Generally speaking, I'm wary of Biglaw mgmt being forthright or completely honest re: associates. However, if those numbers are correct, it's difficult to see how this is anything to get excited about. (SS mgmt can't be that shortsighted, right?).

Speaking of numbers, of the people who work for above the law, one is definitely a moron - can you guess who, Elie?

"Sex" not "Gender." The story is about biological women, not people who act as women. Gender is a social category.

Fourth!!

Elie - Where was the article alleging discrimination when Squire Sanders hired 65% women in one of its classes?

Hmm, disproportionate number of females in associate classes and disproportionate number of female associates on transactional matters + primarily transactional layoffs = more females than males fired. Why is there a story here again?

All the biologically male attorneys I work with/for are pussies.

Mystal, I am going to shit on your moobs and kick you in the ovaries!

Elie's day isn't complete unless he lets the world know how much he hates white men.

Has everyone noticed the vast majority of NBA players let go in the past 3 years have been African-American?

Worst yet, at my office at least, almost everyone ever released from the cleaning staff has been hispanic.

How long will we let this continue?

4 - Jump in front of a bus.

@4

And since they're the same 99.9% of the time, why don't we focus on something that matters?

You must be a hoot at parties.

Elie is just posturing to become Martha Burke's lead speechwriter.

"Regardless of what happened at Squire Sanders, do you think that layoffs are disproportionately affecting women and minorities?"

No.

Since it's easier to fire white men, and since biglaw associates are more likely to be white men than virtually any other group, there's no reason to believe women and minorities are being disproportionately affected. That would run counter to logic, necessity and, for what it's worth, my own first-hand experience.

Paging Gloria Allred! Paging Gloria Allred! Come in Gloria Allred!

Elie actually makes a balanced report on the information, for a change. Basically, SS's facts look strong. The impact is not even disparate, so hard to even think of any foul play here.

You do have to check your biases, both in terms of the process and the results, as SS says it did. When I hire and fire contract attorneys for a project or a case I do think of whether I'm favoring people of my background, politics, sex, or gender, because everyone is biased. Not everyone is successful at subduing their biases and so sh*t happens: people do discriminate, casually, purposefully, or absent-mindedly. And so there is a place for the law to look over shoulders where the outcomes look completely out of whack especially where the classifications are suspect, so to speak. And there is a place for public policies to try to counteract and remedy it.

Elie, if Squire Sanders had fired 20 men out of its 32, would you be writing this piece? Well, whatever gets you laid, I suppose.

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16,

Don't we have a bat signal or something?

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"62.5% of firm layoffs affect women."

so I guess if I hit 0/5 deer on my hunting trip, 0% of hunting trips affect deer. fail.

"62.5% of firm layoffs affect women."

so I guess if I hit 0/5 deer on my hunting trip, 0% of hunting trips affect deer. fail.

As long as the percentages work out, there was no discrimination. I learned that from Ricci.

What about the fact that the overwhelming number of attorneys laid off from BIGLAW during this downturn have been white males?

"It's surprising to see 62.5% of firm layoffs affect women."

Wow. Nice statistical analysis here.

32 layoffs in an 850 attorney firm isn't enough to make a determination about anything. That's not anywhere near enough information to perform a reliable statistical analysis. This means nothing.

26 - just a smoke screen to be able to fire more minorities and women. The conspiracy is larger than you think....

It arises as soon as tender is made. ( Montrose Chemical Corp. v. Superior Court, supra, 6 Cal. 4th at p. 295.) It is discharged when the action is concluded. (Ibid.) It may be extinguished earlier, if it is shown that no claim can in fact be covered. ( Id. at pp. 295, 300.) If it is so extinguished, however, it is extinguished only prospectively and not retroactively: before, the insurer had a duty to defend; after, it does not have a duty to defend further.

Buss v. Superior Court, 16 Cal. 4th 35, 46 (Cal. 1997)

The underlying thesis of Elie's racial/gender discrimination coverage is this: Its perfectly okay to fire white males because the United States has historically been a white male dominated society. Therefore, any pain felt by current white males, regardless of their ethnic of ancestral origin and no matter how disparate from the slavery system it may be, is well deserved.

The thesis further holds that although blacks, latinos and women may have obtained their BIGLAW positions through Affirmative Action, which by its very definition promotes the acceptance of less qualified persons into positions based solely on racial and gender statistics rather than pure merit, should be retained at the expense of dispensing with white males.

White males cannot sue for any discriminatory reason no matter how shitty they are treated. Minorities have the crutch of discrimination to fall back on.

It's a little different when looking at age discrimination - some DLA HR manager bragged to a fellow staffer (who has since been laid off and has made some calls to those laid off earlier than himself) that they had developed a system to weed out older workers in various departments, in various cities, while still maintaining a fairly "legal" matrix - unless you take time to review in aggregate.

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Elie, can white males sue the NBA and/or NFl for racial discrimination?

Elie does a fine job running a tabloid blog. Everyone just layoff him.

31,

What article were you reading?

Elie, do you think you were qualified to be accepted to Harvard?

If so, let us know you SAT/LSAT scores and shut us up.

3 = RACIST

you clearly made those remarks based solely on elie's race. that is the only explanation possible

12, 13, if I could shake your hands and buy you each a drink, I would.

Are we to infer that the initial hiring of more women than men at this firm over the last 3 years was the result of discrimination against males? No, I did not think anyone would raise that issue. Department of Labor statistics reveal that in this recession, more white males are losing jobs than are women. Is that the result of discrimination? Or, the marketplace. My suggestion to white males is that they get used to be singled out for abuse. Its piling on time-Obama is in charge!!!!!

