Diverse Impressions
Yesterday, I got home and discovered a special edition of American Lawyer in my mailbox. It was the Fall 2007 Student Edition, a special, promotional issue that focused on a survey of 7,300 summer associates that gauged how happy they were with their summer jobs.
There was a piece by Nate Raymond on the status of revised ABA Standard 211, which requires most law schools to increase the diversity of their student bodies.
There was a full-page ad from Perkins Coie that described its newest associates like this: “Nearly One-Third Are Diverse.”
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Question: is it a good idea for Perkins Coie (and other firms) to use Diverse this way?
Sure, it’s an adjective, so the claim is grammatically correct, but it’s meaningless because individuals (unlike groups) cannot be diverse.
Look — a Black, Chinese, Jewish, Lesbian graduate of Harvard Law School may be very rare, but she’s certainly not more diverse than anyone else. Like everyone else, she’s an individual. And she knows it.
What does this very rare law school graduate think of Perkins Coie’s way of discussing diversity, which says that she has lots and lots of it, but most law school graduates (over two-thirds of them) have none?
Better yet — what does the General Counsel of some Fortune 500 company think of this? Is he/she impressed by this play on words?
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Here’s an interesting story about students at top-tier law schools, the Big Law firms they hope to work for, diversity rankings, and unreasonable demands to deny employment opportunities to others based on their ethnicity and sexual preference.
