The Villanova Law Review invites proposals from faculty to present and/or publish at the upcoming annual symposium, which will focus on gender equity in law schools. Accepted presenters will have the opportunity to participate in the symposium at the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law in Villanova, Pennsylvania, on Friday, October 25, 2019. In addition, their papers will be published in the symposium issue of the Villanova Law Review, volume 65.
Scope of Topic: Despite the significant demographic change in the gender composition of law faculty during the last 25 years, persistent questions of unequal treatment and unconscious bias continue to hamper the ability of female faculty to achieve full equality in law schools.
The symposium will examine a broad variety of issues relating to gender equity in law schools, such as: teaching issues (e.g., whether excellent teaching is valued in law schools, whether women faculty have a disproportionate teaching load, whether women are disproportionately present/absent in particular substantive courses, whether women are evaluated differently by students); scholarly issues (e.g., whether areas of particular interest to women are undervalued, whether the work of women is given equal weight by law reviews, and whether female faculty bring a different voice to legal scholarship); service issues (whether non-scholarly tasks performed by female faculty disproportionately disadvantage them with respect to status and compensation); the gender disparity in legal writing and in clinical education, which also produces substantial pay disparities that fall disproportionately on women in legal education; intersections with issues of race, class, gender, and sexual identity; and the effect of gender inequity on law students. The symposium will also examine recent pay discrimination litigation at Denver Law School and focus on best practices for law schools that want to avoid similar litigation in the future.
Submission Requirements: Submissions should include contact information, a CV, and an abstract (up to 500 words) of the proposed presentation. Preference will be given to submitters who intend to write an article for the symposium issue. Submissions should be forwarded to Professor Cathy Lanctot, lanctot@law.villanova.edu, and to Alexandra Rice, arice4@law.villanova.edu. Managing Editor of Operations for the Villanova Law Review.
Selected presenters will be notified by August 1, 2019. The Villanova Law Review will cover reasonable travel expenses for presenters.
The deadline for proposals is July 15, 2019.