"And Squire Sanders has some numbers of its own that helps to explain this situation."

Squire Sanders *helps*. Its numbers *help*.

That's not a typo. That's bad writing.

4 has never been to a party and probably does not interact with humans on a regualr basis.

41: This site needs an enema and a proofreader.....

Elie,

You expect to see a reasonably erudite exchange about this topic -- with all the fucktards who typically comment on this blog? Ha! Good luck.

I have personal experience to say that Latham's layoffs in New York were based on race. The partners are almost all white and Latham New York only has one black partner out of 100. They laid off almost all the Asian associates except for those who were not from southeast Asia. The southeast Asian associate count went from about 30 before the layoffs to about 5.

45, I'm confused, why don't you just say that they targeted southeast Asian associates instead of your tortuous language?

People this is what we call a "flame" post. Elie knows it will generate 200+ comments from a bunch of conservative commenters.

If you want silly posts like this to stop you should not comment. There are firms out there that are genuinely discriminating and it's possible SS is one but there is no evidence here. Instead, Elie knows taking unsubstantiated discrimination accusations and placing them on ATL will generate a lot of comments.

The way to fight back is not commenting. My comment should be the last one from anyone rolling their eyes at Elie's post.

45, you write like English isn't your first language...do you have an axe to grind?

44 = Kash

Elie, you're an idiot. While the majority of people fired may have been women, that number may not have been disproportional in relation to the percentage of female attorneys, a point Squire management tried to make, but did a poor job of. If you have 10 people with 8 women and 2 men an you fire 1 man and 4 women, you fired 80% women. This doesn't mean that your firing disproportionately affected women. You should go take a basic stats class.

Also, I've found that firms are more wary of firing women and minorities, even if they suck, because of this kind of stupid press. Way to start a race to the bottom!

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/ManageDebt/whos-getting-hit-most-by-layoffs.aspx

As long as the percentages don't work out, there was discrimination. I learned that from Ricci.

I would also like to add that before these women were terminated I'm sure they were paid 78% of what their male colleagues were, goddamn I'm happy I understand basic statistics!

wow, these comments are proof the majority of people who read and comment on this site are white men. . . and also primo douchebags.

I have to agree with the general sentiment that Elie is an idiot. The recent SSD layoffs were roughly proportionate between men and women. What's next? A scathing post on how the only gay latino associate was laid off from XYZ firm? Surely by firing 100% of such associates the firm then discriminates against all gay latinos. Posts like this don't serve anyone well. Elie, go eat a donut.

52: Correction, you learned that from Sotomayor. Roberts and company had better sense to accept such an idiotic principle. And regardless, hadn't that been settled years ago in Washington v. Davis anyway? (that disparate impact alone is not enough to establish actionable discrimination?) Yeah, I know Ricci wasn't under the 14th Amendment, but the Civil Rights Act, but still.

I like all the white men on here complaining about possibility of gender discrimination, oh no, poor white man, blah, blah, shut the fuck up.

While you may think "poor me, affirmative action took my job" blah blah, the truth is that women and minorities have been getting screwed by white men for centuries.

So shut the fuck up, and realize it happens all the time still. Just look at women management positions in industry.

52, but only if the percentages don't work out in favor of blacks. For example, if you scrap a test because too many whites passed the test and not enough blacks passed it, thus denying promotions to a 94% white, 6% Hispanic, and 0% black group, there was no discrimination at all.

56: Once again, the favorite liberal response to a conservative argument: "shut the fuck up" and of course "women and minorities have been getting screwed by white men for centuries." Yes, that's real fair to the whites who weren't part of that discrimination and who were in fact discriminated in their own right (Irish, Italians, Polish, etc.).

There is about a 99.9% chance that 56 has benefitted from affirmative action probably many times in her life. I'm not saying that because of the horrific command of the English language exhibited by the post, but because of the venom it embodies. Only someone forced to face the fact that they owe everything to an inherently unequal and discriminatory policy would lash out like that when it is criticized.

But 56 this anger could lead you to take an important step. Maybe on some level you have realized how hypocritical AA is and maybe you will step back and try to improve your life rather than appealing to the white guilt of certain shortsighted liberals. But I doubt it as long as those enablers continue to help Obama and company.

The President is black. Jim Crow is over. Time to move on and compete on equal footing.

If you make negative generalizations about all black women in the country across multiple generations, that would be racist and sexist.
But if you make negative generalizations about all white men in the country across generations, that's just being a good liberal.

This, to me, makes perfect sense.

As our culture currently stands, the general practice is to encourage the hiring of "underrepresented" groups - women, minorities, LGBT, etc. - at levels higher than proportionate representation compared to the general populace. Whether this is occurring at the expense of white male applicants, or is simply the creation of "extra opportunities" for these groups, I will not speculate. But the end result is, there will be, generally, higher percentages of women and minorities among younger associates at law firms.

This is all well and good (or at least, arguably justifiable), but this necessitates that, when layoffs occur among these younger associates, they be conducted in a manner that also affects women and minorities in these same higher percentages. To do otherwise would effectively discriminate against non-minorities (males, white people) twice...hired at lower percentages than proportionate representation, fired at a higher percentage than their proportion in the workforce.

