{{short description|American legal scholar}} {{Infobox person | name = Mary Joe Frug | image = Mary Joe Frug Photo in New England.jpg | caption = | birth_date = 1941 | birth_name = Mary Joe Gaw | birth_place = [[St. Joseph, Missouri]], U.S. | death_date = {{Death date and age|1991|04|04|1941}} | death_place = [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]], U.S. | death_cause = Stabbing | body_discovered = | education = | occupation = Professor<br>Legal scholar | spouse = [[Gerald Frug]] | partner = | known_for = Legal postmodern feminist theory<br />Victim of unsolved murder }} '''Mary Joe Frug''' ([[née]] '''Gaw'''; 1941 – April 4, 1991) was a [[professor]] at [[New England Law Boston]], and a leading [[feminism|feminist]] [[Jurist|legal scholar]]. She is considered a forerunner of [[Law#Legal theory|legal]] [[postmodern feminism|postmodern feminist theory]]. Much of her work was collected in the posthumously-published book, ''Postmodern Legal Feminism''. She is the author of the [[casebook]] ''Women and the Law''.<ref name = casebook>{{cite book | title = Women and the Law | last = Frug | first = Mary Joe | date = 1992 | publisher = Foundation Press | isbn = 9780882779775}}</ref>
On April 4, 1991, Frug was murdered on the streets of [[Cambridge, Massachusetts|Cambridge]], [[Massachusetts]], near the home that she shared with her husband, [[Harvard School of Law|Harvard Law]] professor [[Gerald Frug]], and their two children. The murder remains unsolved.
== Career == Frug received a [[Bachelor of Arts]] from [[Wellesley College]], a [[Juris Doctor]] from the [[George Washington University Law School|National Law Center]] at [[George Washington University]], and a [[Master of Laws]] from [[New York University]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=In Memoriam: Mary Joe Frug |url=https://openyls.law.yale.edu/bitstream/handle/20.500.13051/7099/05_3YaleJL_Feminism_ix__1990_1991_.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y |access-date=Aug 2, 2023 |website=[[Yale University]]}}</ref> She worked for three years providing free legal services to low income clients in Washington, D.C. and New York. From 1975 to 1981, she was a professor at the [[Villanova University School of Law]].<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |date=May 1991 |title=Former VLS Professor Tragically Killed | url=https://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1160&context=docket |access-date=Aug 2, 2023 |website=The Docket (Villanova School of Law)}}</ref> In 1981, she joined the New England School of Law, where she taught until 1991. At the time of her death, she was on [[sabbatical]], doing research as a [[fellow]] at [[Radcliffe College]]’s [[Harvard Radcliffe Institute|Bunting Institute]].<ref name=":0" />
Frug was recognized in the legal field for her work in legal postmodern feminist theory. She wrote a [[casebook]] entitled ''Women and the Law'', and a collection of essays, ''Postmodern Legal Feminism'' (published in 1992, after her death). In her essay "A Postmodern Feminist Legal Manifesto", she argued for three general claims that explain the connection between feminism and law: “legal rules permit and sometimes mandate the terrorization of the female body”, “legal rules permit and sometimes mandate the maternalization of the female body”, and “legal rules permit and sometimes mandate the sexualization of the female body”. Her work was controversial and at times characterized as radical.<ref name=":0" />
Frug was a founding member of a group of female lawyers and legal scholars known as the Fem-Crits, part of the [[Heterodoxy|heterodox]] [[Critical Legal Studies]] movement (her husband, Gerald, was also an adherent of CLS).<ref name=":5" /><ref name=":6">{{Cite web |last=Kingson |first=Jennifer A. |date=August 30, 1987 |title=Harvard Tenure Battle Puts 'Critical Legal Studies' on Trial |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/30/weekinreview/harvard-tenure-battle-puts-critical-legal-studies-on-trial.html |access-date=Sep 9, 2023 |website=[[New York Times]]}}</ref> Fem-Crits applied the principles of CLS to feminism, to show how the law subordinates women in a male-dominated power structure.