Tag Archives: diversity in hiring

Let’s Go Back To Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Speech

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The Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s had some really good ideas. Martin Luther King, Jr., expressed one of the best ideas of the movement when he said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” (source here) Unfortunately, we have forgotten or deliberately left behind that idea.

On Saturday, The Daily Caller reported:

Wall Street’s top investment banking firms offer career-advancing opportunities to college students, with one catch — applicants are expected to be of certain races and gender identities.

The programs, run by companies that include Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, aim to increase diversity, prioritizing students based on race and gender. They also potentially run afoul of federal civil rights laws, legal experts told the the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“Those programs are likely illegal violations of federal civil rights laws including Title VI, Title VII, Title IX, and Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and they are ripe for a legal challenge of their blatant discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, gender identity or sexual orientation,” University of Michigan-Flint professor emeritus Mark Perry, who has filed hundreds of civil rights complaints against colleges, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The companies encourage specific groups to apply, naming racial and gender categories directly in their eligibility criteria, and then attempt to save face by adding statements to clarify applications are still open to all.

The article concludes:

Corporate diversity practices have increasingly been the subject of lawsuits by conservative legal groups. In August, an Atlanta-based investment manager, Fearless Fund, was sued over its grant program for black women. The lawsuit was funded by a nonprofit founded by Edward Blum, the activist behind the Students for Fair Admissions cases that led to the Supreme Court overturning affirmative action.

Separately, a law firm recently removed references to race and sexual orientation in the criteria for its diversity fellowship after it was hit with a lawsuit by Blum’s organization, the American Alliance for Equal Rights.

Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan did not respond to requests for comment.

Let’s get back to what Martin Luther King, Jr., said.

The Massachusetts Senate Race

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Scott Brown, Republican U.S. Senator represent...

Scott Brown, Republican U.S. Senator representing Massachusetts, at a U.S. Senate campaign event on December 31, 2009, in Plymouth Massachusetts (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Senate race in Massachusetts is going to be interesting. Scott Brown took the seat in a special election in 2010 after the death of Senator Kennedy. He was embraced by the Tea Party and traveled the state extensively to win votes. Senator Brown has not voted in line with the wishes of the Tea Party, but has definitely been his own man. I have not always agreed with his votes, but will be voting for him again–he is an honest man, and I believe he is trying to vote in the best interests of Massachusetts and America.

The other candidate for the Senate seat is Elizabeth Warren, currently a law professor at Harvard. Ms. Warren has made a few misstatements in her campaign that may be a problem for her.

Today’s Boston Herald reports:

Despite claiming she never used her Native American heritage when applying for a job, Elizabeth Warren’s campaign admitted last night the Democrat listed her minority status in professional directories for years when she taught at the University of Texas and the University of Pennsylvania.

Other than the fact that the statement calls into question Ms. Warren’s basic honesty, it really is no big deal.

The Herald further reports:

The Herald reported Friday that embattled Harvard Law School officials touted Warren’s Native American heritage — she reportedly has ancestors from the Cherokee and Delaware tribes — as proof of the faculty’s diversity.

The Warren campaign has said the U.S. Senate candidate never allowed Harvard Law to claim her as a minority hire. Warren herself has said she could not “recall” ever listing her Native American background when applying for college or a job.

It really is no big deal whether or not Ms. Warren was hired because of her racial background or not–it is a concern, however, that she feels necessary to lie about it during the campaign.

 

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