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.
Commitment of Leadership
The only way that I would stay is if the scope of her decision-making were put into a process that could be controlled by the owner.
I was working as in-house counsel in a small investment company in which the President of the company also owned a small stock brokerage firm. Apparently, years before I was hired the President and his "business partner" used the broker-dealer subsidiary to artificially inflate the stock prices of companies in which they had invested.
I was the only African-American in their management team and their fund accounting department. I was doing a wonderful job until a survey was sent out to rate our superiors. It was supposed to be confidential.
I work in a heavily regulated industry - banking. So we always have discrimination meetings. We have an equal lending act that we have to adhere to. So we have to talk about how to discriminate and how not to discriminate.
I know the primary reason I left corporate America was because I wanted to have my own company, but thinking back I remember when I was so astonished by the behavior of some of the people in Corporate America.
My company has 1000 people now. When I started I was the only Arab-American in the whole company. I was the only Muslim in the whole company. They used to call me the "Trophy Arab." Which is probably true.
When my family came to visit from Egypt, my boss was actually very supportive. I got yelled at quite a few times for not taking time off. He'd say, "You have to go take care of your parents. They are only here for a couple of weeks." I said I won't drive them to the airport because my brother-in-law could take him.
When I was at my previous company, I knew there was going to be a huge lay off. I was talking to one of the ladies who was getting laid off and I had to pretend like I didn't know. We were going over things.
I worked five years to get domestic partner benefits. Finally, a newspaper article appeared in our local paper highlighting that a handful of companies offered pet benefits, but not domestic partner benefits.
