February 25, 2021 | less than a minute read

Auditing the Inclusion Tax - Systematic Racism in the Legal Profession

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Matthew T. Simpson

Member / Co-Chair, Private Equity Practice

Get in touch

Matthew T. Simpson

Member / Co-Chair, Private Equity Practice

Its annual performance review season at our firm and as I take intentional steps to counteract my own implicit biases when writing reviews, I was drawn to this article featuring my good friend Dr. Tsedale Melaku, in which she identifies what she calls an #Inclusiontax - additional "taxes" that black women pay to be included and accepted in the legal profession. There is so much work to be done to break down the barriers facing black women lawyers and I am grateful to Tsedale and the other women in this article that highlight these issues and are leading an unfortunately slow, but hopefully impactful, change in our profession.

Sociologist Tsedale Melaku says this is one reason Black women get discouraged from law... Instead of being respected as equals or championed, they face pressure to conform to dominant white male perspectives....Black women end up doing more uncompensated work, she adds, staying late at the office, and ignoring their social and family lives more than their white counterparts to fight stereotypes.