Diversity efforts in independent schools.

• Author: Brosnan, Michael
• Position: Law schools; law firm partnerships

INTRODUCTION

A recent New York Times (1) article points out the sluggish speed at which leading law firms promote "minority" lawyers to partner. Even as law schools graduate higher percentages of people of color, (2) few end up on partner lists. (3) No hard data explains why young lawyers of color join or leave firms. Yet it is clear that shortly after most of them come, they go. The Times article relies on anecdotal information. Some commentators say firms do not promote lawyers of color because they do not bring in significant business. Others say lawyers of color lack access to mentors or advocates who could give them the visibility necessary to make partner. Apparently, many lawyers of color find life as government attorneys or in-house counsel more hospitable. One African-American lawyer described her outlook as follows "As a black female associate, I'm less willing to ride it out because I don't feel confident that there's a light at the end of the tunnel." (4) The article does not suggest overt racism at firms. (5) To the contrary, firms say they want to promote more minority lawyers and are genuinely frustrated at their lack of success. (6)

My father worked in a Wall Street firm for most of his adult life. He was a successful trusts and estates lawyer with Winthrop, Stimson, Putnam, and Roberts. (7) His rise in the firm, however, was a sluggish and frustrating journey. My father struggled not because of his abilities, but because of who he was: an Irish-Catholic who attended Fordham Law School at night. Wrong heritage, wrong religion, wrong law school, wrong time of day. The average attorney makes partner in eight years. It took my father twenty-four years. He was hired in 1937, did more than his fair share of grunt work, and became a partner in 1961. Were my father around today, he could surely offer insight into why law firms struggle in diversifying their partnerships.

Michael Sterlacci, a long-time Winthrop, Stimson partner, says my father, who died in 1981, was the first night student and first Irish-Catholic to make partner at the firm. (8) "It was a very WASPy firm back then," Sterlacci says, "If you were not from Harvard, Yale, or Columbia--but mostly Harvard and Yale--you were unlikely to make partner." Sterlacci says my father was finally given a break because, at the time he was hired, the firm had an "absolute need" for a trusts and estates lawyer. Not surprisingly, except, perhaps, to some old-school partners, my father turned out to be a good lawyer--"a good people person," according to Sterlacci--who paved the way for others in Winthrop who did not fit the white shoe profile. "He paved the way for guys like me," says Sterlacci, the first Italian-Catholic partner at the firm. "He was like Jackie Robinson. He was the guy who opened their eyes. He came in without a chip on his shoulder, and he got the work done."

Of course, my father was not Jackie Robinson. He was white. Although the Irish in America were routinely discriminated against in the early 1900s, they had, for the most part, dissolved into whiteness by the 1960s. (9) My father also benefited from being male. When it comes to diversity, many high-end institutions--including those in education, politics, and media--have been slow to change and reluctant to promote people who do not fit a certain profile. (10) They are cautious institutions reflecting the broader culture of power. The first female lawyer to make partner at Winthrop Stimpson did not do so until the 1970s. Because of her, the firm had to stop holding partner lunches at The Old Man's Club, where women were taboo. (11) The first African-American to make partner did not do so until the 1990s.

Independent schools are wrestling with the same concerns as law firms. They are trying to diversify their teaching staffs and student bodies, but are having limited success. Some schools "get it," but many do not. An estimated twenty-five percent of independent schools in the nation have few, if any, teachers of color, and most have a fairly low percentage of students of color. (12)

In many ways, independent schools are not unlike top law firms. In fact, many lawyers attend independent schools before going on to Harvard or Yale. They are elite institutions, primarily supported by tuition and charitable contributions, rather than by tax or church funds, and have a history of attracting children of the upper class. To their credit, independent schools have always aimed, not only to attain academic excellence, but also to shape moral character. Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, (13) for example, has educated students for over two centuries according to the teachings of its original founder, Dr. John Phillips. In 1781, Phillips made clear that shaping character was integral to the school's mission:

