Who says that married couples cannot get hired by the same company? According to a law.com article, UVA’s School of Law has 11 married couples on a faculty of 90 full- and part-time professors, which means that almost a quarter of the faculty is married to another faculty member.
Law school Dean Paul Mahoney and his wife, Julia Mahoney, are one of these couples. Mahoney told law.com that it is important to consider a candidate’s family when recruiting.
But hiring married couples can also be a touchy issue. The article reports that the spokeswoman for Harvard Law School deemed the topic too personal and added that all couples on faculty refused to be interviewed.
And so it seems at UVA. Dean Mahoney told C-VILLE, “I am happy to disclose my own marital status, but I think other couples should have the option to disclose that to the press or not as they see fit,” he says.
“Having a married couple on the faculty raises issues that you wouldn’t face if you chose not to hire them. If you decide you will never hire married couples, you limit your hiring options, perhaps substantially. So there are costs associated with either
Paul Mahoney took over as law school dean when John Jeffries, who held the post since 2001 stepped down this summer.