To Phoebe Haddon, diversity is more than a buzzword or a proud achievement to be plastered on a brochure. It’s an absolute key to the subject that makes her tick.

Haddon, the new dean of the University of Maryland School of Law, loves to pick apart the history and meaning of our laws. Those conversations are far richer, she says, with input from the widest possible range of people.

“I think women bring new dimensions to thinking about the law, because we ask different questions,” says Haddon, a fourth-generation lawyer whose family has advocated for civil rights for more than a century. “In the area of human rights and domestic problems, women have asked questions about a lack of equity that were simply not asked before.”

Haddon, 58, who last month became one of a handful of black women in the country to lead a law school, spent decades at Temple University in Philadelphia pushing students to think about how race, gender and class shape legal opinions. She has served on numerous panels devoted to bringing more minorities and underprivileged students into law schools. She worked for government agencies that sought to rehabilitate urban neighborhoods.

Her belief in diversity has led her to question the reliance on the Law School Admission Test (LSAT), which correlates to first-year performance in law school but in her opinion says little about who will make a good lawyer and favors wealthy applicants.

[Baltimore Sun]