The highly publicised racial discrimination lawsuit against Troutman Pepper has not only ignited a meaningful discourse on mentorship, feedback, and professionalism, but has also served as a lightning rod for racially charged speculation and social media meandering. For those unfamiliar with the case, an associate, who had previously received no negative reviews, began receiving questionable feedback after changing supervisors – feedback labelled as ‘dehumanizing’ by the plaintiff. This led to the associate’s termination and subsequent filing of a racial discrimination lawsuit (see details here).
This case has become an unfortunate platform for attorney Ted Frank, well known for his controversial statements and practices, to introduce a highly irrelevant topic into the discussion: the LSAT. Using the plaintiff’s law school attendance and its ranking as a pivot, he made a groundless assumption, implying that the plaintiff scored in the lowest quartile of admitted students based on the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) scores at the University of Maryland Law School. More about this university’s admissions statistics can be found here.
Frank’s careless interjection reflects a broader, harmful trend in legal and academic discourse – implicit racial bias. For instance, consider the infamous case of Professor Amy Wax of Penn Law, who has made sweeping public assumptions about the performance of Black law students without access to confidential student grades as evidence. More about her comments can be found here.
Whether discussed directly or implicitly, racially biased speculations and comments distract from the main issue. It is important to remember that in this case, as in many others, the primary focus should be on the accusation of racial discrimination and the related legal proceedings. Allowing the dialogue to deter from the central issue only further complicates matters and exacerbates societal divisions.
For more information regarding this lawsuit, refer to the original article published by ‘Above the Law’ here.