<ref name=":5">{{Cite web |last=Collier |first=Peter |date=Oct 1992 |title=Blood on the Charles |url=https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/1992/10/blood-on-the-charles |access-date=Sep 9, 2023 |website=[[Vanity Fair (magazine)|Vanity Fair]]}}</ref> The group has been described as a foundational part of "progressive resistance to conservative legal thought" during the 1980s [[Reagan revolution]],<ref name = baumgardner>{{cite journal | last = Baumgardner | first = Paul | title = Ronald Reagan, the Modern Right, and ... the Rise of the Fem-Crits | journal = Laws | volume = 8 | issue = 4 | page = 26 | doi = 10.3390/laws8040026 | date = October 2019 | doi-access = free }}</ref> and a breakaway move from the "white male-dominated Conference on Critical Legal Studies."<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Austin |first1=Regina |last2=Schneider |first2=Elizabeth M. |year=2001 |title=Mary Joe Frug's Postmodern Feminist Legal Manifesto Ten Years Later: Reflections on the State of Feminism Today |url=https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1625&context=faculty_scholarship |access-date=Sep 7, 2023 |website=Penn Carey Law ([[University of Pennsylvania]])}}</ref>
== Personal life == Frug was born as Mary Joe Gaw in [[St. Joseph, Missouri]] in 1941.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |date=Oct 6, 1968 |title=Mary Joe Gaw Becomes Bride Of Gerald Frug |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1968/10/06/archives/mary-joe-gaw-becomes-bride-of-gerald-frug.html |access-date=Sep 8, 2023 |website=[[New York Times]]}}</ref> In 1968, she married Gerald Frug, with whom she had two children.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Lapointe |first=Ellen |date=2015 |title=The Tragedy of a Cambridge Feminist |url=https://fisherpub.sjf.edu/journal3690/vol2015/iss1/1/ |journal=3690: A Journal of First-Year Student Research Writing |volume=2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230802152737/https://fisherpub.sjf.edu/journal3690/vol2015/iss1/1/ |archive-date=Aug 2, 2023 |via=Fisher Digital Publishing}}</ref><ref name=":4" /> In 1981, Gerald obtained a professorship at Harvard Law School, and the family moved from the [[Philadelphia area]] to Cambridge.<ref name=":3" />
== Death == On the evening of April 4, 1991, Frug was fatally stabbed while walking to a local convenience store. She received multiple wounds in the chest and upper thighs. The murder occurred in the exclusive Brattle St. neighborhood of Cambridge, in front of the Armenian Holy Trinity Apostolic Church at the corner of Sparks St. and Brewster St., less than 300 yards from her home. A passing motorist entered the church for help. Members of the choir practicing inside came out, including a Harvard professor who recognized Frug, ran to her house, and returned with her husband and daughter. At 8:57 pm, Frug was taken away by ambulance. She was pronounced dead on arrival at [[Mount Auburn Hospital]].<ref name=":5" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Braunstein |first=Todd F. |date=May 30, 1995 |title=Killing Worst Crime in Recent Campus Memory |url=https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1995/5/30/killing-worst-crime-in-recent-campus/ |access-date=Aug 1, 2023 |website=[[The Harvard Crimson]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=April 9, 1991 |title=Murder Jolts Haven for Elite in Boston Area |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/09/us/murder-jolts-haven-for-elite-in-boston-area.html |access-date=Aug 1, 2023 |website=[[New York Times]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=April 6, 1991 |title=Professor Is Slain on Street in Massachusetts |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/06/us/professor-is-slain-on-street-in-massachusetts.html |access-date=Aug 1, 2023 |website=[[New York Times]]}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last=Dwyer |first=Dialynn |date=July 8, 2019 |title=A unit dedicated to cold cases was established in the Middlesex DA's office. Here are 3 cases being looked at. |url=https://bdc2020.qa.wordpress.boston.com/news/crime/2019/07/08/middlesex-district-attorney-cold-case-unit-3-unsolved-murders/ |access-date=Aug 3, 2023 |website=[[Boston.com]]}}</ref>