This practice would not only be blatantly discriminatory, but would also be horribly bad business. Taking the premise that some (and certainly not all) members of underrepresented groups are given jobs as a way to increase opportunities for these groups and encourage diversity in the workplace despite having lower qualifications than some of their "white male" counterparts, protecting their jobs while terminating the others would result in a lower qualified remaining workforce, in effect vacating the talent exceptional enough to receive the job in the first place clear of any considerations given to underrepresented applicants. For a company or firm restructuring its workforce in a time of economic difficulty, this would be exceedingly shortsighted.

The only logical way to conduct layoffs is through the combined consideration of seniority, need, and performance. On a large enough scale, this would inevitably even out to approximately reflect the percentages of each group in the workplace, if not tilting ever so slightly in favor of white males, poor as this may appear, if only for the reason that other underrepresented groups have some members who were slightly less qualified going in, and who on average (and only to the extent that this extra bit of qualification correlates to performance, which is not much) may not perform as well as their colleagues of all groups who would have received the job on merit alone.

Kudos to Squire Sanders for not altering their decision based on fear after they noticed the percentages. They owe it to the entire body of their remaining employees to make the wisest economic decision possible in these difficult times.

60,

Hey DIPSHIT, just because you are a liberal does not mean you are pro-affirmative action.

Liberal whitle males (like me) don't like being discriminated against because of the color of their skin either.

62, learn the difference between "if" and "if and only if."

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."--Martin Luther King Jr.

"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”--
Chief Justice Roberts

62: All liberals aren't in favor of affirmative action (just as all conservatives aren't against it), but the mainstream liberal position is in favor of affirmative action (just as the mainstream conservative position is against it). The platforms of the two parties make this abundantly clear. You might be a liberal in most respects, but you deviate from the mainstream liberal support of affirmative action. Many of your political persuasion disagree with you on the issue. Nothing to get bent out of shape about.

56 = living in the past

I'm surprised SS is bragging about firing so many junior associates. It wasn't that long ago that firms generally gave junior associates a chance to develop and usually only fired the midlevel and senior associates who had theoretically developed enough skills to at least get interviews somewhere else. A laid-off first or second year is just completely screwed. Nice job, SS.

65,

Actually, I bet if you conduct a poll of white liberal men, most do not agree with affirmative action.

Just like the old days, people who agree with discrimination are those who benefit from it.

62

Two things:
1. This post touches on the potential discriminatory firings of both minorities and women, yet the comments seem to only focus on minority hiring/ firing. What about gender discrimination (not saying it exists, would just like to know everyone's stance).
2. The legal profession is still 90% white. That T1, top 20% Black associate didn't take your friend's job. YOU took your friend's job. And rightfully so because your friend was probably a dumb ass.

DISCRIMINATION HAPPENS; THE CURE IS TO MAKE IT LEGAL

To my white male friends: I am a white woman w/ a top-3 law degree who worked at a top-5 law firm and then switched to an I-bank. Discrimination happens; it is not all 'evil' per se, people just like to hire/promote their friends and people whom they believe will be loyal.

Consider this: suppose you were starting a small business & needed to hire an assistant. You had to sit in an office all day with this person, perhaps order lunch & listen to music with him/her. All other things being equal, you are going to hire someone like yourself.

At the law firm I worked at, the dept I was in ended up being populated by Orthodox Jewish people. I am not saying the partners discriminated against anyone, but in a law firm mentoring is important and Orthodox associates seemed to have closer relationships w/ the partners.

To my liberal friends: the cure for discrimination is to make it legal -- then there would be good information on which firms discriminated, and their costs would go up.

At the I-bank I worked at, close to 50% of the entering classes were women; but only 10% of the management were women. They had a lot of "Diversity" nonsense programs -- a total waste of time. All they do is stop the incoming women from asking why women don't advance -- if discrimination were legal, the firms would have to answer those questions.

It may be that some women legitimately "drop out", eg, b/c they decide to have children. But then incoming women should realize that working at the Bank is not compatible with a normal female life function and they are not getting the same deal as men who have a greater probability of advancing and getting huge bonuses.

56: Still bitching about white males. Let's see, they are the ones that fought (nearly exclusively) in the Revolution; The War of 1812; the Civil War (to free slaves that were sold by other Africans into slavery); WWI; and WWII. And it was 9 white Justices of the Supreme Court who decided Brown v. The Board of Education. Furthermore, Ginsburg in her recent interview in the NYT Magazine stated that it was the Nixon Administration's affirmative action policy in 1972 that helped her become a faculty member of Columbia. Yes, that Nixon. Funny how all these white guys created the union, saved it and reversed the wrongs of prior discrimination.

Fast forward to 2009, and the proponents of affirmative action continue to bitch about white males. 56, let me ask you this hypothetical, do you think President Obama's daughters are deserving affirmative action when it is their turn to apply to college?

56: You are one angry and ungrateful putz. I can think of no other nation that has worked harder to cure past wrongs than the United States. Do you see similar efforts in Africa to promote reconciliation and equality in Darfur? Rwanda? Nigeria?

Perhaps you are miserable because you know that we know that you are where you are not because of the content of your character, but because of the color of your skin.

70 - I disagree. discrimination happens, but the only cure (if there is such a thing) is a legal regime that discourages it. Certainly, from an economic perspective, it increases costs and creates inefficiencies. However, you assume that people who discriminate care about the marginal increase in costs and inefficiency that is brought about by their discrimination. Clearly, they do not. i.e. your firm. People are not always rational actors

Furthermore dont think that people aren't aware of which firms and organization discriminate Or that people dont select their likely place of work based on perceived likelihood to encounter discrimination during the progression of their career. For example For many African Americans - this kind of analysis is routine in evaluating career opportunities.

