“We write in 2025, when the legal academy and universities are at a critical juncture; an energetic movement opposing “gender ideology” is contesting efforts to increase inclusive equality as part of institutional legitimacy, and the premises of independent thought and research are under attack. Some of that aggression aims to undercut the many ways in which legal scholars have made remarkable strides in reshaping what is studied, who is heard, and which injustices must be confronted. Hard-won rights and institutional commitments to gender equality and racial justice—which once appeared to many to be robust—are under siege, often under the banner of dismantling ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion.'”

“In contrast, this symposium, Women, Equality, and the Legal Academy, analyzes how legal scholars have documented and reimagined legal structures, altered practices once assumed to be conventional and, over decades, sought continually to interrogate the steps taken, resisted attempts to undermine innovations, and been critical about their own efforts as well as others. This array of legal scholars, with various affiliations and different methodologies, probes areas of doctrine and regulation, institutions, and the structure of legal education to understand what has shaped the contemporary landscape and how to think constructively about the present and future challenges of taking gender seriously as a category requiring interrogation and analysis.”

Nancy Levit, Judith Resnik, and Laura Rothstein