A recent post at another blog prompts me — once again — to speak directly to those who figure I must be a conservative bigot, given what I’ve written about the diversity efforts of law firms (and law schools).

I see it like this — if it’s wrong to favor a prospective employee (or college student) because he’s a white male, then it’s wrong to favor another because she’s a black female. I see no essential difference: they’re both instances of the sort of discrimination that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was meant to end.

Of course I know the real world isn’t fair, that some are favored just because of their last name, or who their daddy is, or where he went to school, or where he works, or who he knows, etc. But if it’s not right when a white man is the beneficiary of some favoritism, then I don’t see how it’s right when the beneficiary is a black woman.

Yes indeed — the best paid and most powerful lawyers in the U.S. are white men, with few exceptions. And the reason for this is not that white men make better lawyers than black women, or that there’s a greater demand for white, male lawyers than black, female lawyers. It’s because of a longstanding and widespread bias against black women in the legal profession (a bias long exercised by some of the very same firms that now call their commitment to diversity one of their core values).

I know full well that you can’t favor white men for so long and then ban all forms of favoritism and expect that everything will then be fair. As Lyndon Johnson said so well, “You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘you are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.”

I understand that. I also understand this: a gigantic company wants to sell sugar water to everyone, everywhere in the world. To help it achieve that goal, it tells its law firms that they’d better start hiring people who are as varied as everyone everywhere. What can the firms do? With a very limited supply of the most highly valued minority attorneys to choose from, they start competing with one another.

What results is a function of supply and demand. A black, female attorney just minted by Harvard Law School is offered a greater hiring bonus than a white, male attorney just minted from the same school because she’s more valuable than he.

That’s not equal opportunity. It’s just more of the same sort of nonsense the Civil Rights Act was meant to end.

That’s how I see it.

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I began this blog by posing this question — where is the evidence that a heterogeneous group of people is smarter and more creative than a homogeneous group of people? I’ve asked (literally) scores of CDOs at the firms that make this claim for the evidence: they offer none.

I wonder why.

On 17 January, the New York Times ran this story about Aaron Charney, an associate at Sullivan & Cromwell. The big news? Charney did something that few (attorneys) dare do — he filed suit against his employer. The reason? According to the suit, senior partners at the firm harassed Charney because he’s homosexual.

The latest news is that Sullivan & Cromwell is doing what law firms always do in such rare situations. It’s firing back with a countersuit.

If you want to keep up on this, tune into Above the Law, which says it intends to cover this “like nobody’s business.” I’m sure it will. I’m not going to be covering it. I simply can’t afford to.*

I just want to note a few things about this messy affair before I hang up.

1. In his suit, Charney claims that “S & C’s anti-discrimination policy exists only as a matter of form, the policy is effectively unenforceable against S & C partners, and coming forward to report discrimination at S & C results in retaliation.”

2. According to Charney, S & C’s conduct “violates the Statement of Diversity Principles of the Association of hte Bar of the City of New York, to which S & C is a signatory.”

3. In its countersuit, S & C claims that Charney’s charges are no more than “a malicious public relations campaign, the evident purpose of which has been to embarass and denigrate S & C.”

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What I find most intriguing about this messy affair is the jeopardy that Charney has put his career in. Whether or not his charges are true, and whether he prevails in court or not, if he wants to continue practicing law, then his options are few. He could be a public defender, or he could work for some non-profit corporation; or he could start his own firm. Yes! He could start a firm that specializes in fighting discrimination against homosexuals. He could be seen as a hero for a cause. But he’ll never work for a big law firm ever again. That’s for sure.

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* I began this blog with this straightforward question: where’s the evidence for the claim made by so many law firms that a diverse group is smarter and more creative than a uniform group?

It turns out that — as best I can tell — the claim is bogus, and the firms that make it know it. But their most important clients want to hear it, and so it gets repeated, over and over.

Also bogus is the claim made by so many firms that they welcome diversity of thought. They certainly don’t.

I make my bread by providing writing and editing services to law firms, among others. But most big law firms, experience tells me, are quite averse to the diversity of thought they say they so want. In other words, I lost another good opportunity because of this blog.

It’s a financial calculation. If this blog is costing me business, well then . . . I just can’t afford to maintain it.

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BTW: I’ve started a new blog. It’s about law firm publishing, it’s called Set in Style, and it’s not very controversial.

In England, Lord Falconer talks about the need for law firms to reach out to school children in order to achieve a more diverse judiciary that is more representative of society.

Today’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has this story about an upcoming event sponsored by the Mid-Atlantic Black Law Students Association. Local firms are using the event to convince black law students that they should consider starting their career in Pittsburg.

The article quotes Carl Cooper, Kirkpatrick & Lockhart’s chief diversity officer: “Pittsburgh will give you opportunities and you’ll rise faster here because you’re not in stiff competition with kids from Harvard and Columbia who go to Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and the other prime cities most African-Americans go to.”

The article also quotes James Barnes, managing partner of Reed Smith’s Pittsburg office: “There certainly are difficulties being a minority professional in this market,” he said. “The most significant is the lack of others to look to as mentors and role models. That creates obstacles both professionally and socially. But overall Pittsburgh has been a great place to raise a family and is receptive and positive.”

In this press release, King & Spalding announces that Lovita Tandy has been named chair of the firm’s diversity committee. According to the release, “Tandy will be responsible for continuing to improve and implement the firm’s diversity strategies and training, working with minority and female attorneys on specific development and advancement plans, and working with practice group leaders to ensure execution of diversity strategies.”

