The Harvard Crimson reports that the number of women on the Harvard Law Review has fallen in recent years. This fact alone isn’t especially noteworthy. But the following part of the story was remarkable:
But some HLS professors, including HLS Dean Elena Kagan, said if the Review announced an affirmative action policy, it would imply that women could not be accepted based on merit alone.
All three of the Review’s faculty advisors–who are also all women–do not support introducing affirmative action for women.
“Such a plan would offer Law Review membership to perhaps a handful more women per class while making all women selected for the Law Review wonder whether they would have been selected absent such a program (and making other Review editors, as well as judges and other future employers, wonder the same thing),” HLS Professor and Review faculty advisor Carol S. Steiker told the Record.
Precisely. Perhaps it’s time for Dean Kagan and her colleagues to turn an equally critical eye on Harvard Law’s admissions policies . . .