"Now it's your turn. Tell us which dean can "discipline" you anytime, and whose academic gown you'd like to peek under."

My best guess is that this is not a contest that is attempting to reverse the idea of the stereotypical "Hot 100" phenomena that usually (for example) graces men's magazines. Simply another display of reducing a woman to nothing but her looks and/or sexuality. Sad.

Wow. As a recent law grad, that is really disturbing. How about the "hottest male law school deans" if this is supposed to be some sort of joke? It's just juvenile.

If you check out the bottom of the page there's a link to a similar contest for male deans.

I personally find this sort of thing much less troubling now that David Lat admits he's a man. I still have some mild lingering contempt for him for pretending to be a girl just so that he could act girly and not lose face. The dude is girlier than I am, and I actually have the biological equipment. There's nothing wrong with being girly, but I'm offended that instead of admitting that he likes stereotypically "girly" (i.e., frivolous and silly) pursuits more than serious ones, he had to pretend to be a woman to get away with it. Like we need fake women reinforcing the world's refusal to take us seriously.

Anyway, I guess this is neither here nor there. I wouldn't call Lat a sexist, necessarily. He tends to be pretty gender-neutral even when he's slobbering pathetically over federal judges. Lat really missed his true calling as a gossip mag queen.

""Here's why Erin Keyes should be nominated: I was walking down the hall behind her, admiring her fine [redacted, but not for profanity (he didn't use THAT word); we're scared of the Feminist Law Professors]. I asked my friend, 'Who is that total knockout?' He replied, in a hushed tone: 'It's the new dean of students.'""

Noooo its totally trying to go AGAINST stereotypical 'hotties'...

In a way this is a good thing because it draws attention to female deans of law schools, which is a big achievement for any woman. Yet this is also disturbing in that, despite that these women are smart, focused and successful in their fields, they are still being judged by a certain appearance standard.

He started the Hill Intern Hotties contest on Wonkette. That site is turning neo-con because of funding from the Cato Institute and corporations.

I actually take more issue with the comments than with the actual contest or submissions... I can attest to the fact that law students get VERY bored and about 87% of everything that comes out of a law student's mouth is a sarcastic attempt at humor. Seriously. Most of the nominators are taking some vaguely attractive attributes about their deans and exaggerating these in the hopes that Lat will post their remarks and they can inwardly smirk at their own cleverness.

What's troubling is how different the comments section is for the women versus the men... in both there is some good-natured ribbing and school rivalry, as well as some genuine and reasonably non-offensive remarks about which dean is hotter -- but only on the women side did I see *really* offensive remarks about how some of the women were "ugly" (no one said this about the men, even though all 14 have roughly equivalent aggregate levels of attractiveness -- just goes to show that, even when joking around, people care more about women's looks) and even more disgusting aspersions on the character of these dignified, accomplished women. One idiot even went so far as to actually use the phrase "smart (for a woman)"

Arguably Lat's responsible for opening up this debate -- but I think the general notion of a law school dean hotties contest is more stupid than it is sexist. It's the losers taking it further in the comments who boil my blood.

Law Fairy,

Thanks for bringing up the ocmments below the article. They disgusted me. They range from creepy masturbation talk to disturbingly racist. "Indian girls are ok, it's just the smell you have to get past."

What I keep thinking as I looked over the contestents is how much their personal identification/accomplishments are stripped away from them as they are reduced to beauty contestents wearing business suits. Real dignifying.

If it were me on the list, I would be furious.

As a longtime reader (such as the case may be) of Abovethelaw and as a raging feminist, I personally think the contest was intended to be taken in whatever manner the readers themselves submitted. Several of the nominations described "hot" as something other than beauty. Plus, there is a men's hottie category as well (two, if you count the B list). ATL has a long tradition of running hottie contests. Where were you when he ran the "ERISA hotties"? And it wasn't until FARK linked to the contest that the superoffensive comments showed up.

If Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda can flirt and bake an apple pie on Colbert's show and everyone can be ok with it, why can't students who adore their law school deans submit their joke nominations, tongue in cheek, without getting reamed out for being creepy and evil?

I agree, lawschmaw -- there's plenty David Lat writes about/posts about that I'm not thrilled with (I've never been a fan of drooling admiration of the federal judiciary in general), but this contest didn't strike me as particularly sexist, nor, really, did the submissions. Maybe it's because I went to law school and I "get" the desperate need for an outlet for the sheer ridiculousness of the experience -- and these hottie contests, frankly, give just that. Really, they were pretty gender-neutral; for both men and women, both physical and mental/educational attributes were highlighted. Also important to note that in both categories, there were men and women with less than movie star looks who were still praised for their physical attractiveness -- rock on! Seems to me like just the sort of thing we should encourage, particularly since this draws attention to the fact that there are female law school deans out there, which is no small accomplishment.

I don't think the students are evil -- some of the trolls in the comments are, but the students are just having goofy, nerdy fun. Without goofy, nerdy fun, law school might really be literally unbearable.