B for Beauty, Gender, Law Schools, Sexism, Women's Issues

A Law School's Beauty Queen Problem

Is this law school more interested in promoting its students' beauty than their brains?

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Last week, we brought our readers news of two law students, Kiara Williams and Erika Baldwin, from the University of Virginia Law School, who were both competing for the Miss Virginia USA crown. It’s now come to our attention that other students aren’t exactly pleased that their law school chose to highlight these young women’s achievements — not only were they not even tangentially related to the law, but beauty pageants are sexist in nature.

Two student groups decided to take this up with the law school administration, but they seem to have gotten nowhere. Women at the law school desperately want to know the answer to this question: Is UVA Law more interested in promoting its students’ beauty than their brains?

Here’s the letter that UVA Law students penned to their deans late last week (emphasis added):

Dear Deans Mahoney, Geis, Davies and Faulk,

We write to address an issue that has been on the minds of many of us the past day. Recently, the school published an article commending two women at the law school for their participation in the Miss Virginia beauty pageant. Many of us know these women personally, and consider them friends and respected colleagues. We understand the law school website as a forum for commending students and alumni for academic and career achievements. Previously, it has rarely been used to highlight non-academic extracurricular accomplishments. Competitions such as Miss Virginia objectify women for their beauty, and we feel it is inappropriate for the law school to promote this in the same way it publicizes Supreme Court clerkships.

Women at this law school are in a precarious position. Women are vastly underrepresented (36%), openly underachieving (http://www.virginialawreview.org/about/masthead), and many of us feel unwelcome here. This recent article promotes a culture that is disrespectful of women and of diversity in general. We respectfully request that you remove the article.

Thank you and we hope to hear from you soon.

Considering the fact that there are so few women at UVA, it’s no wonder that they’re pissed off about this. Their tempers flared even more when they received the following “sorry, but we’re not sorry” non-apology:

We want to thank you for your email and for voicing your concerns. It is important that we have open dialogue about issues that have an impact on our community, and we value your opinions and feedback.

The Law School’s Communications Department periodically runs nonacademic human interest stories and has featured a number of students and faculty in those stories. It also uses social media to highlight the nonacademic pursuits of our community. Some have involved competitions such as marathons, rifle shooting, and poker; nonacademic interests such as acting, music, and visual arts; and other personal stories such as a link to an article one of us recently wrote about coming out as a gay man.

With respect to the web article about the participation of two of our students in the Miss Virginia pageant, please understand that the intent was to feature a human interest story like others previously presented. It was in no way to suggest that women are not a valuable intellectual resource at the Law School; indeed, a substantial focus was on the boost that the students’ public speaking skills gave to their competitive success and the way they’ve used that success to further their academic interests. The article is no longer on the main page; to remove it entirely from the website would devalue and offend the young women featured.

We would welcome a continued dialog with you regarding women at the Law School so that we can ensure we are doing all we can to attract and develop the skills of outstanding women and men. We also welcome your involvement in the admissions recruiting process to ensure that female candidates have access to our many extraordinary female students. A personal connection often makes the difference in recruiting.

Regards,

Sarah Davies
Cordel Faulk
George Geis
Paul Mahoney

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As you can see, UVA’s deans claim they sometimes highlight human interest stories on the website, but they’re not published very often. For what it’s worth, the human interest stories the school published on its website were written four (a law student rifle-shooter) to five (a law student poker player) years ago.

One of our tipsters had this to say about the deans’ defense: “[A] human interest story about an actual achievement or talent (e.g., marathons, rifle shooting, or an interest in the arts) is completely different than highlighting women for eating turkey flavored protein shakes for Thanksgiving so they can be judged based on male ideals of attractiveness.” That right there is a feminist mic drop for the ages.

All of that being said, why is UVA Law so willing to maintain an environment that is, per one of our tipsters, so hostile to women? Here’s more from one of our tipsters: “I would hate to see women considering law school choosing UVA Law over other similarly ranked institutions that might actually value women for their brains and not their bodies.” Damn. This law student is seething with rage, UVA. Do something!

It looks like the members of the UVA Law administration need to do some work to repair their relationship with the school’s female students. They’re very, very angry, and their collective furor isn’t going to just disappear. We’d suggest that the administration hurry up and fix this problem before these students start prematurely feeling like the marginalized women attorneys they’ll become after they graduate.

Earlier: Which Law School Has Two Beauty Queens Competing For The Same Crown?

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