f/k/a archives . . . real opinions & real haiku

. . . K-K-K karma

• My feelings about America are analogous to my relationship to the legal profession:  Because America is my country, and professes such lofty ideals, I expect a lot of its people and institutions.  Despite loving this nation, I’m disappointed by its ugly racial past and its lagging progress in overcoming prejudice and bigotry.   
  
• I say this as a white man, who was five years old when Brown was decided; who comes from urban, “blue collar” America, but never attended public schools (thanks to a paper route and scholarships); who considers himself a liberal-with-common-sense; and who believes that laws and courts can do much to further racial justice.

“Brown is a watershed moment, heralding a fundamental change in the country. . . . Overt oppression would come to an end. Overt white supremacy would come to an end. Civil rights laws long forgotten were resurrected. New civil rights laws were enacted, at the federal and the state level.  . .  For many, the promise of Brown was the promise of a country pulled together rather than apart by race. A country strengthened by its racial diversity. A democracy made healthy. Those promises have been largely unfulfilled.

. . . “Our democracy requires educational proficiency. Our dynamic economy requires educational proficiency. So educational disparities associated with race threaten our democracy and our social and economic well-being.  . . . “That there are remaining problems . . . should challenge us to attend to the unfinished business of Brown. Only by solving those problems can we ensure that our democracy achieves its promise of freedom and equality for everyone.” 

 It was racial bigotry that prevented America from achieving the full benefits of Brown.  The primary manifestation of that prejudice is “white flight”  (described here) – the movement of white families from cities to suburbs, then to exurbs, and now to states with little racial diveristy (the “new white flight“), due to the existence, threat, or influx of “undesirable” racial or ethnic minorities.

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  Obligatory, but Sincere, Disclaimer:  People choose the residence of their families for many reasons, some quite benign, and virtually all to offer their children a “better” life.  When I speak of white flight, I’m referring to a broad demographic experience, and am not impugning the motives of every white person who has moved to a less racially diverse neighborhood or town.  That is especially true for those who do so now, given the structural reality whereby good schools are so often tied to real estate and municipal boundaries.  See  “‘White flight’ label misleading,” (The Detroit News, Luther Keith, 04-11-01):  “the phrase ‘white flight’ has a valid historical basis but is not necessarily the appropriate characterization for all the social forces in play today.”  Also, please be assured that I do not believe that only whites engage in hateful ethnic and racial prejudice (see reference to Eve and Adam, above).

1. As an adolescent, I often heard the anger of parents over the possibility of having children in schools with “them” — and possibly dating them someday!
   
2. I saw the panic and For Sale signs when “they” started buying homes in my blue collar neighborhood; the resentment over any homeowner who would sell to a minority person; and the desperation of fathers who could not afford to move their families
   
3. Many times, I overheard mothers complaining that they chose to go to the newer, but smaller suburban department stores, because there were “too many of them” on the street, on public buses, and in the stores “Downtown”
   
4. As a young man in law school in Cambridge, Mass., I felt the rage of South Boston over school busing [and heard my own brother tell how his “Sicilian Afro” attracted racial slurs and flying bricks, as he walked to a Southie legal aid clinic to perform volunteer legal services]  
   
5. A decade ago, I watched as every homeowner with middle-school aged children (except myself and one other neighbor) moved from our block in a lovely historic district to nearby suburbs.
   
6. Today, I see white, urbanite Senior Citizens working hard to defeat school budgets, because the children in their city’s schools aren’t “ours” and their future somehow not important.
   
7.   Update (05-17-04): Rather than warmly welcoming the first wave of immigrants in decades to our city of Schenectady, NY (which has dwindled from 100,000 to 60,000 in population), many citizens here have been quite cool to the mayor’s “Guyanese strategy” of attracting Guyanese-Americans from NYC, and others directly from Guyana. [Guyana is a former British colonie that borders Venezuela.]   Although the new Guyanese community has spurred revitalization in parts of this nearly-bankrupt City, speaks English, is family- and school-oriented, and is hard-working (rather than welfare-seeking), there is one problem — they are of East Indian ancestry, and therefore Brown Caucasian.  I’ve often heard whites and blacks using ethnic slurs against the Guyanese, and I’ve been told by Guyanese acquaintances that the refusal of neighbors to speak to them and their children has made them consider leaving Schenectady, despite having purchased homes here.

