GFIC Recap: Looking Back

Last week was the 20th Anniversary and Commemoration of the Minnesota Supreme Court Task Force For Gender Fairness in the Courts Report. Don't even attempt to say that five times fast.

In other words, last week a luncheon and an afternoon of discussions centered around a report released 20 years ago from a task force created by the Minnesota Supreme Court in the late eighties. The task force--Gender Fairness in the Courts--collected data on several areas of the law and courtroom environment to see if there were gender disparities in the court. Not surprisingly, there were.

The commemoration last week had too much good information and discussion points for one blog post. Thus, this week Woman, Esq. will recap and examine each different component of the program.

We start with the Keynote Address given by Minnesota Court of Appeals Judge Harriet Lansing. Judge Lansing played a key part in initiating the movement to make gender fairness on the bench and in the courts a priority in both the nation and Minnesota. Judge Lansing talked about (and even showed photos!) of the many conferences and meetings that she attended to initiate the examination of this issue, in the company of women such as former Justice Rosalie Wahl, former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, and Sociology Professor Norma Wikler.

The issue was finally addressed in Minnesota in 1987 with the establishment of the Supreme Court's Gender Fairness in the Courts Task Force. This task force surveyed and reported on issues surrounding gender fairness in the courts, and still exists today to implement the recommended changes.

One statement in Judge Lansing's speech was especially relevent: she noted how the questions of gender fairness that existed in 1989--and, I argue, even today--are more comprehensive and subtle than law reform. Even directly addressing the issues through substantive law are not enough to change the disparities that exist in the legal process and the legal profession. For example, the small percentage of women who are law firm partners, or the many women who still suffer from the cycle of domestic abuse, despite being in the court system.

Of course, it is those comprehensive and subtle problems that are the hardest to solve. Judge Lansing also got it right when she said that interest and work on these problems need to be regenerated in the new generation of lawyers.