a visiting professor at another law school, but men of color are more likely than all three groups to visit. After controlling for sex and race, professors who stress feminist theory in their teaching are significantly less likely than their colleagues to visit, while those who stress critical race theory are significantly more likely to do so.

VIII.    Scholarship

A.     Women rate success in research/publications as slightly less important to them than men do, although the differences are not statistically significant.

B.     By fall 1998, men in this cohort had published significantly more articles than the women. White men, on average, had published 5.89 articles since joining the tenure track; men of color averaged 4.56; white women, 4.10; and women of color, 3.31.

C.     Men, on average, had also published more articles in one of the top 20 law reviews: 1.12 for white men, 0.79 for men of color, 0.72 for white women, and 0.42 for women of color.

D.     Some, but not all, of the sex difference in publication rates disappears after controlling for prestige of the schools at which professors taught, courses taught, pre-hiring publications, and educational credentials.

E.     Women's scholarship is cited as frequently as white men's scholarship. That is, after controlling for the number of articles published, there is no significant difference in the citation rates for white men, white women, and women of color. Men of color fall somewhat behind these three groups in their citation rates.

F.     In fall 1998, the most cited scholar in this cohort of professors was an African American woman, and three of the five most cited scholars were African American women. Among the ten most cited scholars, four were African American women and one was a white woman.

G.     These citations were not token references. The median citation count among all professors in this cohort was 52; the three most cited African American women earned 745, 766, and 995 citations apiece. More than half the sources citing these women, moreover, contained multiple references - the same proportion of multiple references received by the two white men ranking highest on citation counts.

IX.    Beyond the Academy

A.     White women and men of color rated achieving success in public service as significantly more important to them than white men did, while women of color placed the highest value on service. On a 5-point scale, the average ratings were 3.4 (white men), 3.6 (white women), 3.8 (men of color), and 4.0 (women of color).

B.     Men and women of color are significantly more likely than white men and women to report that they address their scholarship to the general public.

C.     White women attach less importance to paid consulting than white men, men of color, or women of color do. Men of color are most interested in consulting work; white men and women of color show a similar interest in consulting.

²S. Frank Miyamoto Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington. Back to Text

³The information in this outline comes from a database of law teachers we created a decade ago and have continued to supplement. The database includes all professors who began their first tenure-track appointment at an accredited U.S. law school between fall 1986 and spring 1991. The database also includes information about many nontenure-track teachers who joined law faculties during those years. Debra Branch McBrier, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas at Arlington, supplemented the latter information for analyses she performed. We have drawn some of the information in this outline from Professor McBrier's research; we are thankful for her assistance. For further information about these databases, as well as analyses performed upon them, please see the list of publications at the end of this outline. Back to Text

⁴Because law schools hired so few teachers of color during the late 1980s, researchers have had difficulty analyzing separate categories of African American, Latina, Asian, or Native American teachers. In this outline, we group these individuals together to show differences between white women and women of color. Other scholars have begun the very important work of identifying experiential differences among teachers of color. Back to Text

Bibliography

The information in this outline is drawn from the following sources, as well as from some unpublished analyses by the authors.

Debra Branch McBrier, Gender and Career Dynamics within a Segmented Professional Labor Market: The Case of Law Academia, Social Forces (forthcoming June 2003).

Deborah Jones Merritt, Scholarly Influence in a Diverse Legal Academy: Race, Sex, and Citation Counts, 29 Journal of Legal Studies 345 (2000).

Deborah Jones Merritt, Research and Teaching on Law Faculties: An Empirical Exploration, 73 Chicago-Kent Law Review 765 (1998).

Deborah Jones Merritt & Barbara Reskin, Sex, Race, and Credentials: The Truth About Affirmative Action in Law Faculty Hiring, 97 Columbia Law Review 199 (1997).

Deborah Jones Merritt & Barbara Reskin, The Double Minority: Empirical Evidence of a Double Standard in Law School Hiring of Minority Women, 65 Southern California Law Review 2299 (1992)

Deborah Jones Merritt, Barbara Reskin & Michelle Fondell, Family, Place, and Career: The Gender Paradox in Law School Hiring, 1993 Wisconsin Law Review 395.