Diversity & Inclusion

By Rylee Sommers-Flanagan*

History is a collective story. It is selectively written, representing even unintended preferences of its author, and it is selectively understood, transforming as the mind of the reader practices a sort of cognitive dissonance to contextualize it.

*By Julie Zeilinger

 Despite widespread satisfaction over the fact that women now constitute close to 50% of students in medical and law schools, it seems that the glass ceiling is still firmly in tact in the business realm; women currently constitute only 36.3% of students in MBA programs. What’s worse is that this statistic may point to a more serious cultural problem of “gender fatigue,” or the desire to ignore gender-based inequities despite pressing evidence that gender imbalances still exist.

By Josephina Ragon* 

Last week, I waited eagerly on the steps of City Hall to get the latest facts on the status of black women and girls. The Law and Policy Group, Inc. released their 2010 Bi-Annual report to a crowd of fellow non-profits, media, and interested citizens. According to Executive Director and Founder Gloria J. Browne-Marshall, the report gives the public a picture of an “African-American female as a whole person—a snapshot of her life.” This particular study is the only ongoing national report on the current state of black females in the United States.

The research not only covers the challenges faced by black women today, but also their achievements thus far. For example,

By Rylee Sommers-Flanagan*

This post originally appeared on the Health Justice Blog associated with the Health Justice Division of the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest.

July 23, 2009 posted by Hunter McCord*

When we close our eyes and think of a family, most of us will assign to it the image of a different-sex married couple and their children. But when we open our eyes, we immediately notice that families vary in numerous ways—by income, marital status, number/presence of children or partners, etc. Recent studies confirm the diversity of families in the United States (US). Almost 40% of children today are born to unmarried mothers, and nearly 40% of different-sex unmarried households include children. Furthermore, fewer than half of all households in the US are headed by a married couple. It is time to broaden our consideration of what constitutes a family today.

July 24, 2009 posted by Amy Sueyoshi*

This Sunday (July 26) while others will be celebrating National Parent’s Day, I will be honoring my ancestors at the San Francisco Buddhist Temple Obon Festival. Though I have no children of my own, I am, perhaps ironically, the god parent of my Catholic niece and nephew and have played a parental role for my immigrant mother since the day I could speak English. While I recognize the need to honor people who have their own children, I long for a world where we can embrace and respect all types of families and networks of care in which we willingly (but more often unwillingly) become involved.