Race Discrimination

“Master of None” and the Freedom to Be Average

Racial disparities on television are nothing new. When I was a child in the late 1980s, I remember having an internal struggle about whether my career of choice would be professional athlete or superhero. I also remember coming to the conclusion that because no superheroes had brown skin, that professional athlete would be the more “realistic” option. Since I wasn’t actually…

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Beyond Seventy-Eight Percent

Sometimes lost in the discussion about the wage gap between male and female workers is the role of race. Though white women earn a mere 78% of what their male counterparts earn in America, the gap is far greater for women of color. African American women earn 64%, American Indian women earn 59%, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders earn 65%, and Latina women…

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Honoring Hong Yen Chang: A Pioneer for a More Inclusive Legal Profession

Recently, the California Supreme Court posthumously granted Hong Yen Chang admission to the California Bar – reversing a 125-year-old decision that denied his application because of his race and national origin. (Read the Court’s decision here; read more about the case here, here, and here.) Chang was born in China and immigrated to the United States in 1872. He graduated from Andover, Yale, and…

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Stepping Out of the Shadows

Last month, my colleague David Tracey discussed some of the benefits of President Obama’s recent executive action on immigration.  He explored how the executive action might help address the challenges confronted by undocumented farmworkers.  As David explained, undocumented female farmworkers are vulnerable to discrimination, harassment, and violence at the hands of male supervisors who count on their victims staying in the shadows…

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Kara Walker’s A Subtlety and The Double Wage Gap

This summer, an estimated 130,000 visitors descended upon an abandoned, soon-to-be-demolished sugar factory in Williamsburg, Brooklyn to take in the latest exhibit by renowned artist-slash-provocateur Kara Walker. Housed in the historic Domino Sugar Refinery, the exhibit was titled “A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby: an Homage to the unpaid and overworked Artisans who have refined our Sweet tastes from the cane fields to…

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50 Years of LGBT Rights Under Title VII

“Gay people are the new barometer for social change.” ~ Bayard Rustin On June 20, 2014, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) hosted Pride at 50: The Civil Rights Act of 1964. Almost 100 people from all walks of life attended the program.  It was truly an inspiring event to participate in. Malihe Kigasari, a leader of EEOC Pride, opened the…

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