Shame, Shame, Tsk, Tsk
Why on earth would you think an article on how the bar is
becoming less white and less male would be appropriate? Do you ever think
before you publish? Why is ethnicity important? Why is the sex of our members
important? Is there a bit of empirical PROOF that diversity improves the
quality of attorneys statewide? Would you publish an article excitedly
proclaiming that the bar has fewer African Americans in it? That change
is coming "slowly," as if it should be happening faster? Of
course you would not and you should not. These kinds of articles have no place
in a mandatory, statewide organization that licenses attorneys. Shame on you.
Edward R. Leonard
Orange
Unconstitutional class warfare
As a
traditional heterosexual white male --- who has been married to a
traditional heterosexual black female for roughly thirty years --- and who was best man when my
best friend married his boyfriend in San Francisco in 1988 --- I far more than simply abhor the
State Bar of California's knowing, willing and intentional active participation
in the patently unconstitutional war against my expressly targeted class.
Bradford
William Yules
Humble, Texas
No plans to become unwhite or unmale
I now read that a recent survey of "randomly
selected lawyers" in our State reveals that "the vast majority of
attorneys in the State remain (!) male and white. . . ." Exclamation added.
All right-thinking members of the Bar oppose
discrimination based on race, religion, national origin, or sex, even those who
may have only observed, but not directly participated in, the civil rights
struggles of the 1950s and 1960s. I realize that this moral conviction
now places me on the right side of the political continuum, but I am sure that
my generation is not the first to observe that type of philosophical shift
beneath one's feet.
And, acknowledging the imbedded and rooted pernicious
effects of even long-ago discrimination, we do recognize the moral imperative
to not only eliminate any residual racial discrimination but also to make sure
that all of our fellow Americans understand that any barriers not based on
present merit have been removed.
Otherwise, I must report, probably without the desired
level of regret or self-flagellation, that I have no present plans to become
unwhite or unmale, at least for the foreseeable future.
Steven Schnier
San Francisco
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