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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.
I was lucky that I had a good manager
- Workplace Unfairness
- Female
- African-American
- Information Technology/Internet
- Education
- Glass Ceiling
- Manager
- Stereotyping
- Stifled Growth
People's experience varied depending on where you were in the agency and how enlightened your manager was. When I first started, I was lucky to have had a good manager. I got treated very well but I knew people in the company who had been there for 20 years and never received a promotion. Their managers thought, "I let you in here and this is as far as you are going." It took extraordinary intervention to change this. There had been suits for discrimination and people who were being discriminated against had nervous breakdowns.