NCJ Number
118959
Journal
State Court Journal Volume: 13 Issue: 3 Dated: (Summer 1989) Pages: 13-18
Date Published
1989
Length
7 pages
Annotation
After describing the social and political context in which the movement to eliminate gender bias in the courts arose, this article discusses the creation of the National Judicial Education Program to Promote Equality for Women and Men in the Courts (NJEP) and its catalytic role in the formation of the gender bias task forces, followed by comments on the work and significance of the task forces.
Abstract
At the time that gender bias in the courts was first being documented by researchers in the 1970's, judicial education was in its infancy. Under the impetus of the National Organization for Women's Legal Defense and Education Fund, the NJEP was established in 1980 to develop and introduce courses into established judicial education programs for State and Federal judges on the ways in which gender bias affects the courts and undermines fairness. The success of the movement to eradicate gender bias in the courts, however, required that individual States collect concrete and specific information about the ways in which gender bias operated in each State's judicial system. Following New Jersey's establishment of a task force to achieve these objectives in 1982, a burgeoning of such task forces in other States followed. A systematic evaluation of the work of the New Jersey task force indicates it has created a climate in which the nature and consequences of judicial gender bias are both acknowledged to exist and judged to be unacceptable in the New Jersey courts. Indications are that other task forces will achieve these same results. 7 notes.