The Women of BU Law
How early female faculty—including Tamar Frankel, Fran Miller, and Peggy Maisel—forged their paths at the law school
1969 Faculty Photo – Tamar Frankel on the right.
The Women of BU Law
How early female faculty and students—including Tamar Frankel, Fran Miller, and Peggy Maisel—forged their paths at the law school
Due to its groundbreaking inclusive charter, BU was one of the first law schools to admit women to its ranks. In 1881, Lelia J. Robinson became the first woman to graduate from BU Law. Initially denied admission to the Massachusetts State Bar because of her sex, Robinson drafted and fought for the passage of a bill that authorized women to take the Massachusetts Bar and practice law in court. Despite her victory, the profession evolved slowly, and it would take more than a century before women law students grew to represent more than half of the class at BU Law today.
Getting to this point, however, was not a foregone conclusion. It took commitment to creating access for women in the legal profession and deliberate effort on behalf of administrators and faculty. Ernest Haddad (’64), who served as assistant dean from 1966 to 1971, played a key role in reshaping the BU Law community. He was one of the first administrators in the country to actively recruit women law students. When Haddad visited Wellesley College in the fall of 1966, he learned that he was the first law school recruiter ever to come to campus. Although Haddad’s action made BU Law a pioneer in terms of the recruitment of women law students, they could not ensure that women would be immediately welcome by all in the community. While a few faculty members supported the increase in female students, the prevailing attitude at the time “ranged from hostile to indifferent,” Haddad says. “There’s no question that the women were not taken as seriously as the men.”
He remembers a galling exchange with a male colleague on the admissions committee, who opposed an applicant who had expressed interest in promoting equal rights for women. “He said, with obvious disdain, ‘This woman’s a feminist!’” Haddad recalls. “I was astounded. There was this kind of quiet acceptance of the advent of women, but not if they were women’s rights advocates.”
Professor of Law Emerita Peggy Maisel (’75), a proud alumna who served as a clinical professor and associate dean at BU Law from 2014 to 2023, agrees. “It was a difficult environment. Women students were a small minority, and I remember often feeling silenced and afraid of making a mistake in large classes taught only by men.”
In 1967, Tamar Frankel joined the law school faculty as a lecturer, and, in 1971, she became the first woman to receive tenure at BU Law. Strong and independent, Frankel taught at BU for the next five decades, eventually becoming a giant in the field of fiduciary law. A 2017 Wall Street Journal feature anointed her “the intellectual godmother of the fiduciary rule.” Throughout her career, presidential administrations and business leaders sought her counsel. (Frankel retired in 2018 as Professor of Law Emerita.)
And yet, in the early 70s—just when Title IX was passed, banning sex discrimination in education—Frankel’s reception from her male faculty colleagues was decidedly icy. Exiled to a small office in the basement of the law library, she was paid less than what the male professors received. In a 2008 interview, Frankel recalled how female students at BU were demeaned by male professors on a so-called “ladies’ day,” when professors would put women in the first row and aggressively call on them, while the male students sat “snickering in the back.”
Early in her professorial career, Frankel never had a mentor at BU Law, nor did she curry favor or play politics. “I didn’t come to be accepted,” she said. “I didn’t come to make friends, and I didn’t care if I didn’t belong.” She didn’t so much burn down gender barriers as flatly refuse to dignify them with her time.
But Frankel’s brilliance and influence were undeniable, and the path she forged opened doors for the women students and faculty who followed.
The year Frankel became a full professor, Fran Miller (’65) began teaching at BU Law. Her road to tenure would be longer than Frankel’s, and no less thorny. Haddad, who hired Miller, recalls that “a distinguished member of the faculty argued against Fran’s appointment saying, ‘We made that mistake once’—referring to Tamar—‘and we won’t make it again.’”
