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.
That’s not all — there are two other resolutions relating to diversity that will be considered by the ABA. One “encourages bar admission authorities to consider the effects on minorities of adopting the Uniform Bar Examination, and to include information not included on the UBE, particularly Indian law in areas with large Native American populations.”
This resolution cites the Supreme Court as questioning the Law School Admission Test because “it is not race-neutral and produces racially disparate impacts.” The resolution does note that while minority law students pass the bar at a lower rate, “the vast majority of all students who take the bar exam do eventually pass.”
The final resolution “asks attorney licensing agencies with minimum continuing legal education requirements to include programs on diversity, inclusion and the elimination of bias.”
The ABA Section on Civil Rights and Social Justice (because of course that’s its name) will also discuss immigration law issues and visit the Customs and Border Patrol at the Mexican border. This seems like an actual legal issue they could tackle.
The ABA appears to have been on the path toward “social justice” for some time now. In August 2015, the ABA jumped on the campus sexual assault hysteria bandwagon, passing resolutions that only included a passing mention of due process after a member requested it.
Update: ABA spokeswoman Maria Gutierrez informed the Washington Examiner that the midyear meeting does include important legal topics other than diversity, including panels on gun violence and police brutality.
Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
