The Diversity Dish: A Weekly Update on Legal Diversity News

Posted by on Friday, February 3, 2012

• 2/3/12 Inside Higher Education reports on alleged bias against Asian applicants in selective college admissions offices.   Students and counselors claim that “Reports have also been growing of Asian-American applicants being so convinced that they will face bias in admissions that they won't check any race/ethnicity box on applications, for fear of hurting their chances.”  The Department of Education is currently investigating a bias complaint from an Asian American student who alleges illegal bias resulted in his rejection from a high selective university. 

• 2.3.12 Loyola University New Orleans College of Law’s Professor Robert Garda spoke about his paper The White Interest in School Diversity last night at the University of Georgia.  Garda contends that diverse classrooms benefit white students and prepare them to live in an increasingly global world.  Read more about the discussion in the Athens Patch and the University of Georgia’s independent paper Red and Black.
  

• 1.31.12 Last week we featured several articles praising New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s judicial nominees.  Critics allege that Christie selected Phillip Kwon and Bruce for purely political reasons and that while diversity should be celebrated the nominees need to be vetted before they're feted.    Read the critics take on Christie’s picks in Philly Burbs.com and The Star Ledger.

• 1.26.12 Finally, Canadian law firm Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg has apologized for running an ad that refers to its associates as “Slavies.”  Reactions to the ad, which appeared in a student paper at Osgoode Hall Law School, were varied with some finding it blatantly offensive and others finding humor in the play on words.  Read more about this blunder in the ABA Journal, Above the Law, and Legal Feeds.