Dorothy Goes to Law School: Stories of Institutional Inertia and Response in the American Legal Academy

Abstract

Although efforts have been made to include women in the legal academy, the institutional response to calls for change has been erratic. The largely white male academic hierarchy tends to resist substantive change, which inhibits law schools from fully including women. Like The Wizard of Oz who could not respond to Dorothy's demand, traditional academic institutional responses to women's voices are often inadequate, as seen in the experiences of women law students themselves. These stories demonstrate that law schools should provide non-traditional means to empower female students to communicate their needs and provoke change.