Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Training - CRSJ Midyear

Overview

Melissa Little, an attorney and certified diversity professional, presents an introductory training on implicit bias and microaggressions, with examples relevant to workplaces and the legal profession. The session’s central message is that reducing bias takes more than attending training: people and organizations must examine their assumptions, listen to others’ experiences, and put inclusive practices into action.

Why DEI Work Matters

Participants are encouraged to consider why becoming a more inclusive leader—and advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the ABA and legal profession—matters to them.

Little emphasizes that meaningful change requires sustained effort: self-awareness, openness to change, learning about other people’s histories and experiences, and applying what is learned. She recommends using both qualitative and quantitative evidence, such as DEI assessments and audits, rather than relying only on an organization’s perception of itself.

Implicit Bias

Implicit bias consists of attitudes and stereotypes people may not consciously recognize. It can be shaped by family, media, school, friends, institutions, and other experiences. Repeated exposure to associations—for example, seeing Black men depicted as criminals—can lead people to make rapid judgments, even when the information is inaccurate or incomplete.

Little cites research indicating that many people who consider themselves unprejudiced may nevertheless hold some degree of implicit racial bias. She also notes that people in organizations that see themselves as highly meritocratic may be especially likely to view themselves as unbiased.

When someone says a remark or action was discriminatory or harmful, Little advises listening and being open to learning rather than immediately becoming defensive.

Microaggressions

Little describes microaggressions as everyday verbal, nonverbal, or environmental slights, snubs, or insults—intentional or unintentional—that target people because of their membership in a marginalized group. A remark may sound complimentary or harmless to the speaker while conveying a negative or exclusionary message to the person affected.

Examples include:

• Telling someone, “You’re really smart for a woman.”
• Asking an Asian American who says they are from New York, “Where are you really from?”
• Following someone around a store because of their race.
• Telling someone born in the country that they “speak good English.”
• Designing an environment in which the only visible historical or institutional role models are white men.

Three Types of Microaggressions

• Microassaults: More overt and deliberate forms of discrimination, such as using a derogatory term or refusing service because of someone’s religious beliefs.
• Microinsults: Often subtle comments or behaviors that communicate disrespect or rely on stereotypes. Examples include racial profiling or expressing surprise that a person of color speaks English well.
• Microinvalidations: Comments that dismiss or negate someone’s experience. For example, responding to a report of racial profiling with, “Are you sure that’s what really happened?”

Common Underlying Messages

The training identifies recurring themes that may be conveyed by microaggressions:

• Being treated as an alien in one’s own country: Assuming an American must look or sound a particular way, or repeatedly asking where someone is “really” from.
• Ascribing intelligence based on identity: Making assumptions about someone’s competence because of their race or gender, or treating ordinary competence as surprising.
• Colorblindness: Claiming not to see race in a way that dismisses someone’s identity or experiences.
• Assumptions of criminality: Treating a person as suspicious because of their race.
• Denial of individual bias: Using relationships with people from a marginalized group as proof that one cannot be biased.
• The myth of meritocracy: Suggesting that structural barriers do not exist and that people who struggle simply have not worked hard enough.
• Second-class treatment: Treating someone differently or as less worthy because of race, ethnicity, disability, or another identity.
• Treating one cultural norm as the standard: Describing people as abnormal or unsuitable when their communication or behavior differs from a dominant norm.
• Sexist or heterosexist language and assumptions: Ignoring someone’s stated gender pronouns or presuming a person’s gender or sexuality.
• Traditional gender stereotypes: Assuming that people should behave or work within prescribed roles.

A short video uses mosquito bites as an analogy: a single bite may seem minor to someone who rarely experiences them, but repeated bites can be exhausting and harmful. The analogy illustrates why a remark that seems trivial to one person can have a cumulative impact on someone who experiences such treatment regularly.

Examples in the Legal Profession

Little describes situations such as:

• Court personnel directing a Black attorney to public seating rather than the attorneys’ section.
• A female attorney being mistaken for administrative staff.
• A partner reviewing a Black associate’s work more critically than a white associate’s identical work.

She cites figures from a study of legal professionals indicating that women of color, white women, and men of color reported being mistaken for administrative or janitorial staff more often than white men. She also discusses a writing-analysis study in which reviewers rated the same memo more favorably when told it had been written by a white associate than when told it had been written by a Black associate.

The training describes these patterns as part of broader “prove it again” bias: some groups report having to work harder to receive the same recognition and respect.

Effects and Why Intent Is Not Enough

Little stresses that the impact of a remark or action matters, even if the speaker intended it as a compliment or did not intend harm. Repeated microaggressions can make people feel dismissed, alienated, or like perpetual outsiders, and can reinforce differences in power and privilege.

The training cites research connecting microaggressions with lower self-esteem, stress, anxiety, depression, anger, suicidal thoughts, headaches, stomach aches, and sleep disturbances. It also notes a 2018 study in which counselors whose clients reported race-based trauma identified covert racism as a contributing factor.

Strategies to Reduce Microaggressions

Little recommends that individuals and organizations:

• Reflect on beliefs and assumptions. Consider what attitudes and stereotypes you hold and where they came from.
• Learn about your biases. Implicit association tests are one possible tool for self-examination.
• Pause before speaking or acting. Ask yourself: “What am I doing? Why am I doing it? Would I say or do this if the person did not belong to this group?”
• Listen without defensiveness. Be willing to hear how a comment or action affected someone, even when that was not your intention.
• Practice empathy. Try to understand other people’s perspectives and experiences.
• Build institutional safeguards. Create equitable policies, practices, procedures, and mechanisms for addressing microaggressions, including recurring incidents.
• Use evidence to evaluate the organization. Ask whether it is truly diverse, equitable, and inclusive, and what data supports that conclusion.

Little also explains tokenism as treating the presence of one person from a marginalized group as proof that an organization or individual is inclusive. For example, an organization might prominently feature that person in marketing materials while taking no broader steps to address inequity.

The session closes with reflection questions: Is the organization genuinely diverse, equitable, and inclusive? What evidence supports that assessment? What institutional practices are available to address implicit bias?

Speakers and Sources Featured

• Beth: Introduces Melissa Little and provides event and recording context.
• Melissa Little: Main presenter; attorney and certified diversity professional.
• Audience members: Contribute poll responses and comments in the chat; they are not identified by name.
• Chester Pierce: Identified as the person who first coined the term microaggression in the 1960s.
• Derald Wing Sue: Cited for a definition of microaggressions and themes used to interpret their underlying messages.
• Barack Obama: Quoted on empathy and understanding other people’s perspectives.
• Unidentified research studies and video: Little refers to studies on implicit bias, legal workplace experiences, and health effects. An unnamed short video presents the mosquito-bite analogy.