Ann C. Scales | |
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 Photo of Ann C. Scales | |
| Born | May 29, 1952 |
| Died | June 24, 2012(2012-06-24) (aged 60) |
| Education | Wellesley College (BA) Harvard Law School (JD) |
| Occupation | Attorney |
| Known for | Feminist jurisprudence |
Ann C. Scales (May 29, 1952 – June 24, 2012) was an American lawyer, activist, and law professor at theUniversity of DenverSturm College of Law from 2003 to 2012, where she taught in constitutional law, sexual orientation and the law, civil procedure andtorts.
She was a founder of the legal field offeminist jurisprudence, and coined the term feminist jurisprudence in 1977.[1]
Ann Catherine Scales was born inShawnee, Oklahoma. Her fatherJames R. Scales was the president ofOklahoma Baptist University from 1961 to 1965. He went on to be president ofWake Forest University from 1968 to 1983. Her mother, Elizabeth Ann Randel Scales, had also been a professor and was very active in the Red Cross and in arranging events at these universities.
Scales received her B.A. fromWellesley College in history and philosophy in 1974 and her J.D. in 1978 fromHarvard Law School, where she served on Harvard Legal Aid and the Harvard Women's Law Association. She was a member of the committee that put together "Celebration 25", a party and conference held in 1978 to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first women graduating from Harvard Law School.[2] This project eventually turned into the Harvard Women's Law Journal, currently the Harvard Journal of Law & Gender.
Ann Scales taught at theUniversity of New Mexico Law School for 18 years. She was a visiting professor at theUniversity of Iowa College of Law,Boston College Law School, theUniversity of British Columbia Faulty of Law, and theUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At the time of her death, she was a professor at the University of Denver's Sturm College of Law. Scales was among the founders of the field offeminist jurisprudence and invented the termfeminist jurisprudence in 1977 while planning a panel for Celebration 25.[1]
Throughout her career, Ann Scales practiced pro bono law in the fields of reproductive rights and LGBTQI rights.[citation needed] She argued the case in which theNew Mexico Supreme Court became the first high court of any state to hold that abortion funding is required by women's interest in equality. She also worked on theUniversity of Colorado football gang rape case; the effort to bring a women's marathon to the Olympics; and R. v. Butler, a pornography case in which Canada's Supreme Court redefined obscenity based on the standard of harm it inflicts, particularly to women.[2]
Scales, a supporter ofpostmodernism andCritical legal studies, argued that objective reality was a myth constructed by thepatriarchy.[3]
Ann Scales was a former rodeo rider and was in part descended from Cherokee Native Americans. Some of her ancestors walked theTrail of Tears from North Carolina to Oklahoma.
She died on June 24, 2012, in a hospice in Denver, Colorado, as a result of massive brain trauma after a fall down the stairs in her home earlier in the month.[4]
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