Conferences / Symposia, Minority Issues, Women's Issues

A Woman Always Has To Audition

Diversity isn't charity, and diversity is everyone's issue.

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Does your speaker line-up look like this?

Does your speaker line-up look like this?

I speak at a lot of conferences. In January alone, I spoke at seven different events. As a woman of color (“WOC”), I am often keenly aware of the lack of diversity of speakers. It’s not unusual for me to be the only person of color (“POC”) on a long list of speakers. The next time you’re at a legal conference, take a look at the list of speakers and see how many POC or WOC are included.

In addition to lack of diversity in terms of race and gender, I often notice that the speakers tend to be of same vintage. Namely, cisgender white male with grey hair. Other dimensions of diversity aside from race and gender, such as sexual orientation or disability, are almost non-existent in most legal conferences.

Another trend I’ve noticed is that typically the only sessions with diverse panels are either CLEs on increasing diversity or Elimination of Bias. Which is frankly insulting and embarrassing. Putting a panel of women speakers or panel of POC to discuss the lack of diversity in our profession when the conference itself is evidence of a lack of diversity? Oh, the irony.

It’s also irritating when you have the mega panel (with eight speakers) and either there will be a token woman on the panel or worse, a woman moderator. By the way, some very smart mathematician did the math. The odds that a panel will randomly be all male? Almost an impossibility.

I recently had an interesting conversation with a woman who was on the planning committee at a major legal conference. She was bemoaning the fact that she tried so hard to get a well known GC, a WOC from a Fortune 10 company. This GC declined. So, they went with a white man instead. He was a GC from a Fortune 500 company.

This is a double standard evident in many decisions about who gets to speak, and who is deemed “qualified.” If you’re a POC or WOC, you must have the perfect résumé, whereas the standard is much less stringent for the white male counterpart.

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I was discussing this double standard over on Twitter and someone shared that she was on the planning committee for a tech conference. She proposed two WOC to speak and the relevant committee, consisting of all white people, wanted to vet the WOC speakers. The other white speakers? All were allowed in without a single question.

At a recent Elimination of Bias CLE, a federal magistrate judge whose family is from East Asia shared that these types of double standards are abound in the judiciary as well. If you’re POC, you must have clerked at SCOTUS, have graduated from an Ivy League law school, and generally be perfect in order to be considered for a judgeship. Yet the bar is set much lower for the white guy.

POC and women are often forced to audition for their role, whereas the white male counterpart, with very similar experience and qualifications, does not.

Laura Maechtlen, partner at Seyfarth Shaw and co-founder of Shape the Law, had the following suggestions for increasing diversity and participation at legal conferences:

This issue goes to one of inclusion generally with bar associations that are not focused on an affinity group (and even those that are). Not only with speaking engagements, but with other credentialing opportunities, many organizations may not monitor diversity issues. This could include leadership boards, committees, etc. within the bar (that often choose speakers), the governing board/committee, or even its own staff.

A lack of inclusivity can also flow to events of an organization – i.e., timing for parents (often mothers), a safe space for LGBT practitioners (gender neutral bathrooms etc.), and other access issues for disabled practitioners – i.e., bar events in the French quarter in NOLA can be far more difficult for people in wheelchairs vs. a large accessible hotel in Vegas, for example.

In choosing speakers, a “speaker” subcommittee for each conference is often helpful to pick a diverse group (not just demographic diversity, but regional, type of firm, company, etc.) if they work from guidelines. I know the LGBT Bar has loose guidelines for in/outside counsel, LGBT diversity as well as ethnic diversity for this reason.

Also, choosing speakers via an application process is helpful to focus on those that are truly interested (not just cherry picking people’s friends).

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Diversity isn’t charity. Diversity is necessary to build the best team possible. Diversity is necessary to represent the many different ideas, opinions, and perspectives.

It should be encouraged whether you’re a bar association, law firm, or a company.

Finally, diversity is everyone’s issue. It’s not sufficient to form a “diversity” subcommittee (insert eyeroll here) to go out and find POC to speak at your conferences so you can pat yourself on the back and say, “Great. We can check off that box.” Diversity should be reflected at every level.

What are you doing to send a clear message of inclusion at your conference so that everyone feels welcome?

I can tell you that when I am considering attending an event, I look at who will be speaking and attending. If the conference is almost exclusively one group of people and I am not a part of that group, it sends a message—unintended, no doubt, but still it is a clear message: You are not welcomed in our space.

I got the title for this post from a TV series, Masters of Sex. The show takes place from the 1950s to the 1970s. In one of the scenes, Virginia Johnson, a character from the show, bemoans that no matter how qualified she is, no matter how accomplished, “a woman always has to audition.”

Sadly, this still holds true in 2017. Of course, not in the same way. The biases against WOC or POC aren’t as overt and I would venture to say, often unconscious.

My plea is this:

  1. If you are on a planning committee for an event, pay attention to who else is on the planning committee.
  2. Ask yourself, whose voices are not represented at our event?
  3. Are we doing all that we can to create and foster an inclusive environment?
  4. What are our criteria for selecting speakers? How are we ensuring that we’re evaluating the speakers fairly?
  5. Are we compensating our POC speakers similarly as white speakers?
  6. Does the speaker list fairly represent the wider legal community? Does it reflect the client base we serve?

As I wrote in a previous post:

I believe lawyers must be stewards of valuing diversity and inclusion. We can and should do much more to increase diversity in speakers — not just in terms of gender and race, but including the LGBT community, those with disabilities, and cross-sections of age groups. This allows for different perspectives and cross-pollination of ideas.

Jeena Cho HeadshotJeena Cho is the author of The Anxious Lawyer: An 8-Week Guide to a Joyful and Satisfying Law Practice Through Mindfulness and Meditation (affiliate link). She regularly speaks and offers training on mindfulness and meditation. You can reach her at hello@jeenacho.com or @jeena_cho on Twitter.

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