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Letters to the Editor

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

 

California Bar Journal letters must include full name with a daytime telephone number
and complete address. Send letters to cbj@calbar.ca.gov.