Whatever progress that has been made on this issue - has come because of the legal regime that punishes discrimination. There was a time when discrimination was legal - prior to 1968 - and those were not good times for African American, Jews, women in corporate America.

As for your I-bank - certainly women drop out along the way - due to lifestyle issues, but maybe that decision is made easier by the fact that the firm discriminates, but covers it up with bullshit "diversity" seminars. How many women's career's are cut short because of this perception ? How many "lesser qualified" men are advanced in a regime where women are subtly or not so subtly nudged aside ? Its clear that there is some costs and inefficiences associated with this practice, but I bet the people who run your I-bank dont care. Why ? people arent rational, the psychological payoff they get from having the place be a "guys shop" (ansd probably a white guys shop at that), exceeds whatever costs they may incur. Furthermore, all of their competitors are engaging in the same behavior - so no one in the field perceives the costs. End result: less women et al in the field.

A Legal to discourage this is probably the best bet.

71 must be one of the most stupid posts in ATL history (and that is quite an accomplishment)!

73- I disagree. 71 makes a good point or two. 56 is just a hostile person.

Elie, you've got to be fucking kidding me. 62.5%? In a SAMPLE SIZE OF 32 PEOPLE? What could you possibly, possibly fucking draw from this?

Journalists do not go to press with suggestive headlines and statistically insignificant supporting data. And yes, Elie, I'm including tabloid bloggers in "journalism." Fuck all, I'm including middle school newspapers in "journalism."

So, nothing has changed at SS&D since I left in 1992 when I got a copy of a memo to a firm committee written by a woman attorney incensed at a pink sheet given to her niece on "Take Our Daughters To Work Day." It was entitled, "It's a Man's World."

71, it would behoove you to try to acquaint yourself with modern american military history before spouting uninformed claptrap. Your statements have no basis in fact, history or reality.

DESPITE federal law barring blacks from serving until the mid-19th century, they did so, with great honor, in every conflict this country has faced. and for their sacrifices, they were lynched for being "uppity" upon their return from battle (WWI and WWII); they faced particularly horrible treatment and consequences if captured by the enemy (civil war); and were denied the full benefits of service extended to their white colleagues because of institutionalized white racism (GI Bill -- http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/july-dec00/gibill_7-4.html).

I do not understand how your head doesn't explode from the obvious contradictions exposed by your ignorance. to hear you tell it, black folks showed up here after being suckered into a timeshare by a 17th Century Ghanaian and became houseguests who overstayed their welcome. who pulled that "no rights that a white man is duty bound to respect" our of their ass again? Must have been the Nigerians.

and as we all know, the minute Brown passed, the previous 300 years just evaporated *poof* and everything was lollipops and rainbows and all things were made right and equally accessible to all. http://blog.nola.com/notesonneworleans/2008/12/white_new_orleanian_brags_abou.html

what willful, shameful ignorance. It is delusional, really.

you might want to read these links:

http://www.redstone.army.mil/history/integrate/CHRON3.html

http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/blacks-civil-war/

77: 71 did not say African Americans made no contribution to the nation's war efforts. But, the overwhelming casualties and deaths were sustained by white males in each and every one of those conflicts. That is indisputable. You are the one that is delusional if you think otherwise. Instead of addressing the issue of the responsibility of Africans who sold other Africans into slavery, you choose to ignore that fact as well. Slavery was truly a horrible, despicable stain on this nation's history. It is equally a stain on the continent of Africa as well. Indeed, unlike the United States where slavery has been abolished by the 13th Amendment, the practice is still very much alive in other parts of the world-including, unfortunately- the African continent.

good story, elie. its god to know that this shit happens at firms other than mcdermott will and emery.

These posts show just how dangerous a bad economy can be to keeping the country from splitting apart on racial, gender and ethnic lines. Message to Obama and the Dems and R's: get your shit together. Focus on jobs so that there is a tax base available to fund your obsessions with universal healthcare and "green" initiatives. When the economy tanks, everyone starts to look at the person next to them as a threat. If that means changing regulations to permit oil exploration for the next 5 years so that we can stop buying oil fron the Saudis and even the Norwegians, do it. You will create jobs now and you can then buy some time to let the green technology catch up so it can provide the energy we need. And on healthcare, we need to confront certain moral and ethical issues. Namely, costs are increasing because we are an aging population and our birthrates are dropping. So, there just are not enough young people in the population to fund the costs of taking care of the elderly. Which means we need to "redeploy" monies from other programs-defense etc.-to take care of the chronically ill among us. Or, decide that we need to ration care.

Geez 71- You can't claim it's unfair to apportion resources by race, then claim your group earned your resources and the other groups didn't.

If your group has a lock on the resources, then you're free to claim it was earned by others, BUT NOT BY YOU. You weren't in the Revolutionary War. You weren't on the Supreme Court. You just look like all the other people who actually did things.

What you're not admitting is that other groups wanted to succeed and contribute, as well,, but were prevented from doing so. It is significant that African Americans fought in all the wars, because it cost each of them more than it cost a white person to do the exact same thing. That matters.

And not much has changed. It cost all 3 of the black associates more to get into that law firm than it cost the white kids from the suburbs who make up the majority. If you want to argue "earned" you're stuck with the fact that some asshole from the burbs has probably done less than anyone else to earn his place in the world.

