Mary Joe Frug (1941 – April 4, 1991) was a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

at New England Law Boston from 1981 to 1991. She is considered a forerunner of

legal Law is a set of rules that are created and are law enforcement, enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. ...

postmodern feminist theory, and was a renowned

postmodernist Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of modern ...

and feminist legal scholar. Much of her work was collected in the posthumously-published book ''Postmodern Legal Feminism''. She authored the

casebook A casebook is a type of textbook used primarily by students in law schools.Wayne L. Anderson and Marilyn J. Headrick, The Legal Profession: Is it for you?' (Cincinnati: Thomson Executive Press, 1996), 83. Rather than simply laying out the legal do ...

''Women and the Law''. On April 4, 1991, Frug was murdered on the streets of

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

, near the home that she shared with her husband,

Harvard Law Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

professor Gerald Frug, and their two children. The murder remains unsolved.

''Harvard Law Review'' controversy

In March 1992, the '' Harvard Law Review'' published an unfinished draft article by Frug called "A Postmodern Feminist Legal Manifesto," which explored the legal theories on violence toward women. Some members of the Review were opposed to publishing the piece, and later, on the anniversary of her murder, parodied it in ''He-Manifesto of Post-Mortem Legal Feminism,'' which was included in the ''Harvard Law Revue'', an annual spoof of the ''Review''. It was signed by "Mary Doe, Rigor-Mortis Professor of Law" and argued that Frug's theories were the concoction of paranoid feminists. Co-authors Craig Coben and Ken Fenyo later apologized in a statement, particularly to Frug's husband. They added that they did not mean to distribute the article on the anniversary of her death. The statement was signed by other members of the ''Review'', including the then- Supreme Court editor

Paul Clement Paul Drew Clement (born June 24, 1966) is an American lawyer who served as U.S. Solicitor General from 2004 to 2008 and is known for his advocacy before the U.S. Supreme Court. He established his own law firm, Clement & Murphy, in 2022 after le ...

. Her views were considered especially infuriating by Harvard law professor

Alan Dershowitz Alan Morton Dershowitz ( ; born September 1, 1938) is an American lawyer and former law professor known for his work in U.S. constitutional law and American criminal law. From 1964 to 2013, he taught at Harvard Law School, where he was appoin ...

, who railed against her audacity, and stirred up strong sentiment against her among his students. According to ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'':

Legacy

Frug's casebook, ''Women and the Law'', is still in publication, and is now known as ''Mary Joe Frug's Women and the Law''.Image of book cover
/ref> New England Law Boston houses the "Professor Mary Joe Frug Women and the Law Collection" at its library. The Women's Law Caucus at the New England Law established the Mary Joe Frug Grant to provide "stipends for students at New England who devote their summers to improving the lives of women." In 1994 the Mary Joe Frug Fund was launched to establish an

endowed chair A financial endowment is a legal structure for managing, and in many cases indefinitely perpetuating, a pool of financial, real estate, or other investments for a specific purpose according to the will of its founders and donors. Endowments are of ...

at New England Law in her memory. This chair would be the first of its kind in the nation and would carry on the legacy of Professor Frug by allowing visiting professors to come to the New England Law and teach women's issues in the law. Frug's murder remains unsolved. In 2019, a newly-formed

cold case A cold case is a crime, or a suspected crime, that has not yet been fully resolved and is not the subject of a current criminal investigation, but for which new information could emerge from new witness testimony, re-examined archives, new or r ...

unit in

Middlesex County, Massachusetts Middlesex County is located in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,632,002, making it the most populous county in both Massachusetts and New England and the 22nd most populous cou ...

took up the case.

''Harvard Law Review'' controversy

Legacy

See also

References

Further reading