After a stunning series of legal victories, it seems that the right-wing driven mandate that any attempt at equity must be race neutral has won. After SFFA v. Harvard placed affirmative action on life support, lawsuits targeting schools or law firms for discriminating in favor of non-white males were hit by a legal blitz from Blum & Co, Stephen Miller, and others. The Chicago Bears — who can’t stop any kind of blitz — were target by one of these discrimination lawsuits and just resolved in a settlement. Tax Prof has coverage:
The Chicago Bears have quietly settled a discrimination lawsuit brought by a DePaul University law student who accused the team of discrimination when it declined to hire him as a “legal diversity fellow” because he is a white male…The job posting indicated that the Bears were seeking applicants who were a “person of color and/or female law student.”
The insidious thing about the proliferation of race neutral policies and language is that it doesn’t stop things from skewing toward white males. Having a race-neutral job posting doesn’t prevent an application reviewer from throwing away resumes because the name sounds too black. A facially sex-neutral interview process can still result in gender bias or discrimination. How do we know this? Because even after decades of affirmative action that tried to fix the aforementioned problems, we still see all sorts of race and gender discrimination in workplaces.
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While affirmative action wasn’t great for fixing racial injustices in execution — it did end up largely benefitting White women — if encouraging equity was bad then, folks are screwed now. Faux neutrality just makes it harder to implement any equity-minded policies that correct for the institutional and cultural practices that cater to white men who live their lives failing upward.
Anyway, congrats to the student on snagging some settlement money. Go Bears, I guess.
Chicago Bears Settle Hiring Bias Suit From White Male Law Student [Tax Prof]
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Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.