So maybe get off the bogus and self-contradictory "fairness" arguments, and start earning your own place before you bitch about everyone else.

78 -- 71 stated that white men fought "almost exclusively" in almost every war in which the US has been involved for the past 200 years or so. He said nothing about casualties and deaths. Even if he had, of course whites died in higher numbers! Blacks weren't allowed (by law and by informal discrimination) to FIGHT in equal numbers! Both you and 71 use the military's discrimination against blacks to justify your disavowal of their participation in that same institution.

In the context of 71's other comments; namely, stop "bitching about white males", it seems pretty obvious on its face what 71 was getting at: "Stop bitching about white males because they were the ones that fought for this country, not blacks." The statement ignores two important points: (a) that federal law and white racism kept black people from fully participating in the armed services until 1950 and (b) in spite of such official and unofficial road blocks thrown in the path of their progress, blacks in the military served and did so with honor. The point was idiotic, it ignored the proven historical record of exemplary black participation and it was factually incorrect.

But why sully oneself with such details.

I am not understanding what the Africans selling Africans point is. What does that have to do with the 400+ year legacy of slavery in *America*? Isn't that where we live? Isn't that *our* history? Africans most definitely must contend with their own centuries long participation in slave trading. But so must America. Regardless, this is yet another deflection; as I pointed out before, the resulting *effects* of slavery lasted well beyond the 1865 expiration date.

and it is those effects (and the resulting affect on blacks) that we seem to constantly discuss here, usually in the form of "there is not a single black person in big law who is here because of their accomplishments and intelligence" and "some poor white guy is out of a job because of some affirmative action candidate."

I mean, given the number of white guys on this board going on and on about how blacks aren't as qualified and aren't as smart and aren't deserving of working in big law...all of those white guys are some black person's colleague. somewhere. and you are seriously acting as though your clear beliefs of black inferiority don't affect how you relate to black people in the workplace! i mean, maybe, *just maybe*, those same white guys might be in positions of power when it comes to letting go attorneys in a downturn.

82, Africans sold Africans into slavery, and a small fraction of the buyers were white traders who brought them to America. So if you're going to blame anyone for slavery, blame the Africans who captured their fellow people into slavery in the first place. Funny how the African-American need for justice only applies to whites, most ethnic groups who had ancestors with nothing to do with slavery, but doesn't extend to the Africans in Africa.
Even if slavery were the justification, it's unclear why Puerto Ricans and other Hispanics get affirmative action. When were Puerto Ricans enslaved in America? Since they're mostly of Spanish descent, aren't they the slave-traders who should be giving reparations to blacks?

Also, nobody said there is _not a single_ intelligent and accomplished black person. Nice strawman argument though. It's funny how liberals see everything in black and white (no pun intended).

82-71 said nothing about "blacks in big law" being unqualified. Candidly, anyone who goes to work for big law these days is a fool. You work long hours, deal with asshole partners, neurotic colleagues and still have no job security.

We would all be better off unionizing, but, we stab each other in the back so much that you could never actually unionize because we would sell each other out for a corner office. I digress.

I think 71 objects to the notion that all white males must share responsibility for 300 or 400 years of oppression. The reality is that the whites that owned slaves pale in comparison to the numbers that did not.

Regarding the Civil War, the point is that all white males must not have been evil racists if they fought and died to end the practice of slavery. You have intentionally ignored the sacrifices of those men, most of whom were poor, white immigrants from Europe who themselves did not have a pot to piss in, because it does not fit into your story line.

As for post 1865 racism, you are right, the only way we could correct that was to do what was done-change our laws; create new laws; and be inclusive-whether people liked it or not.

But, the time is fast approaching where the justifications for race based affirmative action will no longer hold true. Like 71 suggested, what is the argument for applying affirmative action to the children of Barack Obama, Eric Holder and Colin Powell?

Candidly, I cannot wait to see the day where affirmative action is predicated solely on the basis of financial need. But, it is not PC to argue that affirmative action should apply to some poor white kid from Appalachia. Those kids have no one advocating for them.

83 -- yeah, no. as i said in my prior post, no one argues that Africans sold Africans INTO slavery. That is not to be excused or ignored. But there are 400 years of history AFTER that sale that also cannot be ignored. Were those Africans also responsible for making it a crime to teach blacks to read? for making sure they couldn't own property? for disenfranchising them and then making it near impossible to exercise the franchise when they *did* have the right to vote? Were they responsible for stripping blacks of every legal right? or for writing into the US constitution that blacks were 3/5 of a human being?

For this? http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/jul/tuskegee/ or this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_riot

what are the repercussions of those two centuries worth of behaviors? what are the repercussions of the Supreme Court telling white people that black people had NO RIGHTS that they needed to respect?
I do not diminish the struggles of ethnic whites to fight their own battles with discrimination (NINA laws, etc.), but part of ethnic whites "integrating" into American culture was embracing and enforcing racist tropes. http://www.amazon.com/Working-Toward-Whiteness-Americas-Immigrants/dp/0465070744/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b

and, um, i didn't say there wasn't an intelligent black person in the world, i was talking about big law and this blog, which, as i pointed out before, regularly states that black people are only in big law because of affirmative action. "The Ship Be Sinking", right?

