Compiled for the LCLD Board of Directors every Wednesday, this digest is designed to brief you on the latest headlines about LCLD Members and organizations, as well as thought-provoking articles on diversity in the legal profession, talent development, mentoring, and leadership. Past issues of the Digest are also archived on the LCLD web site.
If you have questions about the Digest, or articles you'd like to share, please email Caitlin Puffenberger at cpuffenberger@lcldnet.com.
This week, in news related to diversity and inclusion...
1. The ADA at 25: Disability Rights and Diversity
Microsoft on the Issues, 7/26/15
“A vision for the Americans with Disabilities Act that focuses on people helps enfranchise so many who have been excluded for so long,” wrote LCLD Board Chair and General Counsel of Microsoft Brad Smith in a blog post on the ADA's 25th anniversary. “It also enriches and opens our institutions to the very best and brightest talent our country has to offer. That is the power of diversity and why diversity efforts should include disability.” Microsoft research found that individuals with disabilities were underrepresented in the legal profession, often because employers had unfounded biases about the challenges of hiring people with disabilities.
2. The Best Law Firms for Diversity
Vault, 7/25/15
Each year, Vault ranks law firms for their diversity, with respect to minorities, women, military veterans, people with disabilities, and LGBT people. For 2016, 24 of the top 25 firms for overall diversity are LCLD Member firms, and an LCLD Member firm topped each category.
3. 2015 Workforce Game Changers Winners
Workforce, 7/27/15
LCLD Program Director Lori Lorenzo was selected as a 2015 Game Changer by Workforce magazine. The award recognizes those in workforce management who are pushing the field forward with innovative people-management practices, all under 40 years old. “Lori understands that an inclusive legal profession is a critical business and social imperative,” wrote 2012 Fellow Bruce Strothers. “She is self-aware and empathetic, yet shrewd in managing the business of building innovative talent development models.”
4. Registration Open for LCLD Annual Meeting: “VISION 2020: Shaping the Future”
Join LCLD in Chicago, IL, on September 28-29 to explore what Shaping the Future means to you, your organization, and your ongoing efforts to find, recruit, and promote diverse talent to positions of leadership. Click here to register.
5. American Racism in the ‘White Frame’
The New York Times, 7/27/15
This interview with Joe Feagin, a sociologist and leading researcher of racism in the United States, looks at institutionalized racism, a concept he says is crucial to improving race relations but which many social scientists ignore. He notes the following as some of the most crucial findings in his research:
- “Because prejudice is only one part of the larger white racial frame that is central to rationalizing and maintaining systemic racism, one can be less racially prejudiced and still operate out of many other aspects of the dominant frame.”
- “Most whites do not understand that about 80 percent of this country’s four centuries have involved extreme racialized slavery and extreme Jim Crow legal segregation.” The racial differences that many whites see as real (differences in work ethic or intelligence, for example) are the product of generations of whites unjustly inheriting things like money, land, and social capital.
6. Poll Finds Most in U.S. Hold Dim View of Race Relations
The New York Times, 7/23/15
Nearly six in 10 Americans, including heavy majorities of both whites and blacks, think race relations are generally bad, and nearly four in 10 think the situation is getting worse, according to a recent survey. The poll looked at black and white views of race relations, safety, affirmative action, the Confederate flag, President Obama, and other racially-charged topics. Another striking finding was that for the most part, blacks and whites still live in separate societies; most whites say they do not live (79 percent), work (81 percent), or come in regular contact (68 percent) with more than a few black people.
