Diversity & Inclusion

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The Need for Ethnic and Gender Diversity Among Arbitrators

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The Need for Ethnic and Gender Diversity Among Arbitrators

“I got 99 problems and arbitration panel diversity is one!” This is what famous rapper Jay-Z probably felt like changing his song lyrics to when he experienced, first-hand, the lack of diversity amongst arbitrators in the arbitration system. Jay-Z had a dispute that arose out of a deal previously made, which had a mandatory arbitration agreement forcing parties to settle the dispute in arbitration with the service provider AAA to facilitate the arbitration. When it came time to select 3 arbitrators, out of a 200-name list, only 3 names were considered people of color, and one of them had a conflict of interest making them ineligible to sit on the neutral panel. It is not a true choice if there are not enough diverse arbitrators to choose from and it is important to recognize the possible affect that a lack of diverse arbitrators sitting on a neutral panel can have on a binding decision, which is why tacking the issue of diversity among arbitrators is essential.

How Copyright Law Perpetuates the Lack of Diversity in Comics

How Copyright Law Perpetuates the Lack of Diversity in Comics

In 2015, Marvel Comics announced a revamp of its publishing line dubbed the “All-New, All-Different” Marvel.  The initiative replaced the white, male versions of its longstanding superheroes with members of groups underrepresented in the superhero genre.  The mantle of Captain America passed from Steve Rogers to the African-American Sam Wilson.  The Norse-god Thor was replaced with a female goddess.  Miles Morales—an alternate version of Spider-Man of Afro-Latino heritage introduced several years earlier—received new prominence, and the Korean-American teenager Wolfgang Amadeus Cho supplanted Bruce Banner as the Hulk.  The titular armor of Iron Man now protected a 15-year-old African American girl named Riri Williams.  Just two years later, in 2017, Marvel announced yet another rebranding, known as “Legacy,” that restored most of its characters to their traditional white male identities.  Around the time of that announcement, David Gabriel, one of the company’s vice presidents, explained that comic fans “didn’t want any more diversity…. We saw the sales of any character that was diverse, any character that was new, our female characters, anything that was not a core Marvel character, people were turning their nose up against.”

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Big Tech: Where Did All the Women Go?

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Big Tech: Where Did All the Women Go?

It’s 2019 and you are a new mom who just returned to work at Microsoft; you’ve been working there for the last six years. You see no advancement and no increase in pay or responsibilities in your future. In fact, when you tried to push for a promotion, your manager told you that he did not want to “waste” a promotion on you in case you became pregnant again. You have the same job you have had for the past six years, while your male colleagues who started at the same time are now so far ahead you could never catch up. You have thought about options to advance your career. Finding no solution, you send an email asking your female colleagues for career advice. Imagine your surprise when dozens of women reply to your email sharing their own complaints about repeated discrimination and harassment, which the Human Resources department has ignored. Would it at all surprise you to learn that something very similar actually did happen at Microsoft not too long ago? How did we get here?

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Why Your Next Board Member Should Be a Woman

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Why Your Next Board Member Should Be a Woman

“A woman . . . is not better, wiser, stronger, more creative, or more responsible than a man. Likewise, she is never less.”

Imagine the following: you are sitting, cap in hand, among the selected honor students at your college graduation. You can’t help but think back to four years ago when you made the decision to sacrifice employment to pursue a college education. You then recall the entire summer you spent preparing for the SATs, the countless hours of studying in the library, and the extensive time you devoted to participating in extracurricular activities. Now imagine that after graduation you are offered an interview for your dream job but when you get there, the human resources director tells you “I just can’t hire you, honey, even though you are more than qualified. If I put you on the floor with all those men, I would never get any work done.”