Had her for sex equality. She literally wrote the book on this legal issue. She has the same arrogance as any brilliant male legal mind, but it’s definitely earned. Overall, wish I had waited to take the class to have some more seminar-style experience before jumping in deep. If you have the chance to write the papers through the lottery system, you get some (extremely minimal) notes from her, but nothing that really helps you write the next one. She seemed to like personal anecdotes and creative submissions more than heavy legal analysis (probably because she’s already read whatever it is you’re trying to articulate). Overall, kind of wish I would have audited the class instead of taking it for a grade.
I took both Sex Equality and Sexual Harassment with Professor MacKinnon. I think this is a pretty fair review, but full disclosure I got an A+ in both.
MacKinnon is a legendary legal scholar, but she’s not going to hold your hand and teach you the basics. She expects you to learn by doing the reading and then engaging in more complex discussion in class. The catch is that she likes to lecture, so she will go on and on and on until someone cuts her off. This is especially true in Sex Equality, but even in the Sex Harassment seminar it was hard to get a word in.
If you’re taking Sex Equality, you should definitely enter the lottery to write three short papers in lieu of taking the exam. You can pretty much write about anything you want as long as it’s somewhat related to the topics covered in class. And that way, you don’t have read for the course.
If you get into Sex Harassment, which is a prof pick course, chances are you are already familiar with a lot of the issues and stories discussed in class. So you can get by without reading everything assigned (which is a lot), but you’ll still want to read the materials about Title IX and Title VII doctrine. You’re graded based on a final paper, class participation, and facilitation of one class discussion.
Lastly, a heads-up that, although Catharine MacKinnon consider herself an intersectional feminist, she has some blind spots when it comes to discussing the role that the Women’s Lib Movement played in marginalizing the voices of women of color. In other words, she’s well versed in issues specific to women of color but fails to recognize the whiteness of the movement and legal doctrine that she helped create. As a whole, she likes to distance herself from her whiteness. If you’re up to the task, she’s willing to engage in a discussion about it. But she’s not going to take it easy on you. That being said, she will respect you for it.
So, MacKinnon is hard to review, because she is SO impressive. I loved her class — but I also got the B+, and it’s frustrating, because the grading system is so arbitrary. If you get to write the papers, you’re fine; she likes those clearly more, and she gives them far more grace. (Our class got a ten day extension on their last paper.) If you get the final, good luck — it’s hard to write something substantive that she hasn’t already heard, and she’s got very strong opinions on most of it, because … Well, she wrote it. She’s persnickity, and it’s weird that you only get ten minutes in office hours, but she’s frankly never on schedule anyway, so don’t worry about that.
Re the usual criticism: Look, she’s old. Some of her views are not the most woke. That said, we spent a lot of classtime discussing trans rights, and she’s very willing to engage on whatever you want to talk to her about. You might not like what she says — you’re not going to convince her that porn is good — but the woman has litigated in at least two Supreme Courts about why its bad. If that’s really the thing stopping you from taking the class, I suggest you get over it and take it. She’s happy to fight with you, and it’ll make you smarter to try to fight back.
She’s also, at times, heart breakingly kind. There were at least two alumni I met who had stories about how MacKinnon saved their lives and their careers by intervening in issues of either domestic violence or stalking while they were students. She took very personal, very admirable risks for them, and my frustrations about my grade pale against that kind of strength.
It’s worth taking. It reminded me why I want to be a lawyer. I’m willing to take the curve for that, but I suspect (read: know) that some people won’t.
I struggled with the condensed schedule (it’s 6 weeks of evening classes). She’s brilliant and she knows it, and it’s great to be in the room with greatness. But I took the final (didn’t get selected for the essays) and got a B in the course (my lowest law school grade). It feels like she just puts random grades on things, which never feels great.
MLaw Prof Reviews
Had her for sex equality. She literally wrote the book on this legal issue. She has the same arrogance as any brilliant male legal mind, but it’s definitely earned. Overall, wish I had waited to take the class to have some more seminar-style experience before jumping in deep. If you have the chance to write the papers through the lottery system, you get some (extremely minimal) notes from her, but nothing that really helps you write the next one. She seemed to like personal anecdotes and creative submissions more than heavy legal analysis (probably because she’s already read whatever it is you’re trying to articulate). Overall, kind of wish I would have audited the class instead of taking it for a grade.
I took both Sex Equality and Sexual Harassment with Professor MacKinnon. I think this is a pretty fair review, but full disclosure I got an A+ in both.
MacKinnon is a legendary legal scholar, but she’s not going to hold your hand and teach you the basics. She expects you to learn by doing the reading and then engaging in more complex discussion in class. The catch is that she likes to lecture, so she will go on and on and on until someone cuts her off. This is especially true in Sex Equality, but even in the Sex Harassment seminar it was hard to get a word in.
If you’re taking Sex Equality, you should definitely enter the lottery to write three short papers in lieu of taking the exam. You can pretty much write about anything you want as long as it’s somewhat related to the topics covered in class. And that way, you don’t have read for the course.
If you get into Sex Harassment, which is a prof pick course, chances are you are already familiar with a lot of the issues and stories discussed in class. So you can get by without reading everything assigned (which is a lot), but you’ll still want to read the materials about Title IX and Title VII doctrine. You’re graded based on a final paper, class participation, and facilitation of one class discussion.
Lastly, a heads-up that, although Catharine MacKinnon consider herself an intersectional feminist, she has some blind spots when it comes to discussing the role that the Women’s Lib Movement played in marginalizing the voices of women of color. In other words, she’s well versed in issues specific to women of color but fails to recognize the whiteness of the movement and legal doctrine that she helped create. As a whole, she likes to distance herself from her whiteness. If you’re up to the task, she’s willing to engage in a discussion about it. But she’s not going to take it easy on you. That being said, she will respect you for it.
So, MacKinnon is hard to review, because she is SO impressive. I loved her class — but I also got the B+, and it’s frustrating, because the grading system is so arbitrary. If you get to write the papers, you’re fine; she likes those clearly more, and she gives them far more grace. (Our class got a ten day extension on their last paper.) If you get the final, good luck — it’s hard to write something substantive that she hasn’t already heard, and she’s got very strong opinions on most of it, because … Well, she wrote it. She’s persnickity, and it’s weird that you only get ten minutes in office hours, but she’s frankly never on schedule anyway, so don’t worry about that.
Re the usual criticism: Look, she’s old. Some of her views are not the most woke. That said, we spent a lot of classtime discussing trans rights, and she’s very willing to engage on whatever you want to talk to her about. You might not like what she says — you’re not going to convince her that porn is good — but the woman has litigated in at least two Supreme Courts about why its bad. If that’s really the thing stopping you from taking the class, I suggest you get over it and take it. She’s happy to fight with you, and it’ll make you smarter to try to fight back.
She’s also, at times, heart breakingly kind. There were at least two alumni I met who had stories about how MacKinnon saved their lives and their careers by intervening in issues of either domestic violence or stalking while they were students. She took very personal, very admirable risks for them, and my frustrations about my grade pale against that kind of strength.
It’s worth taking. It reminded me why I want to be a lawyer. I’m willing to take the curve for that, but I suspect (read: know) that some people won’t.
I struggled with the condensed schedule (it’s 6 weeks of evening classes). She’s brilliant and she knows it, and it’s great to be in the room with greatness. But I took the final (didn’t get selected for the essays) and got a B in the course (my lowest law school grade). It feels like she just puts random grades on things, which never feels great.