=== Murder investigation === The investigation by local police was soon joined by other police departments and the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]]. Frug's purse was found at the scene, which led investigators to rule out robbery as the motive. A witness a block away described a white male, 5'10"-6'0", late teens to early 20s, brown hair, dressed in dark clothing, running from the scene. Shoe prints were found and plaster casts taken. The murder weapon, unrecovered, was determined to be a military-style knife. A knife was found near the crime scene, but [[Forensic science|forensic]] examination failed to connect it to the murder.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":5" /><ref name=":2" />
The investigation initially considered that Frug may have been targeted for her feminist academic work. This line of inquiry was eventually abandoned. One year from her death, the [[New England Law Boston|New England School of Law]] offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to arrest.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Wirzbicki |first=Alan |title=True Crime: Killed off campus |url=https://apps.bostonglobe.com/true-crime/killed-campus/ |access-date=Aug 1, 2023 |website=[[Boston Globe]]}}</ref> There were no suspects, no leads, and no idea of motive at the time.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Rubin |first=Phil |date=October 8, 1992 |title=ON the Case |url=https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1992/10/8/on-the-case-peverything-is-back/ |access-date=Aug 1, 2023 |website=[[The Harvard Crimson]]}}</ref>
Frug's murder remains unsolved. In 2019, a newly-formed [[cold case]] unit in [[Middlesex County, Massachusetts]] took up the case.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Dwyer |first=Dialynn |date=July 8, 2019 |title=3 cold cases being looked at by the new unit in the Middlesex DA's office {{!}} Boston.com |url=https://www.boston.com/news/crime/2019/07/08/middlesex-district-attorney-cold-case-unit-3-unsolved-murders/ |access-date=2019-12-07 |website=www.boston.com |language=en-US}}</ref>
==''Harvard Law Review'' controversy== In March 1992, the prestigious, student-edited scholarly journal, the ''[[Harvard Law Review]]'', published an unfinished draft article by Frug called "A Postmodern Feminist Legal Manifesto," which explored legal theories on violence toward women.<ref name=":1" /><ref name="manifesto">{{cite journal |last1=Frug |first1=Mary Joe |date=March 1992 |title=A Postmodern Feminist Legal Manifesto |journal=[[Harvard Law Review]] |publisher=The Harvard Law Review Association |volume=105 |issue=5 |pages=1045–1075 |doi=10.2307/1341520 |jstor=1341520}}</ref> Gerald Frug had submitted the article on his late wife's behalf. Some members of the ''Review'' were opposed to publishing the piece, and later parodied it in "He-Manifesto of Post-Mortem Legal Feminism", which was included in the ''Harvard Law Revue'', an annual spoof of the ''Review''. The essay argued that Frug's theories were the concoction of paranoid feminists.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Margolick |first=David |date=April 17, 1992 |title=At the Bar; In attacking the work of a slain professor, Harvard's elite themselves become a target. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/17/news/bar-attacking-work-slain-professor-harvard-s-elite-themselves-become-target.html |access-date=Aug 1, 2023 |website=[[New York Times]]}}</ref> It was filled with inside jokes and sexual innuendo, suggested that Frug's husband's [[Academic tenure|tenure]] at Harvard Law was the only reason the paper was published, and mocked her death.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":5" /> On April 4, 1992, the spoof ''Revue'' was presented at the annual banquet introducing the new editors of the ''Harvard Law Review.'' The date happened to be on the anniversary of Frug's death; her husband was among the invitees but did not attend.<ref name=":1" />
