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Vote on Desiree Davidson's Story
Were they afraid we were planning a coup d'etat?
I spent my first summer during Columbia Law School at a firm in Philadelphia described as one of the best places in the city for black lawyers. I believed that if there was any place where I would have an equal chance at opportunities, be treated fairly and succeed, this would be it. There were three black female summer associates out of sixty that year but any time all three of us were in an office talking, one of the partners would knock on the door to see how we were doing. It happened too often to be a coincidence that sometimes we would purposely agree to meet in so-and-so's office to test our theory that we were being monitored. Like clock work, ten minutes after we would get together a partner would stop by.
Testing you have to go through
- Workplace Unfairness
- Male
- African-American
- Computers, Hardware
- Left & is now Self-Employed
- Computers, Hardware
- Career Development
- Representation
- Stereotyping
There are three levels of testing you have to go through. I graduated from one of the best engineering schools in the country. People said to me, "Sure, you have a PhD, but can you do real work? How good are you out here in the real world?" So I had to roll up my sleeves and prove my abilities like everybody else. The next level was to prove I could manage. There are so few black people start-up companies. I can go months without seeing other black people in the companies I interface with. Then the last hurdle, people say, "Sure you can engineer, sure you can manage a group, but can you run a company?