But Miller persevered, and, in 1981, she became the second woman to earn tenure at the law school. She taught at BU for more than four decades, winning the university’s Metcalf Cup and Prize for excellence in teaching in 1989. From the start, Miller was an innovator and pioneer in the field of health law, and she became a leading expert on US health care law and policy and a specialist on comparative health systems.
Having women law professors as visible role models made a real difference to the growing number of women law students at BU Law. Peggy Maisel remembers feeling inspired at seeing Miller at the front of her classroom. “It was exciting taking a class from Fran,” Maisel says. “She was a young and dynamic teacher, and it made me feel more at home and that law was a place where women could be in practice and teach.”
The presence of women faculty also reshaped the law school for male students—all students—in important ways. Ted Lee (’91), who established a health law scholarship in Miller’s name, says that her contributions to BU Law transcended gender divides and helped to usher in a new ethos of compassion and support that eventually transformed the intensely competitive culture of the law school. While many professors were reserved and formal, Lee says, Miller approached her students with warmth and genuine care. “Fran was more about having a dialogue—this was a friendship, a relationship that we were forging in the class,” Lee says. “She wanted to know who you are as a person. She saw us as people.”
The Record recently spoke with Professor of Law Emerita Miller about her early years at the Law Tower.
Q&A
With Professor of Law Emerita Fran Miller
The Record: At the time you decided to go to law school, it was very much a male-dominated profession. What drew you to the law?
Fran Miller: I got married a year out of college and worked in Washington for two years at the beginning of the 60s—best time in the world to work there. JFK had just become president. Everyone was inspired by, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” The Peace Corps was taking off, and everyone was very idealistic and enthusiastic about making the world a better place. I worked in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, doing economic development for the Alaskan Native tribes.
My husband, Hugh, was a resident at DC General Hospital, and then he got a fellowship up in Boston. He said, “What are you going to do in Boston?” I said, “I don’t know. Get another job.” And he said, “Why don’t you go to law school? You have a brain, and you should use it.” And literally, that’s why I went.
The Record: You were one of only a few women at BU Law in the 60s. What was it like?
Fran Miller: I loved it. A whole new world opened up to me. That was the first time I understood the meaning of the phrase “knowledge is power.” There were only six women in my class, and three of them had dropped out by third year, so only three of us graduated—and we were tough.
I had a baby on January 3 of my third year, and I started taking exams on January 7. I mean, don’t even think about asking for deferred exams. Absolutely not. Everyone said, you’ll just have to finish your degree later. I said, no way. I got up and went to my exams. And I still graduated fourth in my class.
The Record: What led you back to BU to teach?
Fran Miller: We had moved to England for a year because my husband had a fellowship in London, so I went to the London School of Economics and took advanced international economic law. Mick Jagger was an undergrad there, and I saw him around.
I had just moved back from England, and I was pregnant. I had two sons within 18 months. We didn’t have a lot of money. It wasn’t a thing back then for women to work full time with children, so I went to work two days a week for the Association of Trial Lawyers, writing for their journal.
I owe so much to Ernie Haddad. He was one year ahead of me in law school, and we were both on Law Review, so we knew each other well. By then Ernie had become an assistant dean at BU Law. He called me up and asked me to teach a section of legal research and writing. And after I’d done that for a couple of years, they asked me to teach trust and estates and then family law.
The Record: At what point did you turn your focus to health law
Fran Miller: By then, it was the early 70s, and I knew that Medicare and Medicaid were changing everything about medicine. Incredible amounts of money were being pumped into the demand side of medicine. Most people didn’t understand that. BU asked me to teach a medical malpractice course, and I said, “No, I’m going to teach health law.” Starting in 1973, I basically created and taught out of my own materials because there were no case books for health law.
The Record: How did you see the intersection between medicine and the law evolving?
