What I Learned About Inclusion and Why It Matters

WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT INCLUSION AND WHY IT MATTERS By: George Underwood

Executive Director, Office of Equity & Compliance Pellissippi State Community College

KBA, DEI INCLUDES “THE BENCH”

Happy Black History month! Since February is Black History month, I thought this would be a great time to celebrate all the black1 judges we have had in Knoxville and Knox County. Okay, celebration over. It didn’t take long because there have been none. Adding irony is the fact that the first federal court judge in America who was African American (William H. Hastie2) was from Knoxville but became a judge elsewhere. Others have taken that same path (leaving Knoxville and becoming a judge elsewhere).

Here is our Black History story. The Knoxville Bar Association (KBA) (aka Bar herein) was founded in 1972. There were no African American judges and had never been any at the time. After our founding, we in effect began purposeful Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts to include blacks and other lawyers of color by creating a committee with the designed purpose of improving the inclusion of marginalized groups on all levels of our profession locally. The committee has changed names over the years. However, its DEI mission has remained the same.

In 1992, the “Women & Minorities in the Law Committee” was created by our Board of Governors. There were no black judges. The first leaders of that committee were: Bridget Bailey, Hugh Bright, Debbie Stevens, Natasha Metcalf and Clarence Risen. In 1997, the Board of Governors voted to split that committee into two separate committees. The DEI section became the “Minorities Opportunities Committee.” There were no black judges. In 2015, the name of the committee was changed to “Diversity in the Profession.” (DPC) That remains the name of the committee in 2023. There are no black judges. Throughout this same time period there have been black judges in Memphis, Nashville, and Chattanooga,3 which is smaller in population than Knoxville.

Since the formation of that first KBA inclusion committee, numerous qualified lawyers who are black applied to become judges in Knox County: through election and through appointment; state court judgeships and federal court judgeships; at the trial court level and at the appellate court level; in the criminal court and in the civil court.

Fifty years since our founding, we have failed in this area, thus far. There are still no black judges and have never been any in Knoxville or Knox County.

KBA, DEI includes ‘The Bench.’

Is it time for our Board of Governors to strengthen our efforts with a more accountable long-term strategic plan4 to make the Bench more inclusive just as members from our Bar have slowly (emphasis added) done in other areas? Important progress has been made in Knox County over the past 50 years increasing opportunities for minorities in the areas of law reviews, clerkships, lawyers of color in firms5, and local magistrates (i.e., Juvenile Court and General Sessions Court6).

Imagine an amended and updated strategic plan led by the Judicial, Access To Justice, and Diversity in the Profession Committees (including the Barristers) in collaboration with the KBA Executive Director’s Office along with the Board of Governors, which would coordinate the efforts of KBA’s 26 aggregate Official Committees with strategies, target goals, benchmarks, data point trajectories, and metrics like having an aspiring percentage of the “The Bench” in Knox County having qualified lawyers of color (black & brown) serving as judges within five to ten year timetable benchmark goals. These percentage goals could mirror the most current census7 data which document the steadily increasing demographics of Knoxville & Knox County black & brown populations. It could be an intentional strategic plan with built in accountability requiring Bar sanctioned ongoing available incentivized trainings, programming & seminars, quarterly progress reporting and mandatory annual reporting to the entire bar, which would be posted on the KBA website. An example of an easy and meaningful target goal that could be included in the current KBA Strategic Inclusion Plan would be to build on Sixth Circuit Justice Bernice B. Donald’s 2021 presentation8 to the Bar about Implicit Bias. There are many meaningful implicit bias training modules available–some as convenient as only 15 minutes. A strategic plan goal could be to require all (emphasis) KBA and Barristers officers, committee chairs and co-chairs to complete9 an implicit bias module chosen by the Board of Governors with guidance from the DPC before10 they can commence meeting with the committees they have been appointed to chair or co-chair. This would be an annual training requirement. The implicit bias module could also be made available to all members of all committees and to the Bar as a whole. They would not be required to complete the implicit bias training in order to serve. However, they would be strongly encouraged11 to do so in support of DEI being a core value of the KBA Strategic Inclusion Plan.

Other members probably have different ideas regarding new approaches and that’s fine too. Those need to be heard and considered as well. The objective of this article is to start the difficult conversations on this precise topic. We need to do some things differently in this area because what we have done for the past 50 years hasn’t worked. If we continue to do the same things in this judge area and expect a different result, that’s not going to work out well for us over the next 50 years.

There are too many people of good will in this bar association to allow this injustice to continue.

Black lawyers shouldn’t have to resign themselves to the notion that DEI in Knoxville and Knox County excludes them from becoming judges (the plural12 use is intentional) here and that they better leave and go elsewhere if they have those aspirations. We (KBA) have done a great job talking the DEI talk. However, we are also required to walk the DEI walk if we are authentic when saying we want and will not accept anything less than full inclusion, including on the judge level. The KBA Strategic Inclusion Plan was a good start.

In closing, to expand a powerful message one of our colleagues previously made in this medium,13 “We are not okay.”

KBA, DEI includes “The Bench.”

We’ve got to become better allies and more intentional in correcting this injustice. That’s what I learned about inclusion. That’s another reason why it matters.

Happy Black History month! George Underwood14

1 aka African American, herein 2 (11/17/1904 – 4/14/1976) The BECK CULTURAL EXCHANGE CENTER, 1927 Dandridge Ave, Knoxville, TN 37915; beckcenter.net; Tel. (865) 524-8461, houses a permanent display of Judge Hastie’s memorabilia, his robe, photographs, his papers, books from his personal reading library and other information and history about him in its William H. Hastie Exhibition & Conference Room. The BECK Center has made the Hastie Conference room available for meetings on occasion. The BECK is the place where “African American history and culture are preserved, nurtured, taught, & continued.” Laudably, every month is Black History month at BECK. 3 The United States District Court Eastern District of Tennessee is fortunate to have the Honorable Curtis L. Collier an exceptional Senior Federal Court Judge who is African American. Judge Collier is based in the Southern Division (Chattanooga) but periodically presides over cases in the Northern Division (Knoxville). Additionally,