At the time of the incident, Harvard Law, considered to be one of the top law schools in the US,<ref>{{Cite web |title=PRELAW HANDBOOK - Law School Rankings: 1987-1999 |url=https://www.prelawhandbook.com/law_school_rankings__1987_1999 |access-date=2025-04-14 |website=www.prelawhandbook.com}}</ref> was in the midst of a decade-long [[culture war]].<ref name=":5" /> During the 1970s, Harvard hired three law professors who came to be known as the founders of the critical legal studies movement, also referred to as the Crits. With [[Marxism|Marxist]] influence, the Crits saw the law as a tool for keeping privileged classes in power and control, and their mission, to deconstruct it. In the 1980s, appearing across university campuses, race and gender issues, [[Diversity (politics)|diversity]], and [[political correctness]] were embraced by the Crits and entered the Harvard Law conflict.<ref name=":5" /> Opposing the Crits over policies and hiring decisions was the traditionalist faction of the faculty, holding that the law was necessary to maintain order and equity in society. In a comment on the Frug murder, one Harvard Law professor said, "If there was going to be a murder, I'm surprised it didn't happen here—in the halls of the law school. There are long periods of time when civilized relationships are absent." The [[The National Law Journal|''National Law Journal'']] described Harvard Law in that period as "the [[1982 Lebanon War|Beirut]] of legal education."<ref name=":5" /><ref name=":6" />
News of the essay spread in the following days, and an uproar ensued that reached the national news media. The ''[[The Wall Street Journal|Wall Street Journal]]'' called the furor "a vile circus".<ref name=":5" /> In an open letter signed by most of the Harvard law faculty, the parody was called "contemptible and cruel." Two high-profile faculty members, [[Laurence Tribe]] and [[Alan Dershowitz]], publicly clashed over the issue. Tribe forcefully condemned the authors: he compared the parody to [[Ku Klux Klan]] [[propaganda]], called it a rape "in all but biological reality", and asked, "What is the point of teaching? I'm sharpening their knives to stab innocent victims."<ref name=":5" /> Dershowitz defended the authors, calling the parody "somewhat" offensive, and the reaction a "[[witch hunt]]": “The overreaction to the spoof is a reflection of the power of women and blacks to define the content of what is politically correct and incorrect on college and law school campuses."<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Bruck |first=Connie |date=July 29, 2019 |title='Alan Dershowitz, Devil's Advocate |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/08/05/alan-dershowitz-devils-advocate |access-date=Aug 2, 2023 |magazine=[[The New Yorker]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Wang |first=Esther |date=July 29, 2019 |title=A Helpful Outline of All the Ways That Alan Dershowitz Sucks |url=https://jezebel.com/a-helpful-outline-of-all-the-ways-that-alan-dershowitz-1836786071 |access-date=Aug 2, 2023 |website=[[Jezebel (website)|Jezebel]]}}</ref> Co-authors Craig Coben and Kenneth Fenyo apologized in a statement, particularly to Frug's husband. They added that they did not mean to distribute the article on the anniversary of her death.<ref name="crimson">{{cite news |date=April 17, 1992 |title=And You Can Quote Me |newspaper=[[The Harvard Crimson]] |url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=227974 |access-date=September 13, 2010}}</ref> The statement was signed by other members of the ''Review'', including the then-editor [[Paul Clement]].<ref name="legalaffairs">{{cite journal |last=Suellentrop |first=Chris |date=September–October 2005 |title=Disarming and Dangerous |url=http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/September-October-2005/feature_sullentrop_sepoct05.msp |journal=[[Legal Affairs]] |access-date=September 13, 2010}}</ref>
