HYPOTHESIS: THE MORE AN INDUSTRY OR A COMPANY TALKS ABOUT ITS COMMITMENT TO “SOCIAL JUSTICE,” THE WORSE ITS FUNDAMENTALS ARE DOING: ‘Diversity and inclusion’ take center stage at American Bar Association this year.
Forget prison reform and police brutality. The real struggle that must be addressed by lawyers in this country is the lack of diversity inside and outside the legal profession.
The American Bar Association will focus on “diversity and inclusion” at its midyear meeting on Thursday in San Diego. The organization will discuss at least three resolutions that promote these policies, including one that would urge public companies “to adopt plans, politics and practices to diversify their boards and to include board composition in public disclosure materials.”
The ABA wants public boards to “more closely reflect the diversity of society and the workforce in the United States.” Having fewer old white men might not seem like such a bad idea, but such systems smack of quotas and shaming. Who can honestly say that a company publicly disclosing the composition of its board isn’t just opening itself up to hostile attacks from the diversity-outrage brigade?
The resolution breaks down the population of the U.S. — which is 50.8 percent women and 49.2 percent men. Along racial lines, the population is 77 percent white, 17.1 percent Hispanic, 13.2 percent African American, 5.3 percent Asian, 0.2 percent native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. (Yes, I realize that comes to 112.8 percent, but that’s because “Hispanics” can be white or black.)
The resolution is further complicated by its demand for inclusion of persons with disabilities. It might sound good to say public boards should reflect America, but in practice, it would be impossible for every public board to have the correct percentage of non-white members, including an adequate number of LGBTQ and disabled individuals. Such impossibility will lead either to the hiring of under-qualified persons to fill a diversity quota or public shaming of companies that considered all candidates fairly but couldn’t find the right number of appropriate candidates in each “diversity” category.
Naturally, the resolution brings up equal pay for women, ignoring the realities that women often leave the workforce in the prime of their career to care for families or choose to work fewer hours or take less demanding work.
Well, it’s easier to talk about this stuff than about the fact that lawyers are increasingly facing declining salaries and unemployment.