he Scale +63 MCCA WEIGHS IN ON THE NEWS Teaching Lawyers the Business


Law students spend at least three years and as much as $150,000 for a legal degree yet lack real-world experience when they enter fi rms. For decades clients have essentially underwritten the training of new lawyers, paying as much as $300 an hour for the time of associates learning on the job. T is has helped hasten a historic decline in hiring. T e legal services market has shrunk for three consecutive years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Altogether, the top 250 fi rms—which hired 27 percent of graduates from the top 50 law schools last year—have lost nearly 10,000 jobs since 2008, according to an April survey by T e National Law Journal. T e essential how-to’s of daily practice are a subject many professors know little about. One 2010 study of hiring at top-tier law schools since 2000 found that the median amount of practical experience was one year, and that nearly half of faculty members had never practiced law for a single day. Imagine if the medical fi eld took the same approach. -3


50


Obama Administration to Consider Gay Rights When Allocating Foreign Aid


T e Obama administration is announced a wide-ranging eff ort to use U.S. foreign aid to promote rights for gays and lesbians abroad, including combating attempts by foreign governments to criminalize homosexuality. T e president ordered U.S. agencies to protect vulnerable gay and lesbian refugees and asylum seekers and to use foreign aid to assist gays and lesbians who are facing human rights violations. T is is the fi rst time the U.S. government has used its power to combat human rights abuses against gays and lesbians. T e move is a signifi cant step for ensuring that gays and lesbians are treated equally around the world. T e directive applies to all U.S. agencies involved in foreign aid, assistance and development, including the Departments of State, the Treasury, Defense, and Homeland Security. +2


Alabama Immigration Law Nets Mercedes Executive


A German manager for the automaker, which has a factory in Alabama, was arrested after an offi cer pulled him over because his rental car didn’t have tags. He had his German identifi cation card, but not his passport. Under the new law, police are required to arrest anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally if the suspect can’t produce identifi cation. He was released after a colleague retrieved his passport from his hotel. T e arrest has brought attention to a controversial law that is seen by many as xenophobic and others as a means to uphold the law and protect jobs. -1


Help MCCA weigh the news! Send diversity related news articles to joshshields@mcca.com. THIS ISSUE’S READING: +1 LAST ISSUE: 62 DIVERSITY & THE BAR® JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012 MCCA.COM


“Segregation Academy” Looks to Move Beyond History


Nearly 50 years after it opened as a sanctuary for white students in a county that resisted school desegrega- tion to the very end, the Fuqua School wants to move beyond its historically racist ways. Farmville, Va., popula- tion 8,200, the seat of Prince Edward County, is one of dozens of towns across the South where private schools sprang up in the 1950s and ’60s to serve an all-white clientele after public schools were ordered to desegregate. Prince Edward closed its public schools from 1959 to 1964 rather than com- plying. It was among the last school systems in the country to give up the fi ght. In 1981, school headmaster Robert T. Redd told a historian: “Most blacks simply do not have the ability to do quality schoolwork.” T e school accepted its fi rst African American student in the late 1980s. Fuqua was viewed as a symbol of defi ance to the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling well into the 21st century. In order to shed its image, the school’s president met with Charles Williams, a freshman quarterback for the local “black” high school in 2008. Williams, she thought, would be the perfect black student ambassador to show the town that the school really is moving beyond its past. T ree years later, Williams is captain of the foot- ball team and members of the black community attend games. T e old wounds aren’t healed in Farmville, but old barriers are fi nally falling. +3


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