Above all, it is expected that the attention of instructors to the disposition of the minds and morals of the youth under their charge will exceed every other care; well considering that though goodness without knowledge is weak and feeble, yet knowledge without goodness is dangerous, and that both united form the noblest character, and lay the surest foundation of usefulness to mankind. (14) Most independent schools have mission statements similar to Exeter's creed. (15) Updated statements of older schools and statements of new schools speak more directly of inclusivity, making use of words like "diversity" or "multicultural." Beaver Country Day School, a progressive independent school in the Boston suburbs, (16) revamped its mission statement to state the following: "All who work and study here participate in the development of ethical standards, mutual respect, and personal responsibility. As a multicultural community, we value and support diversity as essential to our school culture. At Beaver, students prepare themselves to be actively involved citizens in the world." (17)

Along with academic preparation, independent schools have long considered training in character and citizenship key ingredients of a good education. In recent years, independent schools have begun committing themselves to diversity. Schools are recruiting more students and teachers of color and have transformed their curriculums to better address race, gender, class, religion, and sexual orientation. The desire to diversify is born of a tradition of service viewed through a modern lens--the same lens law firms use to inspect their own commitment to diversity. Howard Gardner's work on multiple intelligences (18) and the work of other researchers on gender (19) is even leading schools to consider learning styles more carefully. Some schools feel they are making great strides in diversifying their curriculum. Others do not, although they are committed to the process and hope for better results in the near future. As the dean of faculty at The Winsor School in Boston says, "Progress with diversity is so slow and maddening sometimes." (20)

I. A LITTLE HISTORY ON THE MORAL IMPERATIVE FOR CHANCE

If the press and general public take potshots at independent schools for being socially exclusive, one can understand why. In his book, Lessons from Privilege: The American Prep School Tradition, Arthur Powell delves deep into the historical exclusivity of these schools, tracing it back to the 1930s when "prep schools assumed that homogeneous communities were major assets." (21) By mid-century, Powell notes,

alongside a cultural elitism irrelevant and uninteresting to most Americans lurked a social exclusivity very easy to dislike. Prep schools opened their doors to desirable student groups and closed their doors to others. In the eyes of critics such as C. Wright Mills ... exclusive prep schools were agents in a conspiracy of the already privileged to perpetuate their privilege forever. (22) Traditional independent schools of the Northeast excluded students based on their race and religion. (23) In the South, in reaction to mandated public school desegregation following Brown v. Board of Education, (24) many independent schools were founded for the exclusive education of white children. (25)

This history of discrimination is part of the fuel driving morally guided change in independent schools and is leading them to debate the public purpose of private schools--to consider their own role in supporting a dominant white culture. Today most independent schools are questioning their exclusive nature and embracing diversity and greater connection to the community at large. Still, as Art Powell notes, "Near the century's end most were perhaps more apt to celebrate diversity than to attain it." (26) The road to equity and justice is a bumpy one for independent schools, many trying awkwardly to change their student bodies without changing their essential nature.

Because diversification is difficult, the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), which represents more than 1100 schools nationally, decided to make diversity efforts a priority in the 1980s. It founded an office of diversity and established an annual People of Color Conference. (27) NAIS also established an office of gender equity to focus attention on school practices that treat women and girls unjustly. (28) In the 1990s, it added to its list of principles of good practice for member schools a set of "Principles of Good Practice for Equity and Justice," (29) which quickly became overarching maxims for school operations. Regional and state associations of independent schools now acknowledge the importance of this work, holding diversity workshops and connecting, when possible, with the national association. Speakers addressing diversity issues have tended to draw large audiences at recent NAIS annual conferences. The talk is rich, as schools peel back layers of unintended bias not even acknowledged a decade ago.

Diversification efforts are even spilling over campus boundaries. As Al Adams, head of Lick-Wilmerding School in San Francisco, (30)...