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.
Education
I had taken a graduate level engineering course at an Ivy League school and I went in to ask the professor a question. Now, I have an undergraduate major in physics and a minor in math. It wasn't like I didn't know what I was doing.
I had another African-American friend in the class. We had to compare our problem sets and tests with other students to make sure they were graded fairly. They weren't. We had the same problems, the s
