A Word to the Wise

So what does the practice of employment law have to do with the jail scene in “Mockingbird?” It seems to me that the employment setting has become, to a remarkable degree, a kind of civics classroom in which our citizenry is introduced to and schooled in the promise of a diverse people living in harmony. Anti-harassment policies, diversity goals, EEO training are all classes in the curriculum of an enlightened citizenry. The unenlightened often cross our path on the road to their biased actions in the workplace.

Many of us hold out Atticus Finch as the ideal we strive to meet in our professional lives, an honest man, a lawyer striving to carry out the promise of equality and justice through his work. I would argue that on a daily basis we come closer than most of our colleagues in the law to meeting the ideal of furthering the cause of justice and equality through our work. I am not gloating, but merely stating a fact.

I would like to think that right alongside the Atticus in us there is a little bit of Scout. We personalize ignorance and discrimination in the workplace as part of our daily practice. Bias is not some abstract notion for philosophers to debate, but the means by which the rights of employees are denied and the most effective use of an employer's human resources are impeded. Where others see mobs, employment lawyers, on both sides of the aisle, see individuals with names whose actions we put to a civil rights litmus test.

“Hey, Mr. Cunningham!” we shout out, admittedly not outside an Alabama jail, but in our own ways. We do so every time we educate employees of their rights and employers of their responsibilities under the civil rights laws, or draft an EEO policy, or conduct harassment training. And by doing so, hopefully we succeed in our own small way to remind the modern-day Mr. Cunninghams of our shared humanity and, in doing so, to guard vigilantly the promise of diversity and justice in the workplace against their enemies.

Alfred G. Feliu is a partner in the firm of Vandenberg & Feliu, LLP, New York, and is Editor-in-Chief of this publication.

You remember the scene in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Attorney Atticus Finch is reading outside the jail the evening before the trial of Tom Robinson is about to begin. The mindless mob arrives to have its own kind of justice meted out — at that time and in that place — to Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman. The mob is made up of otherwise hard-working, God-fearing, respectable townsfolk struggling to survive in a small Alabama town during the Depresssion. A mob of simple souls acting out in accordance with the mores of a racist society.

The mob asks Finch to step aside. He refuses. The standoff is about to take an ugly turn when Finch's children, Scout and Jem, come forward with their friend Dill. Atticus urges them to leave. They resist. Then, Scout notices the father of a classmate, Walter Cunningham, with whom she has had more than one run-in. She calls out, “Hey, Mr. Cunningham!” At that instant, the mob is no more. It has a face — the collective faces of the individual town folk. Scout, receiving no reply, says “Don't you remember me, Mr. Cunningham? I'm Jean Louise Finch. You brought us some hickory nuts one time, remember? … I go to school with Walter … He's your boy, ain't he? … We brought him home for dinner one time. Maybe he told you about me, I beat him up one time but he was real nice about it. Tell him hey for me, won't you?” After a pause, Mr. Cunningham replies “I'll tell him you said hey, little lady.” He then leads the mob away.

New York in 2003 is not Alabama in the 1930s. Race relations have improved greatly and diversity has just recently been sanctioned by the United States Supreme Court as a goal worthy of legal protection. Some battles have been fought and won, but the war against bias and ignorance continues. Racism in our society may be less virulent perhaps than was the case in Atticus Finch's time, but it is no less a scar on the face of civil liberty in a free society.

So what does the practice of employment law have to do with the jail scene in “Mockingbird?” It seems to me that the employment setting has become, to a remarkable degree, a kind of civics classroom in which our citizenry is introduced to and schooled in the promise of a diverse people living in harmony. Anti-harassment policies, diversity goals, EEO training are all classes in the curriculum of an enlightened citizenry. The unenlightened often cross our path on the road to their biased actions in the workplace.

Many of us hold out Atticus Finch as the ideal we strive to meet in our professional lives, an honest man, a lawyer striving to carry out the promise of equality and justice through his work. I would argue that on a daily basis we come closer than most of our colleagues in the law to meeting the ideal of furthering the cause of justice and equality through our work. I am not gloating, but merely stating a fact.

I would like to think that right alongside the Atticus in us there is a little bit of Scout. We personalize ignorance and discrimination in the workplace as part of our daily practice. Bias is not some abstract notion for philosophers to debate, but the means by which the rights of employees are denied and the most effective use of an employer's human resources are impeded. Where others see mobs, employment lawyers, on both sides of the aisle, see individuals with names whose actions we put to a civil rights litmus test.

“Hey, Mr. Cunningham!” we shout out, admittedly not outside an Alabama jail, but in our own ways. We do so every time we educate employees of their rights and employers of their responsibilities under the civil rights laws, or draft an EEO policy, or conduct harassment training. And by doing so, hopefully we succeed in our own small way to remind the modern-day Mr. Cunninghams of our shared humanity and, in doing so, to guard vigilantly the promise of diversity and justice in the workplace against their enemies.

Alfred G. Feliu is a partner in the firm of Vandenberg & Feliu, LLP, New York, and is Editor-in-Chief of this publication.