Law dean calls out sexism in evaluation of female prof, tells students to forgo 'fashion advice'
The vice dean of Rutgers School of Law-Camden says the “sexism” label isn’t one that he readily uses. But he didn’t hesitate to make the call concerning an evaluation of a female professor at the school.
Submitting a public critique, “that explored, in some detail, the fashion stylings of one of your professors” was not only inappropriate but gender-based, Vice Dean Adam Scales said in a memo to law students made public by Above the Law.
In addition to eliminating the critique of the unidentified prof’s fashion judgment from the public evaluation record, Scales—who said he himself once taught for an entire summer in khakis and t-shirts without sparking a single comment in his own evaluations by students—asked readers to forgo from making such comments in future evaluations of their professors.
“When you compose comments about faculty—which can be as direct, negative, and harshly detailed as you like—I want you to remember that you’re writing for the personnel file, and for history,” he said. “If you have any doubts that posterity will somehow muddle through without the benefit of your fashion advice, allow me to dispel them once and for all.”
Scales confirmed to Inside Higher Ed that he wrote the memo, but declined to discuss it.
Gender bias is a well-documented phenomenon and has even been shown to exist based simply on female-sounding names, the Inside Higher Ed article notes.
However, one law prof at Case Western Reserve University who has written on the importance of professional attire among his fellow academics says whether criticism of a professor’s appearance is inappropriate would, for him, depend on the specific nature of what was said.
“I will note that at Case Western Reserve the dress of quite a few male law professors has been ridiculed over the years—glow-in-the-dark green suits, for example,” said said Erik Jensen in an email to the education publication, noting: “It has been asked about me, although not to my face, whether I sleep in button-down pajamas.”
See also:
ABAJournal.com (2009): “Too Many Law Firm Layoffs are Gender-Biased, ABA Commission Chair Says”
ABAJournal.com (2011): “Study Finds Disconnect Between Numbers and Narratives in Associate Job Reviews–But Only for Women”
Above the Law: “Sexism In The Legal Profession: An Uncomfortable Truth”
