CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) – Hundreds of Harvard Law School alumnae flocked to the school’s campus this weekend to mark the 50th anniversary of the school’s first graduation that included women.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who attended Harvard Law School for two years before transferring to Columbia in the late 1950s, said she felt lucky to have been born in time for the women’s rights movement that swept the country in the 1960s.
“In the not-so-good old days, I would often say something at a meeting, and then a guy would say the same thing about five minutes later, and people would say ‘that’s a good idea,”‘ she said.
“People were not hearing a woman’s voice. Now they do, and I’m pleased to tell you that for two years running, no one at oral argument has called me Justice O’Connor, as they did my first eight years,” she said, referring to her colleague Sandra Day O’Connor, who was for years the only woman on the court.
Harvard’s weekend of events included appearances by former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, who graduated in 1963, and former President of Ireland Mary Robinson, who graduated in 1969. It was the largest single gathering of Harvard Law alumni since the school began in 1817, said Harvard Law spokesman Michael Rodman.
When Harvard Law graduated women for the first time in 1953, the school was one of the last law schools to do so. It took another 18 years for the school to give tenure to a woman.
In April, Elena Kagan, a professor and former White House aide, was named dean of the school, becoming the school’s 11th dean and the first woman to hold the job in the school’s 186-year history.
The significance of that appointment was not lost on Charlotte P. Armstrong, 75, who was among the women in the school’s pioneering class of 1953.
“It’s very important, I think, to recognize where we started, and how far we’ve come. The timing is perfect, also, in terms of the transition from one superb dean to another one who will be superb, who happens to be a woman,” she said.
Armstrong, now a consultant who specializes in executive compensation, worked for the justice department and in private practice. But she said that job-hunting early in her career usually involved fielding questions about her stenography skills, and how long she intended to stay before getting married.
She said she anticipated that Harvard Law School would become more public interest -oriented with Kagan at the helm, and with more women interested in public service and the law.
“This is what really engages women to an extent that men don’t quite seem to be so engaged in,” she said.
AP-ES-05-03-03 1730EDT
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