“tinyredcheck”  These attitudes have emptied cities of the middle class, destroying property values and bankrupting cities and starving their school districts (of hope and money).  Few of the best and brightest students choose to enter teaching, and those that do mainly choose suburban school systems.  

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First, interracial contact in American schools and colleges increased markedly over the period, with the most dramatic changes occurring in the previously segregated South.  Second, despite this change, four main factors prevented even larger increases: white reluctance to accept racially mixed schools, the multiplicity of options for avoiding such schools, the willingness of local officials to accommodate the wishes of reluctant whites, and the eventual loss of will on the part of those who had been the strongest protagonists in the push for desegregation. Thus decreases in segregation within districts were partially offset by growing disparities between districts and by selected increases in private school enrollment.

The confluence of millions of individual choices and the politics of non-integration has not merely ruined the cities of the Northeast, Midwest and West, they’ve spawned federal highway programs and tax policies that have nurtured suburban sprawl everywhere.  Car Karma has relocated our society on a new ring of hell.

In an article from The Atlantic Monthly (Reversing White Flight  Oct. 2002), Jonathan Rauch makes two points that ring true to me: 

(1)  “It is simply wrong for rich, predominantly white liberals to insist that poor, predominantly minority children attend dysfunctional and often dangerous schools that rich, predominantly white liberals would never allow their own children to set so much as one foot in. It is callous for rich, predominantly white liberals to continue to tell inner-city parents, year after year, ‘Urban schools must be fixed! Meanwhile, we’re outta here. Good luck.'”

(2) “The tying of schools to houses is a historical accident that has undermined the economic integrity of cities. The tying of liberal loyalties to public-school-employees’ lobbies is a historical accident that has undermined the moral integrity of liberalism.” 

In his paper “White Flight: The Effect of Minority Presence on Post World War II Suburbanization,” Eric Bickford, of University of California-Berkeley, found evidence for the hypothesis that America’s suburbanization was caused in part by the “push” of families from the cities fleeing minorities (rather than merely the attractive “pull” of the suburbs).  Bickford concludes:  

“In the face of increasing fragmentation between neighboring municipalities, [the push hypothesis] provides a framework for understanding the current conflict between cities and suburbs as a function of the underlying reasons for which they exist in the first place. By accepting the idea that elements of racism have played a part in community formation, we understand that we must first address those lingering elements.  Only then can communities trust each other sufficiently to cooperate and tackle the more mundane regional planning problems of transportation, air quality, taxation, and public services”.

Take a look at “No More White Flight: How a school district (Vicksburg, MS) won its parents back” (Time Magazine, May 2, 2000) for some good ideas.  “So how did Vicksburg win its parents back? By giving them both a greater say in which elementary schools their children would attend and a greater hand in shaping the district’s affairs. Perhaps more important, the district confronted its long racial standoff, engaging the black parents and wooing the white parents back into the system.”

Maybe Baby Boomers can regain some of their idealism, and join with their children (in the main, a less-race-conscious generation), and with caring elders to create a political force committed to the ideals of Brown.  Such a coalition must be willing to work outside existing interest-group, party and ideological relationships, and across racial and district lines, to find solutions — with the goal of assuring educational excellence for all our schools and children.  

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  Perhaps, for example, this new coalition will help find and fund government and voluntary programs that match mentors for every parent who wants to better encourage a child and promote academic excellence at home, and match tutors with every student that needs help.  

   Better than feeling guilty over the roadblocks that have stymied the promise of Brown v. Board of Education, whites should feel inspired to remove those roadblocks.  Achieving educational equality and equity has been like a relay race — with the baton passing from generation to generation within each racial and ethnic “team”.  Unfortunately, the “white team” keeps winning due to many advantages denied the other teams (and some dirty tactics).   Maybe we can’t have a “do over,” but we can start to focus on everyone reaching the finish line, rather than on out-pacing or running away from the other teams. 

