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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.
"See, I told you it was a risk to hire her."
There was a time when the highest ranking African American woman at our company was having a really hard time with her manager. Her boss, a white man said to me, "See I told you it was a risk to hire her." I replied by asking whether he remembered a few months back when he had called me about firing a couple of white men in the office. "After that", I said, "you didn't say to me, we ought to be careful about hiring white men." His mouth literally dropped open.