DEIB: enacting an institutional paradigm shift from Access to Success

Summary. Institutional DEIB efforts have traditionally been focused solely on Access, however, it is paramount that we shift our focus from Access to Success instead. In the following, I discuss a basic outline for increasing and monitoring efforts toward improving Success in law schools and law firms, based on a process-driven project management approach.

Introduction. Whether as law professors, attorneys, clerks, or judges, a law degree carries with it a certain societal expectation, for after all, as Archibald MacLeish noted, “the business of the law is to make sense of the confusion of what we call human life - to reduce it to order but at the same time to give it possibility, scope, even dignity”.?

So much of that possibility, scope, and dignity however depends on our achievements in securing diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging within law schools and law firms. While we have made some strides in Access, there is a myriad of other steps we must take on the tenuous path between Access and Success.

Moreover, the syllogistic link between DEIB in law schools and in law firms and a more equitable social-economic ordering is yet to be fully understood and fully realized - it relates to the fullest benefit of agency, which can only be achieved through meaningful representation.

The basic premise seems simple enough and is repeated tirelessly every year in graduation speeches all over our country: law students become lawyers, who become not only custodians of the temple of justice, but also, and equally importantly, agents for individual and corporate rights, and effective counselors within the financial, economic, and fiscal frameworks that both drive or preclude the capacity for us to create and sustain generational wealth.

If the premise holds true, that there is a link between law and social economic ordering, and social justice, then the corollary must also hold true, there can be no equitable or just social economic ordering without representation, without a true commitment to DEIB in Law Schools and in Law Firms.?

For the corollary to remain true, however, an institutional paradigm shift must be enacted, one from negative or superficial inclusion to positive inclusion and belonging, where we take DEIB seriously beyond access, beyond law school admittance cycles, and law firm diversity hiring practices, and also focuses on DEIB throughout law school and throughout the partnership track in law firms.

As mentioned above, we have made strides in access, as I reminded myself listening to Dr. King talking about the marvelous militancy of soul force, and what we have achieved since then. We must, nonetheless, and with the same normative imperative and urgency, institutionalize our values and best practices to make sure that access can lead to success and not remain for far too many, a cruel false promise.?

DEI cannot remain rooted solely in granting access to institutions, celebrated in law school admission or law firm diversity statistics. Admission or access is only the very first and far too tenuous step in achieving success. Access needs to be embraced by belonging to strengthen and make possible the path to success. Anything short of that is, as mentioned above, a cruel false promise, where the pretense of access surreptitiously maintains systemic inequities by keeping the true doors to success closed to those outside of the circles of belonging.?

Enacting Institutional Change through project management.

Whether at law schools or law firms, we need to tackle DEIB as a project management goal, and not merely a cornerstone value. We must rely on project management tools such as tracking and monitoring, to promote and make visible institutional accountability. It must also become a process-driven effort aligned with or incorporated within our internal compliance structures.

More specifically, the shift from DEI and Access to DEIB and Success starts with recognizing success as a measurable goal that academic and professional environments can achieve through tracking and monitoring efforts, initiatives, and concrete tasks,? in three different cumulative processes: admission; retention; and success.

Admission or access in a strict sense allows for a more diverse and representative workplace, but access alone does not combat systemic inequities within work environments that preclude success. Access by itself will never amount to anything more than superficial or negative inclusion. From a legal perspective, access is akin to a negative right, while the processes of “retention” and “success” are akin to positive rights.?

Retention efforts focus on fixing the leaky pipeline problem, by ensuring that once they have been given access, candidates are also given the tools to meet the challenges of systemic inequities. This requires mentoring and encouragement, meaningful support structures, adaptive learning solutions, and representation. Retention efforts do more than level the playing field, they prepare candidates and give them the tools and the skills to compete for success.

Success requires sponsorship and investment from a community. It also relies on internal and external signals from the community that cement recognition of added value, and further potential for success.

DEIB can benefit from a process-driven project management approach. The sooner we recognize this, the sooner we can integrate those efforts within our KPIs and our compliance structures to allow for success. Another way to put this is to ask why should DEIB as a goal be treated differently than any other institutional goal.?

Cybersecurity is an example of an institutional goal that is now at the forefront of everyone’s minds, with communities and companies scrambling to enact “cyber hygiene”, promote situational awareness, and create a?cybersecurity culture. Yet no responsible organization or company is hoping to achieve these goals with messaging alone, they are taking precise process-driven steps within the compliance circle - implementation, training, auditing, enforcement, and communication - to enact systemic change and successful practices. It is intellectually dishonest to expect that we achieve success within DEIB without the same approach. Even within the field of education, the Universal Design for Learning Guidelines recognize the need for the same process-driven approach.

The graphic above is an illustration of some of the processes that would be required to enact a project management approach that shifts DEIB from Access to Success. It is not by any measure a final list, it only hopes to highlight that we can and must do better. Each individual process would have to be clearly defined and achievable, we would have to provide training and guidance for each respective constituent, we would have to measure and assess effectiveness, adapt or reinforce behavior, and communicate our results openly and transparent for institutional accountability.?

On a final note, I would say the following. At CLS’s first DEIB summit, emphasis was placed on certain tensions that might forestall our mission, tensions between pessimism and optimism, and between hope and fear. I would add another tension, that between false promises and faith, more so than hope. I am not talking about Faith, in a denominational sense, but a more universal faith, a shared belief that we are better than this and that we must be better than this. I have faith that we can create truly supportive, inclusive, and compassionate communities that allow each and every one of us to grow and flourish. I have faith that we will choose to no longer be complicit with practices that further systemic inequities, and that deliver false promises. I have that faith because so much of our lives depends on compassion. No one is immune to failure, suffering, accident, or hardship. Success and happiness are hardly ever driven solely by merit and individual effort, they are also driven by nourishment, nurturing environments, opportunities, and the goodwill and compassion of others.