Dr. Joan Williams is Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California Hastings College of Law.

“We must restructure the academic workplace to recognize the legitimate claims of family life, so both men and women can realize both their professional and their personal goals.  Only then will we be able to harness the full intellectual potential of academia.” Joan Williams is a prize-winning author and expert on work/family issues.  Her book, Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict and What To Do About It (Oxford University Press, 2000), won the 2000 Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award.  She has played a leading role in documenting workplace bias against mothers, and in organizing social scientists to document “maternal wall” bias.

• Building Academic Excellence through Gender Equity. American Academic. March 2008.
  An Article by Joan C. Williams and Donna L. Norton

• Gaining the Competitive Edge: The Economics of Retaining Women
  Information on the high costs of attrition & how to steal the best talent.

• Mothers and More Speaks with Joan Williams
  Debra Levy interviews Dr. Williams about Unbending Gender and a new type of family-friendly feminism supporting both at-home and working mothers.

• WorkLife Law Information for Academics
  Provides a summary of of hundreds of social psychology studies into news you can use, whether you are:
  • A women wondering if it's bias or your imagination
  • A department chair wondering why you lost that perfect candidate to a lesser-ranked institution
  • An administrator who feels you cannot keep footing the bill when a department is losing one woman after another