84 -- i actually don't have a story line. if you have been around these boards, you will see comment after comment stating that nameless black person got where s/he did on the back of some more deserving white person. Elie gets slammed constantly because of typos. Somehow typos = intellectually unfit for Harvard? Why would someone even go there?

i absolutely did NOT ignore the sacrifices made by white men in the various wars; i honor the service of ALL people in the military. That, in fact, was what made me comment in the first place; 71's remarks clearly insinuate (to put it mildly) that black people somehow DID NOT make such sacrifices. Not only is that statement factually incorrect, but it dishonors the sacrifice of men who fought for a country even as that country denied them equal opportunity.

and let's be clear, those immigrants you speak of weren't freaking pleased about fighting (at least in the civil war) and they took that anger out on BLACK PEOPLE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Draft_Riots

I believe I was pretty clear that this discussion for me is about repercussions and ramifications. this conversation cannot happen whilst ignoring the context and the history of race relations in America. Pushing the boundaries of the discussion out so far as to water it down to intangibles purposefully ignores the quantifiable issues at hand, i.e. -- this isn't about how America used its laws and every tool at its disposal to suppress and pathologize black advancement and success, no, this is really about Africans selling slaves to American slave traders. and fine, if you wanna go there: http://www.stratalum.org/nytimes81501.html does that make it "local" enough for you now?

Of course not all white people were slave owners. But that doesn't mean that all white people did not benefit from the system of slavery and the enforced jim crow that followed (see id.). What are the repercussions of making it illegal for blacks to learn how to read? What are the repercussions of ethnic and working class whites being allowed to take full advantage of the GI bill and accumulate property and educational opportunities that blacks were barred from partaking in?

cause and effect.

84, you state that the only way to "correct" things was to change our laws, create new laws and be inclusive. but that wasn't exactly something that white people were out on the streets agitating for. and let me just stop you before you start: of course there were white people writing the check to the NAACP and yes, getting killed. but the vast majority of those changes happened because of people like Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP who, on several occasions, almost lost their lives. It was because of mostly black people marching, getting beaten, losing their homes and their jobs, etc. Not to mention being assassinated that those changes came. FORTY YEARS AGO.

So i hope that at some point we live in a society where we don't need to keep trying to even the playing field. i hope that sascha and malia obama don't NEED affirmative action, but quite frankly, we don't live in a world where they are viewed equally yet (THE SHIP BE SINKING!), so this question is not "ripe" in my opinion. And we should probably just agree to disagree on that one because i'm sensing we don't really agree (as a historical note, nearly 90 percent of whites in a 1962 Gallup poll stated that black children were treated equally in terms of education opportunity. The Gallup Organization, Gallup Poll Social Audit, Black-White Relations in the United States, 2001 Update (July 10 , 2001), 7-9. by that estimate, white people didn't even think Brown v. Board was needed).

The plain vanlla "african american" has absolutely no idea about the history of slavery, the triangular trade or any of its actors. Rather, they would rather blame any white face they come across as the personification of the institution of slavery in this country.

Two centuries of subsequent immigration to this country be damned, if you're white you're evil in their mind and worthy of disdain. Their thesis, if you're white, you have it easier in life based upon the country being "built" by slaves, even though slavery was abolished in the Northern States well before the Civil War.

its funny that "african americans" do not (publicly) appear to blame asians for accomplishing with the help of whites what they apparently cannot, i.e. succeeding. When I was young, it was all the rage for young blacks to harrass Korean run bodegas in New York. In my mind, asians represent the futility of the black argument. That is, if whites are so inherently racist, how then can you reconcile the utter success of "asian americans" in this country.

The answer lies in the mildly hidden fact that asians do not give a shit what white people think of them and succeed DESPITE what anyone thinks. Maybe "african americans" could learn a lesson from them or else they are destined to perpetually cower under the cloak of victimization.

84: Since you appear to want to leave the door open for the application of affirmative action for the children of the President of the United States, the Attorney General and a former Secretary of State, my sense is that you will never agree that affirmative action programs should end.

Citations to PBS documentaries prepared by the some of the very people who advocate those programs in the first instance does little to persuade skeptics, such as myself, of the continued need for programs based on race preferences as opposed to, say, financial need.

However, at the end of the day, what I think is really going on is just another twist on the battle between the classes. Like every other group, African Americans are finally moving into the positions of leadership in business, politics and the professions. What is happening at the same time, however, is what has occurred with every other group that has advanced. A bunch of people from that group will be left behind. And, unfortunately, the ones that do make it are not inclined to turn around and help these people. Instead, they will move into the upper class neighborhoods; send their children to private schools etc. It s all about class.

I formerly worked with a guy from South Africa who insisted that we refer to him as "african american" even though he was a Boer.

When I was young, you had to refer to blacks as blacks. When my parents were young, you had to refer to them as colored (See NAACP).

Also, why is Obama considered half black when he's half white?

Interestingly, no one is asking the chicken or egg question. Did SSD decide to fire junior associates first, then discover that they were disproportionately female or did SSD decide to fire primarily women and realized the easiest or most palatable way was to focus their attention on the junior ranks, since there is a shortage of women in the corporate mid-level ranks?

Ew. It freaks me out to think people like the completely racist posters on this board might be working with me every day.

Before loading this page, I was watching a documentary on the Kennedy busing decision, where people rioted and threw tomatoes when faced with the indignity of having to send their children to school with African Americans. Those people are still alive, you know, and their children are now running things. It's nice to think that everyone involved has now grown, but a quick read of the posts here and it's obvious this country is still not ready to give up racist systems.

Right. Everyone who thinks AA is illegal is a racist. Wonderful argument.