== Legacy == In 1994, the Mary Joe Frug Fund was launched to establish an [[Financial endowment#Endowed professorships|endowed chair]] at New England Law in her memory, to allow visiting professors to come to New England Law to teach women's issues in the law.{{Citation needed|date=August 2023}} The Women's Law Caucus at New England Law established the Mary Joe Frug Grant to provide "stipends for students at New England who devote their summers to improving the lives of women."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://neslwomen.blogspot.com/search/label/Mary%20Joe%20Frug%20Grant |title=Women's Law Caucus |at=Label: Mary Joe Frug Grant |publisher=neslwomen.com |access-date=September 13, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120717051039/http://neslwomen.blogspot.com/search/label/Mary%20Joe%20Frug%20Grant |archive-date=July 17, 2012 }}</ref>
New England Law houses the "Professor Mary Joe Frug Women and the Law Collection" at its library.<ref name="collection">{{cite web |url=http://portia.nesl.edu/screens/frug.html |title=Professor Mary Joe Frug Women and the Law Collection |access-date=September 13, 2010}}</ref> A fourth edition of Frug's casebook, ''Women and the Law'', now titled ''Mary Joe Frug's Women and the Law'', was published in 2007.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Mary Joe Frug's Women and the Law |url=https://hls.harvard.edu/bibliography/mary-joe-frugs-women-and-the-law-4th-ed/ |access-date=Aug 7, 2023 |website=[[Harvard Law School]]}}</ref>
In a commemorative piece written by colleagues following Frug's death, Gary Minda, a [[Cardozo School of Law|Cardozo Law]] professor, wrote: "Mary Joe inspires all of us to challenge the constraints of gender and to remain hopeful and optimistic about the possibility of coming to grips with the dilemmas of difference that separate our lives."<ref name = yalejl>{{cite journal | title = In Memoriam, Mary Joe Frug 1941-1991 | date = 1991 | volume = 3 | issue = 1 | page = 5 | journal = Yale Journal of Law & Feminism | hdl = 20.500.13051/7099 | url = http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13051/7099 | access-date = 2023-09-03}}</ref>
In 2016, the ''[[New England Law Review]]''{{'}}s Mary Joe Frug Memorial Symposium marked the 25th anniversary of Frug's death. In her written contribution, [[Brooklyn Law School]] professor [[Elizabeth M. Schneider]] commented: "Twenty-five years after her death, I see even more of a need for the integration of Mary Joe's perspectives into ongoing work on feminist legal theory and practice. We are in the midst of a very fragmented time, where there seems to be little appreciation of, and sensitivity to, the history of feminist legal theory and practice... Mary Joe looked at feminist legal dilemmas in particular contexts; nuance was key, and her views were not totalistic. She vigorously rejected gender stereotypes, including the stereotype of victim. Constant re-thinking, not rigidity, was the name of the game. Also, flexibility over time."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Schneider |first=Elizabeth M. |date=July 25, 2017 |title=Why Feminist Legal Theory Still Needs Mary Joe Frug: Thoughts on Conflicts in Feminism |url=https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1911&context=faculty |journal=[[New England Law Review]] |volume=51 |issue=1}}</ref>
==See also== *[[Critical legal studies]] *[[List of unsolved murders (1900–1979)]]
==References== {{reflist}}
==Further reading== * [[Martha Minow|Minow, Martha]]. (1992). "Incomplete Correspondence: An Unsent Letter to Mary Joe Frug." ''Harvard Law Review'', 105(5):1096-1105
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Frug, Mary Joe}} [[Category:1941 births]] [[Category:1991 deaths]] [[Category:1991 murders in the United States]] [[Category:20th-century American lawyers]] [[Category:20th-century American educators]] [[Category:20th-century American women academics]] [[Category:20th-century American legal scholars]] [[Category:20th-century American writers]] [[Category:20th-century American women writers]] [[Category:American murder victims]] [[Category:Female murder victims]] [[Category:George Washington University Law School alumni]] [[Category:Lawyers from Cambridge, Massachusetts]] [[Category:New England Law Boston faculty]] [[Category:Postmodern feminists]] [[Category:Wellesley College alumni]] [[Category:American women legal scholars]] [[Category:Unsolved murders in Massachusetts]] [[Category:Violence against women in Massachusetts]]