“My emancipation don’t fit your equation.” – Lauryn Hill
Last week, the White House Council on Women and Girls, in collaboration with the Anna Julia Cooper Center at Wake Forest University, hosted a daylong forum on Advancing Equity for Women and Girls of Color, which focused on empowering and increasing opportunity for women and girls of color and their peers.
The Council on Women and Girls also released a progress report, “Advancing Equity for Women and Girls of Color,” as a follow-up to the 2014 report, and announced independent commitments to close opportunity gaps faced by women and girls, including women and girls of color.
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This week, the Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA) released their sixteenth annual report on women and minority general counsel of Fortune 500 and 1000 companies. The MCCA General Counsel Survey examines current trends and developments for the diverse legal leaders in the C-suites of America’s most successful companies.
These reports are well worth reading. After reviewing these reports, it is evident that opportunity gaps faced by women, especially women of color, need to be addressed. While the Council on Women and Girls tends to focus on the science, technology, engineering and math fields (STEM), the MCCA focuses on our profession. Highlights from MCCA’s sixteenth annual report include:
Fortune 500
- 120 women served as Fortune 500 general counsel this year;
- only 51 of GCs of color populate the Fortune 500;
- the breakdown by race this year is 25 African-Americans, 11 Hispanics, 14 Asian-Pacific Americans, and one multi-ethnic; and
- the minority legal chiefs in the Fortune 500 this year consist of 31 men and 20 women – that’s a net loss of two men and one woman from a year ago.
Fortune 1000
- 96 women served as Fortune 1000 general counsel this year;
- only 26 of GCs of color populate the Fortune 1000;
- the breakdown by race this year is five African-Americans, nine Hispanics, 10 Asian-Pacific Americans, and two multi-ethnic; and
- the minority legal chiefs in the Fortune 1000 this year consist of 19 men and seven women, with the latter tally unchanged from a year ago, plus a net gain of four men.
According to MCCA’s survey, one in four African-Americans serving as chief legal officers for Fortune 500 companies have left those positions this year, prompting a drop in the total number (from 54 to 51) of minority general counsel among those companies. Yet, as Lydia Lum notes, more than 60 of these companies have appointed new chief counsel since the previous survey. So what gives?
In MCCA’s report, Metlife’s Executive Vice President and General Counsel Ricardo Anzaldua states,
I don’t think there’s deliberate focus on running away from diverse general counsel, just like there isn’t deliberate effort to avoid having diverse partners at law firms. When you get down to it, it’s important to educate people about unconscious bias. And if we’re going to better diversity the legal profession, women and minorities need to have adequate sponsorship.
As I have previously mentioned, a recent Yale study concluded science professors widely view female undergraduates as less competent than male students with the same achievements and skills. As a result, “professors were less likely to offer the women mentoring or a job.”
In Joan Williams’s study “Double Jeopardy? – Gender Bias Against Women of Color in Science,” her team interviewed 60 women of color in STEM. In the study, 100% of women of color experienced gender bias. In addition to gender bias, “Women of color also encounter racial and ethnic stereotypes, putting them in ‘a double jeopardy.’” Some highlights of Williams’s study include:
- Asian-American women said they felt more pressure to act “feminine”—demure and passive—and received more push back when they don’t.
- Latinas reported that when they assert themselves, they risk being seen as “angry” or “too emotional.”
- Black women felt they have more leeway in terms of expressing emotion so long as they aren’t perceived as “angry black women.”
Do women of color face the same racial and ethnic stereotypes in our profession? As noted by the White House Council on Women and Girls, persistent opportunity gaps and structural barriers remain for women and girls, including women and girls of color. It is evident that unconscious racial bias pervades our law, education, and politics. No doubt, women of color may face the double jeopardy conundrum in any industry they enter into, including the legal profession.
It is inexcusable for us to permit negative hidden biases to continually operate in our blind spots; they must be brought to light. We must be cognizant of and cautious about our automatic behaviors and established beliefs. Our unconscious bias is silently killing diversity in our profession. The question is, what are we going to do about it?
Renwei Chung is the Diversity Columnist at Above the Law. You can contact Renwei by email at [email protected], follow him on Twitter (@renweichung), or connect with him on LinkedIn.