12
THESE STETSON WOMEN PROVED THEY
BELONGED IN LAW
More than half the students at Stetson University College of
Law are women, and this has been true for more than a
decade.
But some pioneering lawyers from Stetson remember a far different
time.
Eunice Luke, for example, graduated from Stetson Law in 1966.
She was talking not long ago to some younger female lawyers in
Atlanta and, “They couldn’t get their head around the fact that I
was the only woman in my class… I said ‘You know, I was it.’ ”
But when Luke visited the Stetson campus a few years ago for her
50th reunion, she was the one trying to get her head wrapped
around what she saw.
“I looked around the campus and there
are all these women all over the place.
And I’m thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, this is
so different.’ ”
Luke and other women in the Stetson
Law community were trailblazers, even
if they don’t often use such words about
themselves.
They can remember the people —
sometimes their own classmates — who
didn’t believe they belonged in law
school. They can remember the skeptical
looks they received in their first job
interviews, in spite of their newly
minted Stetson diplomas.
But looking back at the careers of these women, a common thread
emerges: success. Against all odds, they made an impact — not
just on Stetson, but on the legal profession as a whole.
There’s Elizabeth Kovachevich, who graduated from Stetson Law
in 1961 and went on to become a U.S. District Court judge for
the Middle District of Florida.
There’s Carol W. Hunstein, who graduated in 1976 and went on
to become chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court.
There’s Luke, who graduated from Stetson, went on to a career in
the federal government, and then established a scholarship to help
other Stetson students.
And there’s Peggy A. Quince, the first African-American woman to
become chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court. Although she
received her law degree from the Catholic University of America,
she has been closely associated with the Stetson legal community
as a friend, supporter, board of overseer member and inductee into
the Stetson Law Hall of Fame.
Stetson, which is Florida’s first law school, also holds the distinction
of having the state’s first female law school graduate, in 1908. That
didn’t make it a common occurrence. As Luke puts it, female
lawyers did exist in the 1960s, but they were “as rare as hen’s teeth.”
When Hunstein enrolled in the 1970s, she was one of six female law
students — the largest number of any class in Stetson Law history
up to that point. “We were sort of an oddity. The men frankly
thought we were there to marry a
lawyer.” The men also could be heard
grading the women by appearance, on
a scale of 1 to 10.
But all the women graduated,” she
said of the six in her class.
Kovachevich recalls what she terms
the Stetson shuffle.” When a female
student presented in class, “the fellows
in the class would shuffle their feet
and make that noise, like you’re on
your way out of here.” She said, “It
wasn’t a very pleasant experience and I
for the first time in my life experienced
discrimination, and it was
gender discrimination.”
In spite of the slights, these women
persevered, each believing they had to
make the most of their opportunity.
Kovachevich’s grandfather, an immigrant
from urged her to study the law because of his
deep love for the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
She wanted to honor his wish.
Hunstein first thought of going into law after a college aptitude
test suggested she would excel in a legal or military career. Once in
law school, she was determined to succeed. “It was so important to
me to have this opportunity, something that I never dreamed
would be available to me.” She was the first in her family to
graduate from college.
For these women, earning a law degree was a huge accomplishment,
just as it is today. They knew that after passing the bar exam,
they could reach out to any law office and seek a job.
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