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Janet Reno, J.D. '63, And Her Long Path From Cambridge to The Capitol

“The three or so women that were in that section would get up, and theoretically run the class. And [Leach] would sit in the front row and smirk while we ran the class—or tried to.” Kane said.

Nesson said Leach would sit in the back of the class with the male students, questioning the women in the front.

“We sat through that and laughed, without the thought ever occurring to us that something totally wrong was happening,” Nesson said. “It had to have had some powerful effects on [Reno] and the others.”

Reno had no trouble making her voice heard, according to her peers.

“She certainly stands as a role model,” Yesley said. “And it’s not just because she did it, but I think she has a strong personality and in part it may be because she’s taller than most of the guys that she might be arguing with.”

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Yesley added that he and his male peers had “admiration” for Reno and her fellow female classmates who “were brave enough to enter what at the time was essentially a man’s world.”

Despite discrimination of women, Kane said that they had a platform in both the Law School community and the professional world because they were largely anomalies.

“I always felt that being a woman was an asset because people, whether they thought you should or shouldn’t be there, they paid attention. When you walked down the aisle everybody wanted to know, what is she going to say and how is she going to say it,” Kane recalled of her experiences post-law school.

A STRAIGHT ARROW

Following graduation, Reno returned to Miami. After spending a little less than a decade in private practice, Reno built a career as a state attorney prosecuting child abusers. In 1993, Clinton nominated Reno as Attorney General, a post she would be confirmed for, making her the first woman to have the position. Reno served until the end of his presidency, making her the longest-serving Attorney General since 1829.

A month after her confirmation, Reno approved the use of tear gas in an FBI raid of a religious cult’s barricade in Texas following the alleged violation of the federal firearms laws. The ensuing raid lead to a 51-day siege and an eventual fire resulting in over 80 deaths. The “Waco massacre” became a major source of controversy and criticism for Reno.

Despite criticism, the New York Times’ David Johnson praised Reno’s continued advocacy for underrepresented groups in her tenure at the Justice Department.

“In a period when crime rates have been falling, Ms. Reno has been an advocate for law enforcement and measures against youth violence and violence against women,” Johnson wrote.

As Kane recalled, Reno always pursued her own sense of direction.

“When Janet Reno was at the Attorney General’s office she got a lot of criticism for certain things and my feeling was, Janet was a straight arrow from the time she walked into the Law School, until the time she walked out of the Attorney General’s office,” Kane said.

Kane said she saw Reno as someone who was not going to play the politics.

“She wasn’t going to do something because somebody was lobbying her for whatever reason,” Kane said. “She was going to do what she thought was the right thing and the best thing and I think she did that for certainly her entire career at the Attorney General’s office.”

—Staff writer Zohra D. Yaqhubi can be reached at zyaqhubi@college.harvard.edu. Follow her on Twitter at @zyakhubi.

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