Fran Miller: Until that point, law and medicine was about doctors in the courtroom. Forensics and malpractice. Nobody talked about financing, conflicts of interest, bioethics—none of that stuff. I started putting materials together that weren’t previously understood to fit together and created a much broader and more cohesive set of inquiry, which became health law. It became quite a popular course. By the time I stopped teaching, I was routinely having up to 110 people in that class every year. That’s why BU has such a huge number of alums out there doing health law because I really did get it going way ahead of the curve.
The Record: And this was all before you were on a tenure track?
Fran Miller: You betcha. BU was paying me $5,000 for each of the three courses I taught. One day, I was in the registrar’s office, and I asked, “What’s a full-time teaching load?” And they said, “You’re teaching it.” I knew the men were getting far more, plus health insurance and benefits. So, I went to the dean and said, “This isn’t right.” And he said, “You’re right. You deserve to be paid the way the men are paid.” And that began the worst period of my life.
The Record: How so?
Fran Miller: Because he put me up for a tenure track position! My male colleagues were aghast. One man, who had been my property teacher, was very tough. He called me up and said, “Fran I’m going to send four people in to review your teaching, and I’m going to have each of them come to your classes twice.” I said, “Would you do me a favor and ask them all to come at the same time? It changes the chemistry of the classroom—the students aren’t their usual selves.” And he said, “In that case, I’ll make sure to send them eight separate times.” And that was the way it was.
The Record: Well, I guess that set the tone. Did things improve?
Fran Miller: Let me tell you a story from when I was up for tenure. We were at a wine and cheese party, and my husband went up to one of my male colleagues and said, “Why are you guys so terrible to Fran, jumping all over her like that? What’s the problem with her?” And these were the professor’s exact words: “Look, she’s a cute little dancing poodle, and everyone loves her in the classroom, but she is making a big mistake trying to share status.”
The Record: What did you do?
Fran Miller: At Ernie Haddad’s advice, I got an affidavit from someone else who heard him say it. I never used it, never told anybody I had it, but I had it in my file. So, that’s what it was like to get tenure. It was honestly just God awful. It took me 13 years of teaching every single year, no sabbaticals. At the end, I won. And I’m sure that stuck in their craw.
The Record: That sounds like an incredibly isolating experience. How did you get through it?
Fran Miller: I had rock solid support from people like Tamar [Frankel] and Ernie [Haddad]. Ernie had always been my champion. He’s a man you can trust. But I found out so many of the others weren’t. I owe Ern so much. [Later,] when Ernie was working in state government, he helped to get me appointed to the Massachusetts Rate Setting Commission. When he moved over to Partners HealthCare [now Mass General Brigham], he put me on the Institutional Review Board. So, for 30 years, I saw the bleeding edge of medical research. Ernie put me in these very important positions, which enhanced my street cred and gave me so much insight.
The Record: Tell me about your friendship with Tamar Frankel, the only other tenured woman on faculty?
Fran Miller: Next to the ladies’ room, there were four little offices for women. They had us cordoned off in the corner. When I told Tamar [about how I was being treated], she said, “They are not worthy of tying your shoelaces!” [Miller chuckles.] She was a fiery woman, and she gave me just what I needed. I could not have stayed at BU if it wasn’t for Tamar, because she let me know I was right.
Fran Miller, Pnina Lahav (the third woman to receive tenure at BU Law), and Tamar Frankel.
“This is in the faculty lounge, probably at an all-faculty meeting,” Miller says. “What I said at the time was, ‘There goes the neighborhood!’ You know, we screwed up the boys’ game.”
The Record: After you got tenure, did things get better?
Fran Miller: Yes! It was fine for me the minute I got tenure. Never had a problem with anybody again. It’s called getting status, you know?
The Record: How did the status of women change more broadly for the law school?
Fran Miller: My sense is that once there was a critical mass of women, it became fine quite quickly. And now they run the place. Nobody bats an eyelash.
The Record: When you look back over your extraordinary legacy at BU Law, what are you most proud of?
Fran Miller: That’s easy. My students—and the phenomenal difference I know they’re making in this chaotic world.