Ewha Womans University Law School could be forced to accept male students, breaking the university’s 125-year tradition and raising question about its identity.

The Constitutional Court held a public hearing last Thursday, over whether or not the law school’s women-only admissions policy is in violation of constitutional rights, after three male law students filed a petition against the private university in 2009.

There are several women-only universities in Korea, but Ewha is the only one to be given authorization to have a law school, reducing the total law school quota of 2,000 to 1,900 for men. The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology appoints 25 schools and Ewha holds the third-highest quota.

According to Jeon Yong-woo, who represents the male students, Ewha only admitting women is unconstitutional and violates the right to receive education.

“Among the 2000 allowed number of students admitted to law schools, Ewha Law School was approved to admit 100 students, now men have to compete for the remaining 1,900 which is illogical discrimination against women,” he said.

“Today, around 40 percent of new judges and prosecutors are female and the ratio continues to increase.”

“So it’s no longer necessary to maintain the policy boost to gender equality with attempts to allocate more posts to females in the legal circles,” said Jeon.

According to data by the Korean Bar Association, female lawyers made up more than 35 percent of the those who passed the bar exam since 2005. However, the data also shows that only 10 percent of practicing lawyers are women, and women held 15 percent of other judicial positions as of 2009.

Ewha Womans University’s representative, Lee Seon-ae replied that Ewha Law School’s guidelines for applicants not under the state, therefore it does not fall under constitutional acts.

“There needs to be respect for the autonomy of private schools,” she said.

“There is a logical reason behind solely choosing women for its school, it is Ewha Law School’s educational goal to ‘train lawyers for sexual equality’ and ‘raising female leaders of the future,” said Lee.

“It is possible within the autonomy of universities, but considering that the current legal system is male-centered, reinforcing the male-centered realm could lead to normative problems,” replied Lee, when asked about the ethics of a men-only law school.

When asked about the no-marriage policy that Ewha upheld for more than 100 years and whether or not it’s intention to rid the women-only policy to follow social change, Lee replied that the university’s education method is catered to the women’s only identity and tradition, and that it will hold on to its policy.

The university of 19,810 female students has been forced to change its policies before. The university had a no-marriage policy for students, which forced many hopeful brides to put off marriage till graduation, marry in secret, or face dismissal. However the university scrapped the rule in 2003 after pressure from the national human rights watchdog.

“The ministry allowed Ewha to run the law school in the belief that the admission rule is not discriminatory against,” a ministry lawyer said.

The ruling is scheduled to be released in 3 to 4 months, according to court officials.

By Robert Lee (rjmlee@heraldcorp.com)