There is somewhat of a difference between access to public schooling and admission to Harvard Law School 90. For instance, I highly doubt that anyone on here, including me, would disallow blacks or any other "minority" access to public schools. However, providing slots for same to the detriment of persons with higher SAT/LSAT/grade scores is patently unfair to any fairminded person.

We await Elie posting his SAT/LSAT scores to put an end to this. That he doesn't tells me he didn't do so well.

I worked with a guy at my last firm who had identical high school grades to me and an SAT score almost 100 points lower and graduated High School the same year as I did. He grew up in suburban New Jersey and I attended a prestigious PUBLIC high School in New York City as I grew up in the Bronx.

He was admitted to Brown and I was turned down from Brown. Him black, me not. By the way, his parents made more money than my parents. Very fair result I suppose.

It comes down to this.

If you are not sad about the death of Michael Jackson, you probably do not vehmently dislike Palin for the dumb ______ she is.

If you have an ounce of respect for trailer trash Palin, you are more likely than not racist and against Affirmative Action.

This is absolutely true and irrefutable.

So, the question should be...what are your thoughts on Michael?

Scalia probably didn't like Michael. Sotomayor probably grieving.

@87 -- no, that is wrong; I do hope for a time when affirmative action is no longer necessary to even the playing field. hence my use of the word "yet." As I previously posted, I hope the time comes when the question of ending affirmative action is "ripe."

Also, I wasn't quoting PBS. I was pointing the reader to a discussion of the success of the GI Bill and, in particular, noting that the distinguished historian Michael Beschloss (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Beschloss) made the point I was making about the failure of the GI Bill vis a vis creating advancement opportunities for black soldiers returning from WWII. for the record, Stephen Ambrose and Doris Goodwin aren't exactly slouches about the period either, so I'm not sure what being on PBS (in an INTERVIEW, not in a documentary, about the GI Bill) has to do with it. But coming to that conclusion would require reading the whole thing before commenting, and who has time for that?

i agree with you absolutely that this is a question of class. given that talk about class inequity in this country these days = socialism in certain very loud quarters, I'm not sure we are ever going to get near that question any time soon. additionally, i think that since we are unwilling to look at how class is inextricably linked with race and gender, there may be trouble ahead.

@88 -- The answer to why "half black" and not "half white" can be found with Thomas Jefferson! As we know he was a great stake in figuring out how to answer these questions and basically decided that "if you look black, you're black." http://backintyme.com/essays/?p=7 otherwise, it would be reaaaaally difficult to figure out who to appropriately treat like a negro. Or, for our more modern age, when you can lift that "public face" to be able to say whatever you think about negroes without having to do a quick glance around.

@93 -- yeah, so i guess we should also just assume that his essay was worse than yours and that his interview also was worse than yours? that you took the same classes? that you did the same extracurricular activities? Were your work histories were the same? I mean, that whole well-rounded thing clearly should only stop at a 100 points. There is no possibility that you were just a less interesting or desirable candidate in a number of other ways.

"Of course not all white people were slave owners. But that doesn't mean that all white people did not benefit from the system of slavery and the enforced jim crow that followed (see id.). "

I don't think I've ever read anything so stupid.

So all of the impoverished white people in some of the poorer areas of the country, though hellish as their lives may be, at least have one thing going for them, they benefited from slavery and Jim Crow.

I'm sure that's a relief for all of those people when they are trying to figure out how to make their next rent payment.

BTW, I lied, I've read something more stupid:

"It's surprising to see 62.5% of firm layoffs affect women. "

But its not suprising that 65% of one of the incoming classes at SSD were women?

Which is more egregious?

I do believe that gender played a role when a group of attorneys left Thacher Proffit to join Sonnenschein. Most of the associates that were left behind on the sinking ship were women - it didn't seem to matter whether one had better hours than other associates or produced a better product. If one wasn't part of the mostly all-men cliques, it was difficult to get an invitation to Sonnenschein.

Dear 96:

Yup. Racism is a bitch, isn't it?

Black high school graduates have higher unemployment rates than white dropouts. See United States Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstracts of the United States: The National Data Book, 2007 (Washington, DC: Bureau of the Census 2007), 144 (Table 217).

Job applicants with white-sounding names are 50 percent more likely to be called back for a job interview than applicants with black-sounding names, even when all relevant qualifications and experience are indistinguishable. See http://www.povertyactionlab.com/papers/3_Mullainathan_Market_Discrimination.pdf

White males with a criminal record are more likely than black males without one to be called back for a job interview, even when credentials, experience, and dress style are the same. See http://www.northwestern.edu/ipr/publications/papers/2003/pagerajs.pdf at 958

Blacks and Latinos with poor credit are more likely to be denied mortgages than whites with equally poor credit. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_n12_v88/ai_17361532/

Benefitting from something doesn't mean that you turn into a rich, pampered Forbes magazine denizen. It means you derive certain perks, whether wanted or not, whether particularly useful or not.

I am right handed. Can't help being right handed. Hasn't made my life necessarily any better. But it also means that i can assume I can easily play any instrument I want to, or that I'm not going to bump elbows with someone at the dinner table, etc.

Or, to use the Horatio Alger metaphor...it means that you may have a shoe with a lace, instead of just a shoe.

more directly, all the impoverished white people in the poorer areas of the country, hellish as their lives may be, at least have one thing going for them, they aren't black.

"more directly, all the impoverished white people in the poorer areas of the country, hellish as their lives may be, at least have one thing going for them, they aren't black. "

Damn, sounds like you have a real thing against blacks, would you rather be Tiger Woods or Cletus the Slack-jowled Yokel?

