Episode 01: Margaret Thornton

Professor Margaret Thornton at the Australian National University.

Professor Margaret Thornton has been at the forefront of feminist and critical research on law and the legal profession for many decades with her work spanning investigations into discrimination law and the contours of the legal profession. More recently, she has been conducting an examination into the effects of neoliberal policies on the university, including its impacts upon the teaching, learning and researching of law.

In this interview, Professor Thornton talks about the history and impact of the forces surrounding the commodification of university degrees and at the law school in particular. She discusses the value of a critical and creative legal education as something that students desire and which equips them in being more engaged citizens and lawyers. The metrics that law schools and universities are measured by tend to flatten all difference and value into a simple figure of elite reproduction and discourages scholarship that is attentive to the laws and conditions of the local communities that the university should serve.

This interview was recorded on 16 September 2020. It is presented and produced by Justine Poon.

Further reading (the following sources are all open access):

Margaret Thornton, ‘The Challenge for Law Schools of Satisfying Multiple Masters,’ Australian Universities' Review 62(2) 2020, pp. 5-13: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3744625

Margaret Thornton (ed), Through a Glass Darkly: The Social Sciences look at the Neoliberal University), ANU Press, Canberra, 2015: http://press.anu.edu.au?p=304001

Margaret Thornton, ‘Law Student Wellbeing: A Neoliberal Conundrum,’ Australian Universities’ Review 58(2) 2016, pp42-50: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2887812