Tagged: mentoring

“What if the problem starts earlier? What if each step of the process that allows the majority to progress toward a successful career in the law is affected by the same implicit biases? In a 2014 study, researchers wrote an identical email to 6,500 professors, randomly selected from 259 American universities. The emails were sent from ‘out-of-town students’ expressing interest in the professor’s doctorate program, seeking guidance, and asking to meet. The emails were identical, varying only in the name of the sender. The researchers used names that research had demonstrated were perceived as belonging white, black, Hispanic, Indian or Chinese students.While professors’ response rates were generally high, with 67 percent responding and 59 percent offering to meet with the student, the professors were consistently more responsive to white males than to female or minority students. Asians, traditionally associated with the ‘model minority’ myth, actually received the lowest rates of response. This bias was most severe in disciplines paying higher faculty salaries and at private universities. To the extent that law schools are affected by the same problems, we may better understand how minority students are disadvantaged at certain gateway points, resulting in a sequential filtering process that consistently favors the majority.”

Source: “Editorial: Implicit Racial Bias Stands in Way of Truly Diverse Bar.” Connecticut Law Tribune. November 23, 2015.

“As a partner and chief diversity officer at Thompson & Knight, Pauline Higgins was not afraid to press the issue of hiring minorities at the 126-year-old Texas law firm. But when she left in 2008, she was replaced by an associate with less influence. Now, current and former partners say, the diversity committee meets less often, and the firm has fewer black lawyers than before. It is a trajectory familiar in many elite realms of American professional life. Even as racial barriers continue to fall, progress for African-Americans over all has remained slow — and in some cases appears to be stalling. ‘You don’t want to be a diversity officer who only buys tables at events and seats people,’ Ms. Higgins said recently. ‘It’s about recruiting and inclusion and training and development, with substantive work assignments.'”

Source: Nelson D. Schwartz and Michael Cooper. “Racial Diversity Efforts Ebb For Elite Careers, Analysis Finds.” New York Times. May 27, 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/28/us/texas-firm-highlights-struggle-for-black-professionals.html?_r=0.

The purpose of the Title VII was to “remove barriers that have operated in the past to favor an identifiable group of white employees over other employees.”

Source: Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 429-30 (1971).

The talent agencies, studios and networks in Hollywood have been able to maintain an illegal race-based monopoly because they are intentionally violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with “malice and/or reckless indifference” to the federally protected rights of African Americans, in order to ‘freeze’ their racially homogeneous workplaces and perpetuate the MYTH that whites and/or European descendants who consider themselves to be “Jewish” are the only ones qualified enough to be successful Agents and/or executives.

“Once you’ve identified these people (that want to be a part of this industry), the most crucial part is mentorship. It’s getting people to mentor those up-and-comers so they can navigate the political waters of our industry because it’s so based on relationships and nuances, and it’s not necessarily about academic performance. There are very few executives that can make it through this town without some sort of mentorship or sponsorship, and I think it’s even that much harder for people from a diverse background if they don’t have that.” — WME Agent Charles King

Source: Minju Pak, “New Voices.” The Hollywood Reporter. November 8, 2005.