Afterthought (05-17-04): This morning, I heard an intelligent, interesting interview on integration on WAMC’s Roundtable.  The discussion inspired me to learn more about the book, The Failures of Integration: How Race and Class Are Undermining the American Dream, by Georgetown Law professor Sheryll Cashin, which is described by its publisher here.  

 

I can’t interview Prof. Cashin, but I want to sharesome of ther insights with you.  Cashin believes (as stated in a book excerpt on the npr website, 05-05-04) 

The costs of separatism to whites are enormous, yet they are the ones who are likely to be least conscious of separatism’s insidious effects. Currently, whites are also the segment of the population that is most apt to live a separated existence. Without an altered consciousness on the part of many more whites, I fear, our nation will never be able to transcend the separate an unequal society we have created.

 

Racial and economic separation creates both short- and long-term costs for white people. Admittedly, these costs fall differentially depending on the type of community one lives in. They are borne most heavily by the middle and working classes.

In addition, as noted in a Georgetown Law Press Release  (April 16, 2004):

  Cashin warns that modern segregation – based on both voluntary separation and continued racial discrimination – thwarts citizens’ dreams of living in safe, affordable communities with high-quality educational opportunities for their children.

She argues that public and private institutional policies continue to divide neighborhoods along racial and class lines. In addition, Cashin says, both white and black America have grown to accept de facto segregation – whites because segregation from minorities is often seen as necessary to ensuring better opportunities, and blacks simply from ambivalence to and weariness of integration.

This separation provides unequal opportunities to achieve a quality of life most Americans strive for – the ability to live in communities offering attractive neighborhoods, reasonable tax rates, low crime, good schools, and job opportunities, Cashin writes. Segregation sets up “winner” and “loser” communities, she says, with racial minorities and the poor substantially locked out of the “winner” column (and middle-class whites finding it increasingly harder to stay in).

“tinyredcheck”  I believe Prof. Cashin is absolutely correct: “In a rapidly diversifying America, the only way to stem our drift toward a ‘winner-take-all’ society is to jettison the common assumption that separation is okay,” Cashin says. “Our public policy choices must be premised on an integrationist vision if we are to achieve the dream America says it embraces: full and equal opportunity for all.” (emphasis added).

* Here’s a handful of particularly interesting books about Brown and its aftermath:

Silent Covenants: Brown V. Board of Education and the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial Reform by Derrick Bell

After Brown : The Rise and Retreat of School Desegregation, Charles T. Clotfelter

Brown V Board of Education: Caste, Culture, and the Constitution (Landmark Law Cases and American Society) by Robert J. Cottrol, et al

All Deliberate Speed: Reflections on the First Half-Century of Brown v. Board of Education by Charles J. Ogletree

A Supreme Court judge has sanctioned an attorney $8,500 for frivolous conduct ranging from attempted harassment of his opponents to barking like a dog at a witness during a deposition.

Manhattan Justice Charles E. Ramos said the attorney, David Fink, had made false statements in court and his conduct “raises serious concerns about [his] fitness to practice law.”   [Levine v. Angsten, 604063/00]

As I mentioned yesterday, the notion of time and careers has been on my mind.  The issue was triggered last Wednesday, as I sat in Session #2 of my Civilian Police Academy course at the Schenectady Police Department headquarters (first discussed at this weblog here).  

  Our emcee, Sgt. Patrick W. Morris, was lecturing about School Resource Officers (SROs), who are funded by the federal COPS in Schools Program, and are expected to fulfill a triple role in their assigned school —  enforcing the law, counseling, and teaching.  I was thinking, “doing that job well would take a special personality,” and I asked how the officers were selected for the program.  To my amazement, I was told that all jobs held by patrol officers were filled based on seniority — you bid on the job, and the officer with the longest time in grade would be selected.  The SRO positions were very popular (for one reason, because they were Monday through Friday, day shift). 