By the way, there aren't two "f"'s in benefiting, fucking moron.

I don't know what race you are, but your arguments are shit and your grammar is terrible. That idiotic study you posted about "racial" names is so dumb its fucking insane. Newsflash, non-professional tradtionally white trash names like Candy and Billy Bob and Dannie Sue are likely to be just as discriminated against as non-professional traditionally black names, but these studies are too stupid to take that into account.

If your parents fuck you over with a shitty name, use your initials.

@95: "There is no possibility that you were just a less interesting or desirable candidate in a number of other ways."

Of course he was more interesting. He was (and is) "black" and I was (and am) white. Its interesting that you presume that his non-academic record was superior to mine.

Btw, we BOTH ended up going to non top 25 law schools, me law review, top 5%, him not.

@97 is entirely correct.

Lat/Elie: Why do you not expose the objectification of the female associates by the geriatric Thacher attorneys. They resoundingly accepted the young pretty female associates at the expense of the young male associates with the abandonment to Sonnenschein. I suppose thats not as sexy a story to you dweebs.

At Thacher it really depended on what team you were on - whether male or female associates were chosen to go to Sonnenschein. It appears that in Structured Finance and Litigation, men were disproportionately chosen over women. While in Corporate, women were disproportionately chosen over men. Ex-Thacher/ Sonnenschein partners may say that the decision to retain certain associates over others was "driven by Sonnenschein." But it's hard to believe that associates were chosen on objective criteria chosen by Sonnenschein. It is clear that the associates who were "saved" were certainly those who were part of a certain clique. For those who didn't know already - it really does matter who you know and not so much, what you know.

Thacher strung the senior associates along since November 2007 all the while claiming what great guys they were. In the end, the original laid off junior associates rapidly found employment as jobs were still available. Nto sure whether they were subsequently dropped by their adopted firms but I do know that the overwhelming majority of mid to senior TPW Associates are out of work with little prospect in this environment.

Final judgment is that TPW was populated by ultraselfish asswipes, just the type they always claimed not to be.

Disproportionate number of support staff were white females left without jobs and age was definitely a factor. That's okay, the majority of us who were legal and support staff workers now out of work do not spend any money and the consumer price index won't improve. Every retail outfit is hurting. Let it be so and take down the American economy. You take away our jobs, suffer!!!!

Disproportionate number of support staff were white females left without jobs and age was definitely a factor. That's okay, the majority of us who were legal and support staff workers now out of work do not spend any money and the consumer price index won't improve. Every retail outfit is hurting. Let it be so and take down the American economy. You take away our jobs, suffer!!!!

Disproportionate number of support staff were white females left without jobs and age was definitely a factor. That's okay, the majority of us who were legal and support staff workers now out of work do not spend any money and the consumer price index won't improve. Every retail outfit is hurting. Let it be so and take down the American economy. You take away our jobs, suffer!!!!

Disproportionate number of support staff were white females left without jobs and age was definitely a factor. That's okay, the majority of us who were legal and support staff workers now out of work do not spend any money and the consumer price index won't improve. Every retail outfit is hurting. Let it be so and take down the American economy. You take away our jobs, suffer!!!!

I'm completely floored. As a female associate from a top 10 law school with consistently good performance reviews and good relationships with my bosses and my peers, I naively assumed that my male colleagues thought of me as an equal. Judging from the comments to this story, that is clearly not the case.

White dudes, enough venom and defensiveness. I feel pretty certain that most of us gals were not brought to you by affirmative action, the number 3, or any other "scary" concepts you think are taught on sesame street. But if you're still feeling threatened by the fact that women (and minorities) often outscore and outperform you, take heart: In 10-20 years, when you've moved up to management and women are not (the only statistics you white guys don't seem to be interested in), you'll once again be free to make the hiring and firing decisions.

And when you are making those hiring and firing decisions, and you see some gal who's bright, personable, and well credentialed, here's what you're going to do: You're going to hire her. And then you're going to advance her. Because she's going to make you money. And then maybe you'll think back to all the times you assumed that some woman was getting ahead at the law firm as the result of affirmative action, and you'll realize that her advancement, like nearly every decision in business, was motivated by the bottom line financials. Which is something you "conservatives" should have no trouble getting behind.

I hate guys like you. I hope this catches up with you someday.

108 - If you have a halfway decent sized rack, your male colleagues want to fuck you. If not, they could care less what you think. Trust me..

109 - thanks for proving her point.

Currently researching firms for OCI. A am just a little bit astonished by the numbers I'm seeing on NALP. It's usually something like -- Summers: 2/3 women, Associates: 1/2 women, Partners: 1/5 women.

Guess there's two ways of looking at it: either firms are currently trying to make changes to the proportions, or women can get in, but they can't go up.

Any thoughts on which one it is?

Women get in, get pregnant, fired or leave. Thats how it works.

119 - I'm presuming that you don't have a great rack.

110 - I'm presuming that you don't have a great rack.

114 -- i'm presuming your penis is the size of a tic tac.

98, that is a great analogy. Now where is the affirmative action for left-handed people in the classical music industry? Oh wait, there isn't any.
Epic self-pwnage.

115 = Penis envy. Let me guess, you drive a Hummer and hatefucked your doorman.

affirmative action eyewash...bring em in,herd them out..several minority women and handicapped were in those exited..corp america listens ssd shows us how the chess game is played but advises otherwise.

117 -- no need. my clit is the biggest dick around these parts.