The Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature and the University of Iowa invite you to a conversation with author and attorney Carolyn Chalmers and litigant Dr. Jean Jew about this year’s One Community, One Book selection: Chalmers’ They Don’t Want Her There.
The University of Iowa Press, publisher of the book, provides this background:
"Decades before the #MeToo movement, Chinese American professor Jean Jew, M.D., brought a lawsuit against the University of Iowa, alleging a sexually hostile work environment within the university's College of Medicine. As Jew gained accolades and advanced through the ranks at Iowa, she was met with increasingly vicious attacks on her character by her white male colleagues.
“After years of demoralizing sexual, racial, and ethnic discrimination, finding herself without any higher-up departmental support, and noting her professional progression beginning to suffer by the hands of hate, Jean Jew decided to fight back. Carolyn Chalmers was her lawyer.
“This book tells the inside story of pioneering litigation unfolding during the eight years of a university investigation, a watershed federal trial, and a state court jury trial. They Don't Want Her There is a brilliant, original work of legal history that is deeply personal and shows today's professional women just how recently some of our rights have been won – and at what cost."