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  Unlike tv cop shows, you get to be a detective solely by seniority at the SPD.  Similarly, after promotion to a sergeant or lieutenant (which does take an exam), positions for those officers are chosen by seniority bid.

“The PSO has no staff eligibility criteria. Because all positions in the SPD have historically been assigned by seniority, the PSO Lieutenant position has served as a right of passage for a sergeant moving to the rank of lieutenant, as it is generally the first and only available lieutenant position for an officer newly promoted from the rank of sergeant.  The PSO Lieutenant typically transfers out of the position as soon as another lieutenant position is available. In addition, the new PSO Lieutenant generally comes from a position of sergeant in the patrol division and, therefore, may have no investigatory experience or training. The SPD does not provide pre-service or in-service investigative training for PSO officers.”

  “During our October 2002 tour, we were informed that the command staff and PBA are negotiating the removal of the PSO position from the strict seniority requirement of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement. In this context, we recommend that the SPD develop eligibility criteria for the PSO position, which includes an evaluation of the applicant’s performance, including complaint and disciplinary histories, if any. Such criteria should ensure that only officers with the highest ethical standards serve as investigators. The SPD should take measures to recruit and train PSO officers, including providing additional incentives to encourage officers to apply to and remain with the PSO.”

“The SPD should develop specific criteria for the selection of [Field Training Officers] from the ranks of qualified personnel. The FTO criteria should reflect a candidate’s experience, disciplinary record, and interpersonal skills consistent with the coach/mentor function of an FTO.  During our October tour, we were encouraged to learn that the command staff and the PBA are negotiating the removal ofthe FTO positions from the strict seniority requirement of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement.”

[Editor’s Note:  I don’t believe the recommendations have been successfully implemented, due to the difficulties inherent in collective bargaining with a politically important union.  Enough said.]

Now, my dad was a mail carrier for the USPO, so I knew about bidding on a job, but I shuddered to think about seniority being the tool used to fill positions that take a high degree of skill, discretion, quick thinking, etc.  Prior to law school, I worked at a federal job where the least productive people had been there the longest.  While at the FTC as an attorney, it seemed clear that the percentage of deadwood on a staff was positively correlated with their time at the agency — although that could have been related to an improvement in the pool of incoming lawyers.  (The idea of unionized attorneys scared me silly.)   In my experience, local civil service systems based on seniority also seem to lead, to be diplomatic, to mediocrity.  Caring about public schools, I’ve also watched with interest over the years, the debate over seniority vs. meritocracy for school teachers (as covered, e.g., by Spartacus).

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  Sgt. Morris also informed the class that no performance evaluations take place in the SPD — no annual evals!  When pressed (by me, of course), he noted that no one wanted to put negative stuff down on paper (for one reason, because it’s too easy to get sued).  It appears that the SPD is, however, now working with General Electric experts (we have a few left in town from its heyday as corporate headquarters) to create a performance evaluation tool  We shall see.

In yabutesque style, I voiced concern over seniority as a selection device during the Academy class last week.  Sgt. Morris basicaly replied:  Would you rather have people selected based on who they know or are related to?  By which party they’ve worked for or donated to?  My first reaction was skepticism, but then I thought about how little I trusted the politicos and bureaucrats in this region to fill positions based on merit, and I had to pause.  If you can’t trust that meritocracy will be implemented in good faith and with some precision, is it still preferable to seniority or nepotism?  I certainly don’t know, but your responses would be appreciated.  Life sure is complicated.

-pyj-pyj-pyj-pyj-

Hey, we’re missing our Fool in the Forest this week.  Enough with that insurance stuff, George, the world needs more foolery.

  These reports reminded me of my frustrating search for new legal employment in 1979, only two years out of my top-rated law school.  To my surprise, I was told in a number of nice ways “Gee, you’ve been out of school too long.  There’s no way to fit you in our firm’s structure.”  

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  What a very strange profession, I thought — they can’t even tailor their needs to fit the wonderful opportunity of getting me.  It seems that law firm partners had no people skills [yes, Dennis, there was and is a management training deficit!].  And, junior lawyers lived in fear that someone would take “their” partnership spot.
  
