Newsletter of the AALS

Years from now, there will be a group of past chairs of this section known collectively, and sadly, as the Solomon chairs. We would be regarded as a poor bunch of souls who had their lives obsessively preoccupied with dealing with the Solomon Amendment.

In case you have not been following, this has not been a good year for the resistance movement. One of the very few saving graces of the Solomon Amendment was the "sub-unit exemption." This was a departmental interpretation of Solomon that restricted the termination of federal funding only to the unit of a university that banned the military from on-campus recruiting. In other words, under this "sub-unit exemption," university-wide federal funding was protected even though its law school banned military access from its campus. This "sub-unit exemption" was lifted over a year ago, and many schools previously resisting Solomon have recently capitulated in face of governmental enforcement of Solomon and what is now a much larger economic threat. Notable among the recent capitulators are Harvard and Yale Law Schools. Needless to say, that these banner schools have capitulated only adds fuel to the flame. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the fire has spread rapidly across the nation, with few law schools prepared to jeopardize university-wide federal funding by continuing to deny military access to recruit. Schools that capitulated years ago have now an added justification for laying out the welcome mat to military recruiters. Schools on the edge have found the expanded threat and the example of Harvard and Yale to be easy reasons for capitulation.

In the meantime, our LGBT law students suffer the indignity of seeing their own law school give support to an employer that would not hire them solely because of their sexual orientation and would fire them if they found out. One law student even told me that their dean had invited the Military Court of Appeal to hold hearings on their campus.

The time for action is now and there is much this Section can do and has done. For example, this year I have undertaken the following:

1. A radical redesign of the Section website. One main redesign criteria was to make the website a useful tool for faculty and in particular students to get informational material on Solomon and suggestions on ameliorative action. Thanks go to Professors Marc Poirer and Bill Adams who have worked hard to redraft the Solomon survey. When finalized, this survey will also be available on the website. I encourage all members of this Section to ensure that your school has filled out and returned the survey. In terms of fashioning effective strategies, it is vital for us to know what the national picture is regarding the effects and responses to Solomon. You can visit the Section website at:

http://home.pacbell.net/pkykwan/AALS

 

2. Town Hall Meeting. I have organized a Town Hall Meeting on the Solomon Amendment at the AALS Annual Meeting this coming January in Washington D.C. Please refer to the Section website and information below about the events at the Annual Meeting. For registration and other information on the upcoming annual meeting, you can visit the website for the Association of American Law Schools at http://www.aals.org/am2003/index.html.

3. Raising Awareness. I have spoken to law schools on the impact of the Solomon Amendment. For example, I recently addressed the dean, faculty and students of Duke University School of Law on this topic. The LGBT law student group organized a lunchtime panel that also included a member of the Duke faculty, a member of the Servicemembers Defense Legal Network, and a recently discharged member of the military. From that experience, I learned there is a lot of educational work that needs to be done, even at an elite school with a strong LGBT student organizations like Duke. I encourage all our members to make themselves available to speak at law schools, particularly ones own institution, on the effect of Solomon and the reasons why it should be opposed. To this end, I am compiling a list of members who are willing to volunteer their services, particularly for their local community, to speak and present the Section’s views in this area. If you would like to be placed on this speakers list, please send your name and contact details to me at pkykwan@yahoo.com. When compiled, I will post this list on the Section website so that groups like LGBT law students can easily use this as a resource to organize panels from local speakers without having to bear the added transportation and accommodation expenses for out of town speakers. Raising awareness is an urgent need. Please help us to do so by placing your name on this list and engage your own colleagues and students in a discussion about Solomon.

Thanks go out to Professors Pamela Bridgewater, Darren Hutchinson and Joan Shaffner who helped me staff the Section Hospitality Suite at the AALS Recruitment Conference. At my count, there were nine interviewees who stopped by throughout the conference to chat, and to discuss various aspects about the process of becoming a member of the legal academe without hiding or compromising one's sexual identity. My impression was that those interviewees received good counsel as well as a friendly place for R & R before the next round of interviews, and although it is a bothersome annual ritual to scrape together folks to staff the suite (and it is usually our heroes and heroines in the DC area schools), the benefit to the potential next generation of LGBT law teachers is very much worth the bother.

Finally, please mark your calendars – there will be a Section dinner in a cozy French restaurant in Dupont Circle on Friday, January 3 during the Annual Meeting. You will find further information below.

 

A special bouquet goes to Professor Mark Wojcik of The John Marshall Law School for a fabulous job in putting out this newsletter.

Peter Kwan

Section Chair

 

The Law Schools Admission Council publishes a wonderful brochure for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender law school applicants.  Your admission office should have some on display.  If they don't, they are available for free from LSAC.  The online version of the brochure, including an expanded section with school-specific information, is available at the LSAC website (www.LSAC.org).  On the left hand menu bar simply click on "Information for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Law School Applicants."  Section members will receive a copy of the brochure with the Spring Newsletter, and there will also be copies at the Section business meeting at the AALS conference in January.  In the meantime, to order copies of the brochure simply email Jim Leipold at JLeipold@LSAC.org. 

By Mark E. Wojcik

One of the most concrete measurements of the growing influence of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community law teachers is found in the back of the annual directory published by the Association of American Law Schools. It is a measurement of successful growth not only in the number of professors listed there, but also in the willingness of those on the list to serve as leaders and role models.

