EDITOR’S
NOTE:
Republished
here with permission is an open letter to the president of the American Bar
Association sent Feb. 16, 2012, by California Women Lawyers and co-signed by
the presidents of five other women lawyers organizations in five states. The
ABA Journal article to which the letter refers can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/6m72bby. The
ABA Journal has acknowledged the concerns regarding the article with its own
editor’s note.
An
Open Letter to William Robinson, III, President of the ABA
Dear Mr.
Robinson:
Women leaders
in the profession and in bar associations are deeply concerned about an ABA on
line Journal article posted October 24, 2011, and the inadequacy of the
ABA’s response. The article was originally titled "Not One
Legal Secretary Preferred Working with Women Lawyers." We find
the article and the ABA’s reaction to our expressions of concern sexist
and inconsistent with the goal of eliminating bias which the ABA professes to
embrace. Both the headline and the article itself were sensationalized
and contained factual inaccuracies about the results of a survey of legal
secretaries, falsely reporting that no secretary preferred to work for a woman.
In fact, this was just one question out of a lengthy survey of the working
conditions of legal secretaries. Furthermore, 47% of the secretaries who
responded to that question stated no opinion when it came to the gender of the
attorney they worked with.
This kind of
coverage is not harmless; it perpetuates unfair stereotypes of women in the
legal profession – those who work as legal secretaries and those who are
attorneys, falsely implying an inability to work together in a professional
setting because of their gender. Despite the correction of the headline
and a follow up article that included an interview with the researcher who
conducted the survey, the story had already caused damage, detracting from the
serious issues facing legal secretaries that were revealed in the survey and
validating the sexist views of females as being unsuited for leadership roles
in the workplace and in the profession.
The ABA
Journal initially took a defensive posture and refused to apologize despite
acknowledging that the headline was sensationalized and the text inadequately
pointed out that nearly half of the respondents expressed no opinion. We
received no response to our assertions that the Journal would not have
published such an article expressing preferences based on ethnicity, religion,
or sexual orientation. A subsequent “apology” from the head
of the Journal’s Editorial Board because some readers found the article
“hurtful” again missed the mark, by focusing on the subjective
feelings of female readers rather than the Journal’s conduct in
publishing an article in such a sensationalized and objectionable way and
contributing to the problem of gender inequity that is now pervasive in the
legal profession.
A recently
published study of the top 200 law firms in the United States conducted by the
National Association for Women Lawyers (NAWL) found that while recent women law
school graduates are hired in roughly the same numbers as men, they comprise
only 15% of the equity partners in those firms, a percentage that has not
changed in 20 years. Sexist coverage detracts from women's chances at
achieving leadership roles in law firms -- where women's representation is
already too low.
This kind of inaccurate and sexist reporting is contrary to the third Goal of
the ABA, which is to “Eliminate Bias and Enhance Diversity.” The ABA’s commitment to this goal has been an incentive for women lawyers
to join the ABA and to support the work of the ABA’s Commission on
Women. Women attorneys look to the ABA to speak out against stereotyping
and the unfair barriers to achieving equality in the profession – not to
perpetuate those wrongs.
We call on
you to commit to eliminating gender bias and stereotyping in your news
articles, and to develop a code of best practices for reporting stories fairly
and accurately, instead of looking for the sensationalistic angle. When it
comes to women in the profession, the ABA should be part of the solution rather
than the problem.
Patricia
Sturdevant, President
California
Women Lawyers
Lindsay
Verity, President
Georgia
Association for Women Lawyers
Ann Smisek,
President
Iowa Organization of Women Attorneys
Terra K.
Atkinson, President
North
Carolina Association of Women Attorneys.
Lily Stroud,
President
El Paso Women's Bar Association
Kellie Hogan, President
Wichita Women Attorneys Association.
Any opinions and/or viewpoints contained in this article belong solely to the author(s) and are not necessarily the opinion of the California Bar Journal or the State Bar of California or its staff and employees.