Also from the release: “Tandy’s practice focuses on traditional labor law, employment discrimination litigation, and employment related contractual disputes.”

Given her background, perhaps she’ll bring an end to the firm’s discriminatory hiring practices. We’ll see.

The Boston Globe has this interview with Jack Cinquegrana, president of the Boston Bar Association. The focus is on diversity, and the discussion is about “attitudes that have to be changed.”

A survey of Am Law 200 firms conducted by Altman Weil and the Minority Corporate Counsel Association indicates that over two-thirds of law firm CDOs now report to their firms’ managing partners. The survey also indicates that 96% of the country’s largest firms now have diversity committees.

Here’s a review of the survey.

Here are the detailed results of the survey.

The University of Michigan has agreed to pay $10,000 each to Jennifer Gratz and Patrick Hamacher, the plaintiffs in Gratz v. Bollinger.

In addition, the University of Michigan announced that it will obey a court order to stop using racial preferences in deciding admissions.

The firm of Polsinelli Shalton Flanigan Suelthaus has announced the inaugural recipients of its diversity scholarship program. Like most law firm scholarship programs, this program is designed to “promote a more diverse legal community.” In other words, Jewish law school students shouldn’t bother applying.

The Career Journal has this special report on diversity hiring practices. None of the articles deals specifically with law firm diversity, but several of the articles might be of particular interest to law firm CDOs.

City Journal has this interesting article about the use of racial preferences in higher education to promote diversity (a practice the author calls “socially engineered racial proportionality”).

It focuses on the University of California, including Berkeley’s Boalt Law School, and on efforts by administrators to get around a provision in the state’s constitution banning racial preferences in higher education.

The article raises several points that advocates of racial preferences in law school admissions are likely to find annoying.

Caution: a quick survey of some of the author’s writings (so many of which deal with race-related matters) suggest that she’s not an ideal rationalist.

King & Spalding has just announced the “inaugural recipients of the annual King & Spalding Diversity Fellowship Program.”

According to the press release, “Each recipient receives a $10,000 stipend and a position this summer with one of King & Spalding’s U.S. offices.” The recipients earn as much as $2,788 per week (a rate of nearly $145,000 per year).

Not only do program recipients receive “hands-on training” during their summer at the firm, they are the candidates of choice for permanent positions with the firm.

According to the firm, the program is closed to most Jews. (However, unlike many other scholarship programs offered by law firms, the program is open to those of mixed-race.)

A violation of federal law? It sure looks that way, given the provisions of Title VII, including this:

It shall be an unlawful employment practice for any employer, labor organization, or joint labor-management committee controlling apprenticeship or other training or retraining, including on-the-job training programs to discriminate against any individual because of his race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in admission to, or employment in, any program established to provide apprenticeship or other training.

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Most of the major law firms that have minority scholarship programs have taken to calling them diversity scholarship programs. Most of these programs no longer explicitly exclude certain people (e.g., Jews) because of who their parents are, and that’s a smart move.

One of the stated goals of King & Spalding’s labor and employment practice is to help their clients avoid claims of reverse discrimination. Given that, it might be wise for the firm to reconsider its own advice, which is this: “We also practice what we preach.”

When it comes to discussing the diversity of their attorneys, law firms have some tendency to conjure up new terms and redefine old ones. Such is the case with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati which recently revised its copy regarding diversity. Here’s a bit of it:

Currently, nearly a third of our partners and half of our associates are women or belong to a racial, ethnic, or gender minority group.

I’m not sure what it means.

This press release has the details.

From the Drunken Housewife:

At the time, I was leading sort of a lame double life: during the days, I put on conservative business suits and went to work at a large law firm, hiding my piercings and tattoos, and during the nights and weekends, Husband 1.0 and I led a funkier, grungier existence, associating mainly with SM friends and going to shooting ranges for recreation.

American Conference on Diversity recently named Michael Rodburg, managing director of Lowenstein Sandler PC, its chairman.

The Providence Business News has this story about the new diversity scholarship program offered by Adler Pollock & Sheehan P.C.

This appears on the application form:

Applicants must be a member of a diverse group: for example African American, American Indian, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander, Gay/Lesbian, or other minority group.

African Americans constitute a diverse group, but European Americans don’t? Heterosexuals aren’t a diverse group? Minorities are diverse, but majorities are not?

The word from the across the pond:

“But what I found so shocking this week was a survey from a law firm, Peninsula, revealing that three out of four British employers have banned conventional Christmas decorations, lest they offend employees of other faiths. Bosses, the report said, are worried that they could be - wait for it - sued if they were to allow displays of Christian joy, but not those of other religions. Can they be serious? If that were not bad enough, the health-and-safety stormtroopers are parking their tanks on our tinsel. Santa’s sleighs need seat-belts, and mince pies must be ‘risk-assessed’ before being handed out to children.”

From today’s Wall Street Journal comes this story about Nathaniel R. Jones:

BLANK ROME LLP (Washington) — Nathaniel R. Jones was appointed chief diversity and inclusion officer, a new position, based in this law firm’s Cincinnati office. Mr. Jones, 80, whose practice concentrates in litigation and dispute resolution, served as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati from 1979 to 2002.

Long Island Business News has an interesting story that mentions former U.S. Attorney Zachary Carter, a partner at Manhattan-based law firm Dorsey & Whitney.

It describes how Cablevision Systems named Carter to its board of directors in October, and how Carter brought something valuable to the board: diversity.

The article discusses the boards of some of the largest companies on Long Island, and it notes that they are mainly composed of white men.