April 1, 2008
Albuquerque Journal
Female Professor Honored
Staff ReportThe era of "firsts" is giving way to "nexts" for women in the law, Judge Linda Vanzi told the University of New Mexico Women's Law Caucus at a dinner last week honoring Professor Ruth Kovnat.
In 1967, law schools had fewer than 4 percent female students, compared with almost 50 percent of all students today, she said. More than half of UNM law school's graduating classes are women.
"Our effort is being rearranged, from pushing ourselves in and demanding a place at the table to an effort characterized by asking ourselves what can we as women bring to the practice of law," Vanzi said. In state District Court in Albuquerque, 10 of 26 judges are women, she said, but only three women have ever served on the state Supreme Court.
Vanzi encouraged continued progress like that embodied by Kovnat, the first female law professor at Temple University School of Law in 1971 and among the first wave of female law professors nationwide.
She joined the UNM faculty four years later and taught environmental law, constitutional law and federal jurisdiction.
Kovnat, now a professor emerita, received the Justice Mary Walters Award, named for the first female chief judge on the Court of Appeals who later served on the New Mexico Supreme Court.
Kovnat is on the board of the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty and is a past member of the New Mexico Water Quality Control Commission.
She is a recipient of the Governor's Award for Outstanding New Mexico Women.
She has published articles on environmental issues, studied water quality as a member of the South Valley Task Force and will soon publish a work on environmental regulation in Indian country.
Kovnat was associate dean for academic affairs at the law school from 1991 to 1994.