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Being White Most of My Life: Pondering NASJE’s Commitment to Diversity
by Thomas Nelson Langhorne, Esq., NASJE Past President

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the view of NASJE or any of its committees.

I’ve been white most of my life.

My “whiteness” was suddenly and uncomfortably transformed when unexpected recent events crashed my cultural consciousness. The sudden succession of losing several family members within eighteen months led to my inadvertent discovery of closely held family secrets: My Floridian Grand Mother was Cherokee. Some of my cousins were “Oh My God — Black.”

Why had no one told me of Katie Missouri Lightfoot?

And how in the heck didn’t I know of Barry, among others, who surprised me at my front door’s threshold. It seems “cousin” Barry was researching his family tree. Except for his dark skin and tight, wavy black hair, we were eerily similar in build and stature (or lack thereof, which Barry would later refer to as the “Langhorne Curse”).

Barry’s green eyes were mine. 

My face must have instantly screamed, “Are you sure you have the right Langhorne?” Yes, he assured me as his genealogical records placed on my kitchen table soon proved.

Those and other recent life events irrevocably altered the lens through which I view my cultural “connectedness.”  Perhaps it was those events that prompted me to critically re-examine my commitment to advancing “diversity” within NASJE’s membership specifically and, within our states’ courts, generally. 

What Is NASJE’s Commitment to Diversity?

I recently asked the following three questions of myself: (Ask yourself what your honest answers to the following questions would be?)

1. Why should NASJE care about diversity and/or why does this issue fall within judicial educators’ professional charge?
2. What concrete steps have I, or NASJE, actually taken to advance our association’s diversity and to value diversity within our state courts?
3. What additional, practical efforts might I/we undertake and how might we measure those  efforts’ positive outcomes?

Why Should NASJE’s Members Care?

In my attempt to answer the foregoing three questions, I first reminded myself that NASJE does not operate in an organizational vacuum. Most of NASJE’s membership reports directly to their respective Administrative Officer of the Court or to their Chief Justice.  Accordingly, we might want to first examine the relevant actions COSCA/CCJ have taken. Specifically, in 2006 COSCA/CCJ passed the following Resolution:

WHEREAS, this project will produce a national compilation of promising practices to achieve racial and ethnic fairness in four key areas:

• Diverse and representative state judicial workforces and juries
• Fair and unbiased behaviors on the part of judges, court staff, and others in court interactions
• Comprehensive, system-wide improvements in racial and ethnic fairness through inter-branch and inter-agency dialogue and action, including elimination of inappropriate racial and ethnic disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice systems
• The availability of timely and high-quality court interpretation services to non-English speaking persons, and of legal services, especially to recent immigrants.

Setting aside appeals to our higher personal callings, for the most jaded of us, the above COSCA/CCJ resolution, alone, sufficiently answers, “Why should judicial educators care?”.

On a more pragmatic note, Tom R. Tyler’s compelling research into why people obey the law conclusively instructs us as to why we must care about improving diversity in our court systems.

Tyler interviewed thousands of people who had interactions with police and their local courts. His research concludes that we obey the law, even when the judicial outcomes are contrary to our personal interest, when we can see that the process leading to the outcomes was fair. A critical factor shaping citizens’ conclusions that processes are fair is whether one feels he/she  had equal access to the process and was treated with dignity and fairness, regardless of race or economic station.

As a corollary, one might come to believe the judicial process was fair if those with whom it interacted reflected the community’s demographic. 

Please also recall the latest public confidence in courts research. Those findings clearly indicated that people of color have far less confidence than whites that they will be treated fairly by the courts. Unfortunately, to state the obvious, one’s access to “fair” justice is all too often determined by one’s economic status. Equally unfortunate, one’s economic status in America is greatly influenced by factors including race and ethnicity.

What concrete steps have I, or NASJE, actually taken to advance our association’s diversity and to value diversity within our state courts?

Having answered the first question as to why we should care, what concrete steps have we actually taken to advance increased diversity in our association and in our state courts?

NASJE specifically expressed its formal commitment to valuing diversity both within our organization and within our state courts long before the above COSCA/CCJ resolution was adopted. Specifically, NASJE’s Principles and Standards emphasize our commitment to “…preserve(ing) the judicial system’s fairness, integrity and impartiality by eliminating bias and prejudice, improving access to the justice system,” and “enhance(ing) public trust and confidence in the judicial branch.”

Moreover, as a member of NASJE’s diversity committee, I greatly appreciate the commitment of our governing board and education committe to integrating diversity themes into our recent annual conferences’ curricula. And yes, NASJE should be lauded for forming and rigorously supporting a standing diversity committee. Significantly, NASJE’s appointed liaison to the National Center for State Court’s project on race and fairness in state courts maintains an active, visible and valuable involvement.

