The Diversity Factor © 2009
ISSN 1545-2808
Summer 2009
Barriers Continue to Block Advancement
Volume 17, Number 3

Editor’s Foreword

April W. Klimley, Editor

Hope for race relations in the United States is on the upswing, according to a recent USA Today/Gallup Poll. Six in 10 Americans surveyed believe Barack Obama’s presidency will improve race relations in the U.S. in years to come. Four in 10 said it already has improved race relations.

But at the same time, the realities of prejudice remain a divisive subject. Seventy-two percent of blacks said racism is still widespread, compared with 49 percent of whites.

What does this all mean? It points to some progress, but also to continued resistance to inclusion and change. This issue of The Diversity Factor focuses on that dichotomy: the way doors open in certain fields and industries, and yet barriers to full equality remain.

This duality can be seen clearly in our report from the nonprofit research group Catalyst on women of color in law firms today. It is well known that many more women, and women of color, are now entering first- and second-tier law firms as associates than did in the past. In fact, barely 30 years ago, few women had law degrees.

But women of color leave their firms at a much higher rate than white women; in fact, nearly 75 percent leave by their fifth year. This Catalyst report explores the reasons behind this trend. It finds that women of color perceive their workplace as having an exclusionary culture replete with racial/ethnic stereotyping. They also feel that they are being overlooked by diversity efforts and that these efforts are imperfectly executed.

These findings are particularly discouraging in light of the fact that virtually all one- or two-tier law firms have active diversity efforts today. So the firms are devoting resources to this challenge, but not achieving the results they want, at least not with this group. (The report points out that white women have progressed faster within law firms and feel more satisfied by diversity efforts.)

In a second article, based on the same Catalyst report, we present some of the recommendations the report lays out to overcome these roadblocks. While we are skeptical of lists of "shoulds," we thought our readers would benefit from the four examples of successful initiatives described in the report. These initiatives—at two law firms and two other types of companies—take on some of the biggest challenges blocking women in law firms and demonstrate such remedies as promoting more useful mentoring relationships and ensuring that women of color network with top executives and are given more visible assignments. One law firm has even instituted particularly enlightened work/life programs: It allows both associates and partners to work on reduced schedules—a surprising development in the world of high-pressure client meetings and hourly billing. Clearly, there is more to be done at law firms to ensure that the money invested in training women of color associates pays off when those associates become full partners—but some law firms are trying hard to achieve equity.

Similar challenges face journalists of color, but for different reasons today. These challenges have to do with the fact that the newspaper world is contracting due to both the recession and the Web revolution—and journalists of color may be hit particularly hard by that reality. Wayne Dawkins takes up this issue in his article "Is the D.C. Press Corps More Diverse, Post-Election?" Dawkins is an experienced journalist and Hampton University Assistant Professor who has lived through a major expansion in the number of journalists of color who report and edit the news in the U.S. But today, he is dismayed by the perhaps disparate impact the present contraction is having on this group—particularly in television broadcast news. He also questions the belief that there are more black journalists in Washington, D.C. today covering Congress and the White House than there were 15 years ago.

Our fourth major article contains original research on the "Gender Wage Gap in the Teenage Labor Market" by Yasemin Besen-Cassino, an Assistant Professor at Montclair State University. Besen overturns conventional thinking that assumes there is some "inherent" reason for a wage gap between men and women. She looks at the wages paid to teenagers and discovers that the wage gap starts very young—way before these "inherent" factors start coming into play. Her results are enlightening and show how early girls are stereotyped and paid lower wages than boys.

Finally, we have a very practical article that wrestles with how companies evaluate and promote employees—or prospective employees—and how they can make mistakes that in the long run reinforce discrimination inadvertently. An expert in organizational development, K.T. Connor has titled her article "Delighting in Positive Discrimination—or "Discernment"—: A True Case History." She not only identifies these types of problems in a case history, but also provides some alternative ways to structure evaluations (a technique called axiometrics) that our readers may find useful in their own professional lives.

Once again, our news section should not be missed. Many positive developments around the world are covered, ranging from more women winning Nobel Prizes to how having interracial roommates can reduce bias and how a city in British Columbia (Canada) has built a new mosque in hopes of attracting more Muslim professionals to that province. But the section also looks at the darker side—sobering events such as the Cambridge confrontation between Boston police sergeant James Crowley and Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates

Finally, in our Resources section, we review The Diversity Training Activity Book: 50 Activities for Promoting Communication and Understanding at Work, a 2009 offering from the publishing arm of the American Management Association. This workbook is particularly valuable because it focuses on many trends in the field that are increasingly important to corporations in this era of globalization, such as in "What is Cultural- The Iceberg Theory," "Cultural Baggage," and "Addressing Language Barriers." As the only diversity book published by AMACOM (which publishes only one a year on its list), this workbook stands out as a good resource for the diversity and/or training professional.

Clearly, the articles in this issue show that a great deal of progress has been made in many fields in the U.S., such as law and journalism. But at the same time, a great deal of work remains to be done—as can be seen in the teenage wage gap article, where discriminatory practices start early, perhaps even unconsciously on the part of parents and society. So, the battle toward true inclusion and progressive thinking goes on, and we promise to shed even more light on these issues—and how to overcome them, both in North America and around the globe— in our next issues.Δ

April W. Klimley, Editor
The Diversity Factor
Aklimley@eyca.com
732-530-1639