Apparently the people running the Scholastica law review submission web site think so, as apparently do some law reviews. As Josh Blackman explains:
Scholastica, a competitor to Expresso in the electronic journal submission process, allows authors to submit demographic information, including an author’s gender identity, sexual orientation, race, and a box to explain “economic hardship and diversity” (it suggests “Additional comments that demonstrate diversity (for example; socioeconomic, status, geographic region, race, ethnicity, gender, etc.”).
Dave Hoffman collects reactions here. All I can say is, why no affirmative action category for those of us who are, shall we say, calorically challenged? We're discriminated against too, after all. Shouldn't politically correct law reviews help in the fight against sizeism?
On a serious note, I agree with Hoffman's proposal that we should "vote with [our] feet. Don’t use Scholastica unless the journal absolutely insists, as very, very few do." Indeed. Although I placed my latest article via Scholastica, I'm boycotting it until they get rid of this widget.