The above actions represent no small commitment on NASJE’s behalf. I have no doubt there was and still is a genuine commitment to diversifying our membership and to maintaining a fair and just judiciary. So, given the foregoing, we must necessarily ask the unavoidable, inescapably obvious question:

Why, according to the last two surveys of NASJE’s membership, are virtually all judicial branch education directors and deputy directors white? Shouldn’t that fact alone, cause you to query whether more work remains to be done? I also ask you to collectively ponder why NASJE has not equally embraced a similar, formally declared principles and standards regarding sexual orientation and disabilities?  Moreover, have we taken sufficiently concrete steps to diversify our court staffs so that they more accurately reflect our communities’ racial and ethnic composition?

Those questions lead us to the third question: How might we better advance notions of diversity in our courts and how might we measure the outcomes of those future efforts?

As an association dedicated to improving the administration of justice and each of us as judicial educators, we can immediately take some simple, straightforward, concrete steps. Let’s begin by again reviewing the COSCA/CCJ resolution’s key areas for achieving racial and ethnic fairness in our courts: 

Key Area One: Achieve diverse and representative state judicial workforces and juries

First, we can publish our state court position vacancies in our local ”minority-owned” newspapers. For your convenience, please go to this hyper-linked website for a list of historically black, Hispanic and other “minority-owned” newspapers in your locality: http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/.

Secondly, we can reach out to our respective states’ historically black colleges not only by merely attending job fairs, but by developing relationships with their placement directors. (See the US Department of Education website  for a list of historically black colleges.) Doing these two simple steps visibly demonstrates your state courts meaningful determination to be inclusive in your outreach and hiring policies.  

Key Areas Two and Three: Achieve fair and unbiased behaviors on the part of judges, court staff, and others in court interactions: (Institute) comprehensive, system-wide improvements in racial and ethnic fairness through inter-branch and inter-agency dialogue and action, including elimination of inappropriate racial and ethnic disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice systems.

First, familiarize yourself with the NCSC’s project devoted to achieving racial and ethnic fairness in our state courts.

The NCSC’s Racial and Ethnic Fairness Initiative was established to identify and create knowledge and practices that assist courts in implementing strategies that promote race and ethnic fairness in the courts themselves and in the justice system overall. The Race and Ethnic Fairness Initiative hopes to enhance the value of what was learned through previous state and national efforts, such as the Position Paper on State Courts’ Responsibility to Address Issues of Racial and Ethnic Fairness to promote fairness in the courts and generate new knowledge and strategies that can be applied in pursuit of the agendas of state courts.

The Initiative provides the following services: 1) makes readily accessible the findings and recommendations of the various state task forces and commissions on race and ethnic fairness in the courts, and monitors progress reported by the states; 2) develops relevant educational materials for National Center constituency associations/groups; 3) serves as a resource to state court customers on questions relating to racial and ethnic fairness matters in the state courts. (This language was taken from the NCSC’s Web site devoted to this project. See http://www.ncsconline.org/D_Research/ref/.)

Log onto: http://www.ncsconline.org/D_Research/ref/  and familiarize yourself with the names of your state representatives serving this project. Call them and ask what you can do. Examine, again conveniently on-line, some of that program’s promising initiatives and resource.

Secondly, revisit NCSC’s on-line CourTools, which exquisitely details methodologies for gathering external feedback as to how a court is performing in this vital area. It provides “one stop shopping” for those looking for pre-packaged methods for gathering quantitative and qualitative measures of courts’ performance.

Visit or consult with OJJDP’s  search engine friendly Web site that describes promising practices for ameliorating the disproportionate representation of minority youth in secure confinement. See ttp://www.dsgonline.com/mpg2.5/mpg_index.htm.

Contact SJI and ask for the electronic copy of John Martin’s “Guidebook for Becoming a Culturally Competent Court”. This is a “must read” how to do it guidebook that walks you through basic steps courts can take.

Lastly, attend the 2008 NASJE conference in Philadelphia. We will be examining some of these and other related issues not only from an aspirational viewpoint, but from a concrete, practical one.

Key Area Four: (Make available) timely and high-quality court interpretation services to non-English speaking persons, and of legal services, especially to recent immigrants.

Start by using NASJE’s home page search engine for related articles and resources and past conference presentations. Follow up by making a quick call to states who lead the way in certifying court interpreters such as Virginia, Arizona and others.

Conclusion
This article intended to demonstrate that we have a vested interest, as professionals and citizens, in advancing diversity in our association and in our state courts. All of the above resources and references are quickly accessed and easy to use. After reviewing this article, pass it and its resource references to at least one person in your organization who has formal hiring and/or public outreach responsibilities. Lastly, and most importantly, I sincerely hope this article personally demonstrates that each of us is truly connected to one another. That’s why we really should care.