For those who may not remember the debate several years ago as to whether the AALS should create such a list, there were many differing opinions about whether the full-time law faculty should be allowed to self-identify as being members of the gay, lesbian, and bisexual community. There were concerns that a list might facilitate discrimination by those who could simply look up someone to see if they were "on the list." There were concerns about compiling any sort of list, as other potential abuses of were seen to outweigh any advantage. But ultimately the arguments that prevailed were those that stated that because inclusion in the list was voluntary, those who put their names on the list were willing to accept any risks that the list might be abused. The first listing in 1996-1997 started with 89 names. The following year there were 164 names, and 194 the year after that. The 1999-2000 directory had 218 names, and in the following year there were 237 names. The directory for 2001-2002 had 264 names. Although it has not yet been published, the directory for 2002-2003 will show 286 names.

The directory lists only full-time faculty and thus excludes part-time or adjunct faculty members who are also part of our community. It should also be noted that these numbers represent less than half of the membership of this section, which now stands at almost 900 members. That number includes many friends of the community who are not gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, or intersexual.

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Students, faculty, and staff communities in law schools are becoming increasingly diverse. The richness provided by this diversity offers a wealth of opportunities to learn from the experience and perspectives of others. Diversity also presents some challenges and conflicts. There may be conflicting values, views, principles, and expectations. Misunderstanding or misinterpretation may result from different modes of communication, perceptions, and learning styles. We can no longer guess the motivation or perspective of others as perhaps we though we once could. Teaching and working in a diverse environment requires more thought and consideration. Assumptions, short cuts, and former ways of teaching and working often do not work. This program, through the use of critical incident videos, will analyze and discuss typical work-related challenges and facilitate discussion around developing guidelines for action and resolution.

If you would like to attend a small gathering of section members and friends, please email Section Chair Peter Kwan at pkykwan@yahoo.com by December 6, 2002 (also the AALS registration deadline). Peter has a private room reservation for 15 to 20 places, which will be assigned on a first come, first served basis. Peter has made sure that the SALT Dinner (on Saturday, January 4) will not conflict with this small gathering of friends. A review of this new restaurant in the October 29 edition of the Washington Post describes the place as "the biggest party Dupont Circle has thrown in years" and asks "Where was everyone eating before the Bistrot du Coin showed up in June?"

Place: Harding, Mezzanine Level, Marriott Wardman Park Hotel

This is the first AALS Section Program under the Section's new name. Partly to reflect the policy reasons for the name change and in a continual process to center the marginalized (that included recent past Programs on issues of racial minorities within the LGBT community), this year’s Program focuses on the transgendered community.

Despite recent landmark judicial decisions, important law review publications and even mainstream press coverage, discussions on transgender legal issues at law schools remain few and largely confined to one or two classes within elective seminars on feminism or sexual orientation. This Program intends to remedy this by gathering together some of the nation’s leading transgendered public interest attorneys and legal writers to show how legal issues relating to the transgendered community, far from being of marginal interest and concern, are in fact integral and part of the fabric of all legal and social investigations, even so-called traditional, bar-required courses.

Section Chair Peter Kwan (Golden Gate University School of Law) will serve as moderator of the program. Speakers include attorneys Kyler Broadus (Human Rights Campaign), Phyllis Frye, Alyson Meiselman, and Shannon Minter (National Center for Lesbian Rights).

The purpose of this Town Hall Meeting is to present to the Section and the AALS executive the findings of the Solomon survey; brainstorm on what we and the AALS can do to counter the effects of Solomon; discuss compliance and the effectiveness of the amelioration requirement; and discuss strategies to repeal Solomon.

Section Chair Peter Kwan will serve as moderator of the meeting. Confirmed speakers include Chai Feldblum (Georgetown University) and Carl C. Monk, Executive Director, Association of American Law Schools.

The AALS Section on Gay and Lesbian Legal Issues maintains an e-mail discussion list (a "listserve") for members of the Section.  The e-mail discussion list is a "closed list" and can be accessed only by Section members.  It is not open to law students or members of the public. If you would like to be added to the discussion list, send an e-mail to the list manager, Scott Ehrlich (California Western School of Law) at sbe@cwsl.edu. You must be a member of the Section in order to join this list.

Even Olympic athletes need a good coach! Contact Kellye Y. Testy at the Seattle University School of Law, 900 Broadway, Seattle, WA 98122, for information about the section mentoring program. You can also reach Kellye by email at ktesty@seattleu.edu or by phone at (206) 398-4041.

Make a Deposit to the Syllabus and Exam Bank

Lewis Silverman (Touro Law Center) has agreed to keep a databank of syllabi and examinations for courses relating to sexual orientation and gender identity. For more information, contact him by email at LewisS@tourolaw.edu, or by snail mail: Prof. Lewis Silverman, Touro Law Center, Family Law Clinic, 300 Nassau Road, Huntington, NY 11743, You may also phone him at 631-421-2244 ext. 347.

The California office of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission has moved to 1375 Sutter Street, Suite 222, San Francisco, CA 94109. You can reach IGLHRC by phone at 415-561-0633. The New York office can be reached c/o Human Rights Watch, 350 Fifth Avenue, 34th Floor, New York, NY 10118 or by phone at 212-216-1814. IGLHRC also has a Mexico City Office for Latin-America and the Caribbean. More information is available from their website, at www.iglhrc.org. IGLHRC's mission is to protect and advance the human rights of all people and communities subject to discrimination or abuse on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or HIV status.

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MANDATORY DISCLAIMER: As required by AALS Rules, views expressed in this Newsletter are not necessarily those of the AALS or the Section on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Issues. All views expressed are those of the identified authors.

Newsletter Editor: Mark E. Wojcik, The John Marshall Law School, 315 S. Plymouth Court, Chicago, IL 60604. Ph: (312) 987-2391. Email: 7wojcik@jmls.edu. [On sabbatical until January 2003 at 60 N. Kuakini Street, Apt. 2H, Honolulu, HI 96817. Ph: 808-536-7954]