History of Washington College of Law

American University Washington College of Law has long been a center for feminist legal scholarship and teaching. The first U.S. Law School founded by women, Washington College of Law has been committed to the advancement of women's rights for over 100 years.

The Women and the Law Program

Since 1984 the Women and the Law Program has promoted the integration of women's rights and gender studies into legal education, practice and doctrine.  To foster the study and teaching of gender and international or comparative law, the program expanded to include a Women and International Law Program in 1994.   

The Women and the Law Program emphasizes the role of law and legal education in transforming women’s status around the world.  The program challenges assumptions about the role of women in the family, civil society, and governance in domestic, international and transnational institutions.  However, engaging in either academic study or advocacy alone is not enough if the people who make the legal and political decisions that shape women’s lives- judges, lawyers and policy makers- ignore the concerns of women.  Therefore, the program seeks to influence the thinking of political and social leaders who hold the power to address the legal dimensions of gender inequality.  We aim to transform the training of lawyers and scholars so that they leave law school with an awareness of their power and obligation to remove the legal barriers to women’s full participation in society. 

The Women and International Law Program

To foster the study and teaching of gender and international or comparative law, the Women and the Law Program expanded to include a Women and International Law Program (WILP) in 1994. WILP supports the work of legal scholars, women's rights advocates and law students around the world seeking to integrate fully women's human rights into legal education, practice and doctrine

Through workshops, trainings, and educational programs, WILP collaborates with women's rights advocates and scholars around the world to reform the law, legal education, and legal institutions to further women's rights and fosters analysis of the relationship of gender to the operation of law and legal institutions. WILP is currently collaborating on gender and legal education initiatives in India and Latin America.  WILP also works with WCL students to enhance their studies of gender and the law, sponsors gender-related programming at the law school, and works closely with the LL.M International Legal Studies Program: Specialization in Gender & the Law, one of the only such programs in the world.