  
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  It seems funny now, but I ended up taking a 50% cut in salary when I did leave the Government briefly in 1980 — neophyte pay, although I was expected to produce like an expert.  Indeed, I had specifically, emphatically told the hiring partner who was wooing me, “I am not a workaholic and won’t become one.”   My first day on the new job, in a new city, the same partner told me, “Since you’re new, you’ll probably have to work seven days a week for the first couple of months.”  I did not stay long, as I was quickly reminded of all the good things about the FTC.  One  Commission colleague-wag noted “You’re the only guy I know who winters in Buffalo and summers in D.C.”

  I have no idea what the next legal hiring trend will be, but I’m fairly certain that there is a lot more flexibility now — a lot more variety — which means that, no matter their career stage, individual lawyers have options.  Firms will always do what they think is in their overall financial interest.  (In the boom years, when corporate clients were happy to pay for new-associate billables, neophytes were cash cows in training.  At a time when clients insist on instant expertise and efficiency, laterals make more sense.)   But, the good news is that firms — from the biggest to the smallest — have very different perspectives on client satisfaction, profit maximization, and growth strategies. 

  These reports reminded me of my frustrating search for new legal employment in 1979, only two years out of my top-rated law school.  To my surprise, I was told in a number of nice ways “Gee, you’ve been out of school too long.  There’s no way to fit you in our firm’s structure.”  

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  What a very strange profession, I thought — they can’t even tailor their needs to fit the wonderful opportunity of getting me.  It seems that law firm partners had no people skills [yes, Dennis, there was and is a management training deficit!].  And, junior lawyers lived in fear that someone would take “their” partnership spot.
  
  
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  It seems funny now, but I ended up taking a 50% cut in salary when I did leave the Government briefly in 1980 — neophyte pay, although I was expected to produce like an expert.  Indeed, I had specifically, emphatically told the hiring partner who was wooing me, “I am not a workaholic and won’t become one.”   My first day on the new job, in a new city, the same partner told me, “Since you’re new, you’ll probably have to work seven days a week for the first couple of months.”  I did not stay long, as I was quickly reminded of all the good things about the FTC.  One  Commission colleague-wag noted “You’re the only guy I know who winters in Buffalo and summers in D.C.”

  I have no idea what the next legal hiring trend will be, but I’m fairly certain that there is a lot more flexibility now — a lot more variety — which means that, no matter their career stage, individual lawyers have options.  Firms will always do what they think is in their overall financial interest.  (In the boom years, when corporate clients were happy to pay for new-associate billables, neophytes were cash cows in training.  At a time when clients insist on instant expertise and efficiency, laterals make more sense.)   But, the good news is that firms — from the biggest to the smallest — have very different perspectives on client satisfaction, profit maximization, and growth strategies. 

  We try not to be too preachy these days, but the conduct of Grant County, WA, public defender Thomas J. Earl is simply shameful.  He was disbarred last week by the Washington State Supreme Court for, among other things, soliciting thousands of dollars each from indigent defendants for work already paid for by the County.  (See law.com NewsWire, Private Billing Public Defender, 05-11-04)

“Earl defended thousands of accused felons in 18 years of public-defense work and previously handled or farmed out all court-appointed work in Grant County Superior Court under a $500,000-a-year contract.  . . .

“By carrying a crushing caseload that eclipsed limits recommended by bar groups, Earl maximized his income while leaving little time for each client. Over the years, his income for public-defense work climbed from $40,000 to $80,000 to six figures. In 2002, he retained about $255,000 after paying other public defenders, The Seattle Times found. “

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  If it took a Seattle Times expose’ to get disciplinary action started, the Washington Bar should be ashamed, too.

I took time off — and stayed pretty light in blogging even today — because James Lileks’ remark about being a “public utility” hit a little close to home. In truth, I’ve been feeling a bit like that for a while. It’s nobody’s fault — if you pass out the free ice cream (another Lileks phrase) regularly, people will tend to line up for it in advance, and even to rattle their spoons against their bowls a bit when it doesn’t appear as scheduled. Nonetheless, it starts to feel like work when that happens. As Tom Sawyer discovered, work consists of whatever a body feels obliged to do.

