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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.
You should go ahead and ride it out for a while
- Workplace Unfairness
- Female
- African-American
- Law Firm
- Considering Leaving
- Personal Response
- Representation
- Uncredited Responsibility
In my current job, one of the partners took me to a business meeting just to get more black people there. Because of that, another attorney said to me, "Well, yeah, you know this particular partner really likes working with you, really likes toting you around. I know it seems like tokenism, but you should go ahead and ride it out for a while." I'm not riding out tokenism, as far as I am concerned and if I am going to be riding out tokenism you have to pay me for that too. You get something if you are bringing me around to all these places so that you can show that you have an African American attorney. If you get something out of it, I should get paid for it.