Athens, Ga. – The University of Georgia School of Law’s 28th Edith House Lecture will be delivered by Dahlia Lithwick, a senior editor and legal correspondent for Slate magazine. She will present “Wise Women? What Women Bring to the Bench and How to Talk About It Like Gentlemen” on March 25 at 3:30 p.m. in the Larry Walker Room of Dean Rusk Hall, located on North Campus.
According to Lithwick, the nomination and confirmation hearings of Justice Sonia Sotomayor once more put a spotlight on issues surrounding women and the law. Specifically, Sotomayor was attacked as a “bully judge” and also as a female exceptionalist who believed that women, specifically wise Latina women, made better decisions.
During her talk, Lithwick will address the status of women and judging and will explore the question “Do women really think differently than men, and if they do, is that a good thing?” She will also discuss why the national conversation about women in the law is both impoverished and overheated, what women can do to change it, and what it means for the future of women on the bench and in the law. Her presentation will be followed by a question and answer session.
Lithwick writes “Supreme Court Dispatches” and “Jurisprudence” in addition to covering other legal issues for Slate.Her work has also appeared in Elle, The New Republic, Newsweek, The New York Times, the Ottawa Citizen, The Washington Post and on CNN.com. She is a frequent commentator for several National Public Radio shows, including “Talk of the Nation.”She is also co-author of Me v. Everybody: Absurd Contracts for an Absurd World and I Will Sing Life: Voices from the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp.
Before joining Slate in 1999, Lithwick practiced family law at a firm in Reno, Nev. She also served as a judicial clerk for Chief Judge Procter Ralph Hug Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. Lithwick earned her undergraduate degree in English from Yale University and her juris doctor from Stanford University.
The Edith House Lecture Series is hosted annually by the Women Law Students’ Association in honor of one of the first female graduates of Georgia Law. House, a native of Winder,was co-valedictorian of the law class of 1925, the first class to graduate women.