Vanderbilt Law School has received a $10 million commitment from Sara J. Finley, JD’85, to advance leadership in the study of how law, regulation and policy impact equality, equity and opportunity for women.
“This is an extraordinary gift that will advance our understanding of the ways in which law and policy shape our experiences in leadership, in the workplace and across so many other spheres,” Provost C. Cybele Raver said. “Sara is such a remarkable, pathbreaking corporate leader and Vanderbilt Law School alumna. I am so very grateful to her for her vision, generosity and support of our school.”
The gift will be used to establish a chair and to endow a program for research, education and advocacy relating to equal rights, equal opportunity and nondiscrimination.
The investment will also fuel the continued progress and deepen the impact of Vanderbilt’s Dare to Grow campaign, which supports the Law School through scholarships, faculty support, facility upgrades and programming to prepare our next generation of lawyers and legal scholars.
“Sara has long been a leading adviser and supporter of the Law School, and we are grateful that our faculty and students will have additional opportunities to both study and impact our legal system through her visionary gift,” said Chris Guthrie, dean of Vanderbilt Law School.
Professor Jennifer Bennett Shinall, JD/PhD’12, has been appointed as the inaugural holder of the Sara J. Finley Chair in Women, Law and Policy. Shinall’s research focuses on discrimination, particularly in the areas of gender and disability. Her work examines how obesity, pregnancy and health status more generally affect labor market outcomes, the gender disparities these effects may have and potential remedies for those disparities. She won a 2022 Chancellor’s Award for Research in Equity, Diversity and Inclusion for research on laws protecting women in the workplace.
Read the full story by Nate Luce here.