   I’m trying to treat InstaPundit less like work. That may mean less blogging, or not (I notice that here and elsewhere, forecasts of lighter blogging often turn out to be inaccurate), but I started this because it was fun, and I want to keep it that way, not succumb to blog fatigue, as even Lileks himself notes that blogging can start to feel like a “blogligation,” not a hobby. I don’t want that.

So, anyway, there will either be more blogging, or less, or about the same, in the near future. But I’m going to try to make it feel less like work, regardless.

“Rep. David Simmons, R-Altamonte Springs, said he hopes the Bar and the Florida Supreme Court will address lawyer advertising before the 2005 session, or he expects to reintroduce — and pass — legislation that prohibits lawyers from running ads soliciting clients to file lawsuits.”

 

. . .  “In response to the bill, the Bar Board of Governors, at its April 2 meeting, approved a legislative position that the Bar would support legislation imposing the strictest legislation of attorney advertising consistent with constitutional limitations.”

He noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld regulations that ban in-person solicitation by attorneys. “I don’t believe someone should be able to go in the back door and solicit by advertising when they can’t go in the front door [with direct solicitation],” the representative said. “I think it is inaccurate to suggest the strength of television advertising is less than a person appearing personally.” 

  “In many ways it [his bill] is a shot over the bow, it’s a wake-up call to The Florida Bar and the Florida Supreme Court and attorneys,” Simmons said.

• The danger from not regulating ads is the bad advertisements cause the public to mistrust the legal profession. That creates pressure in the legislature for laws that are ultimately damaging to the profession and the legal system, he said. As an example, Simmons noted that last year’s workers’ compensation changes severely limited the role of attorneys in representing injured workers.  An expected review of PIP insurance cases in the next year or so could produce the same result, Simmons said, and there are also efforts to reduce the participation of plaintiff attorneys in personal injury cases.

“The compelling state interest is we need attorneys involved to represent people who are injured and who have their rights violated, and the way things are headed, there is going to be a significant effort to exclude attorneys from all of these processes . . . .  “I am watching the burning of Rome, and if the attorneys sit around and fiddle, we’re going to see the end of the legal profession the way we know it.”

  Special thanks to Marc Chandler, of Pape & Chandler, for the pointer to this Bar News article. 

Postscript:  Marc Chandler emailed his own (quite interesting) reply to our query about Pape & Chandler and Rep. Simmons (emphasis added):

 

“Rep. Simmons is familiar with my firm’s telephone number as he has been quoted in numerous publications as saying that our phone number led him to propose the subject legislation.  You might be interested to know that the initial iteration of the legislation proposed by Rep. Simmons had as one of its stated goals a reduction in litigation, but incongruously permitted any citizen who saw an “offending” commercial to run to a courthouse and file a lawsuit to claim a $1,000.00 penalty.  That wouldn’t “incite litigation” would it?

Our telephone number has been the subject of two bar complaints.  The first bar complaint was filed in 2001 by the then president-elect of the Florida Bar (who happens to be a plaintiff’s attorney) and it was dismissed immediately.  The second bar complaint was filed by another plaintiff’s attorney who is partners with Willie E. “The Giant Killer” Gary (www.williegary.com) that is currently pending.  We are confident that we will prevail, if not at the trial level, certainly at the appellate level. [update: wow, were we ever wrong: see, e.g., fla. high court puts down Pape & Chandler’s Pit Bull (Nov. 11, 2005);  U.S.Supreme Court rejects PIT-BULL appeal (March 27, 2006)]

I am a Bostonian and pride myself on my ethical conduct in the courtroom and towards my clients.  I have to laugh at the misplaced efforts of the Florida Bar that are done to enhance the image of lawyers in Florida.      

s/ Marc Chandler, Ft. Lauderdale, FL

Note:  As a 3L, Yabut asked his Professional Responsibility professor back in 1975: “If advertising is so bad, why is General Mills more respected by the public than the Attorney General?”  Result: my worse law school grade.