Diversifying the Legal Profession
Black people find themselves severely overrepresented in rates of arrests in the criminal justice system while underrepresented in the legal profession compared to their white counterparts.
The myriad of social, economic, environmental, and political factors negatively impact the lives of Black people and subject them to systemic racism. Brandi Blesset, professor at Rutgers University and Vanessa Littleton, professor at California State University, write in their article, “Examining the Impact of Institutional Racism in Black Residentially Segregated Communities,” for the Ralph Bunche Journal of Public Affairs that these factors result in diminished educational attainment, disparaging health outcomes, limited employment opportunities, and stifled political participation for the Black residents within low-income and predominantly Black communities.[1] These disparities prevent the needed infrastructure to prevent illegal activity leading to arrests and act as a barrier to Black students from graduating schools and working towards being the desperately needed representation.
Because of the inherent privilege their race confers them, White lawyers are virtually unable to fully understand and represent a community that has to endure systems of racism that are embedded in their daily lives. Consequently, it becomes more challenging for Black defendants to receive a fair trial.
Systems of oppression and discrimination have allowed for the criminal justice system to disproportionally see White people in positions of power, while overrepresenting Black communities on the receiving end of the system. Considering that rehabilitative qualities are integral to the criminal justice system, White prosecutors should not be fixated on their conviction rate[2], but rather aim to uphold justice. Current societal factors that allow for inequality in Black communities and encourage White people to dominate the legal field make it difficult to move our society in the right direction, perpetuating an already prevailing systemic racism.
However, the movement towards diversifying the legal profession goes beyond putting factors in place to help Black people. For example, Black people, although suffering the most from these discrepancies, are not the only group in need of more representation. An additional problem of the legal profession rests on the fact that it a male-dominated industry, with women only making up 37% of all licenced attorneys in 2021.
There is still much work to be done before achieving a society that actually practices justice for all, but the first step is to identify and combat the lack of representation for vulnerable communities.
