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Austin Owen Lecture: Difficulties, Dangers & Challenges Facing The Judiciary Today, Robert E. Payne

University of Richmond Law Review

Judge Payne presented this address at The Sixth Annual Austin Owen Lecture on November 18, 1997. The Honorable Austin E. Owen attended Richmond College from 1946-47 and received his law degree from The T.C. Williams School of Law in 1950. During his distinguished career, Judge Owen served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia; a partner in Owen, Gray, Rhodes, Betz, Smith and Dickerson; and was appointed Judge of the Second Judicial Circuit of Virginia where he served until his retirement in 1990. The Law School community grieved the loss of this distinguished alumnus upon his …

Third Circuit: Gender, Race, And Ethnicity- Task Force On Equal Treatment In The Courts, Dolores K. Sloviter

University of Richmond Law Review

The March 1993 vote of the Judicial Conference of the United States endorsing the provision of the proposed Violence Against Women Act that encouraged circuit judicial councils to conduct studies with respect to gender bias in their respective circuits provided an official imprimatur of approval to such inquiries by the policy making body of the federal courts. Thereafter, the extent to which each federal circuit undertook to accept the invitation to proceed may have depended in large part on the zeal for the inquiry by the chief judge of the circuit or his or her delegated committee.

Will Inquiry Produce Action? Studying The Effects Of Gender In The Federal Courts, Lynn Hecht Schafran

University of Richmond Law Review

When the Ninth Circuit Gender Bias Task Force released its report at the Circuit's 1992 Judicial Conference, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor offered this perspective:

A couple of years ago, I gave a speech in which I discussed the existence of a glass ceiling for women. The next day, headlines and newspaper articles trumpeted my statements as if I had made a surprising new discovery. But it is now 1992, and I don't think most of us were surprised to learn that the [Ninth Circuit] Task Force found the exis- tence of gender bias in a federal circuit. After all, over …