CBA Record March-April 2022

DICE: HistoryWill Judge BY NINA FAIN

The NewAmerican Renaissance

T he growing diversity of our nation has caused a frightened element of society to push back, seeking to block or discredit the impact of a multi cultural country, clamoring for a new renaissance of the silent majority scratch ing and clawing to stabilize their place in American life. Regrettably, to achieve their aims, some folks have felt compelled to lie, cheat, or steal in the administration and governance of American institutions to promote their divisive rhetoric and mes sages of hate. America does indeed fi nd itself in the midst of a racial and cultural transition driven by changing demographics. Not since the American Renaissance of the 19th century has the United States been so preoccupied with its national identity. History shows us that during that time, America birthed modern technologies, new philosophies, a recalibrated social order, urbanization, and civil war. Recently, the U.S. Census Bureau developed a “diversity index” to measure racial diversity in a given population. Th e diversity index predicts the likelihood that two randomly chosen people—say, from Illinois—would come from di ff er ent racial or ethnic groups. Th e higher the percentage, the greater the diversity. Th e 2020 data revealed that the nation’s aver age diversity index increased from 55% to 61%. According to a Census Bureau o ffi cial, from 2010 to 2020, America became “much more multiracial and much more

racially and ethnically diverse than what we have measured in the past.” Illinois has a more diverse population than a decade ago. Our state’s diversity index now stands at 60.3%. For com parison purposes, Georgia is 64%, Ohio is 40.4%, New York is 64.8%, and Wiscon sin is 37%. Yet reports indicate that diver sity in the legal professions has declined, particularly in senior management roles. A few months ago, a lawyer-colleague member of the millennial generation called me after she had learned about the lack of minority judges in the United States. Living in Cook County, my colleague had no idea of the scarcity of minority judges throughout the United States. She expressed genuine alarm about that fact. She also could not believe the emergence of an underbelly of hate and discrimination in places where she thought permanent progress had been made. As I shared with her that I have long been alarmed by the things I see each day, I congratulated her and her generation of professionals for taking a stand to make certain the hateful history of the past for a plethora of people—Jews, Blacks, Latinx people, Asians, LBGTQ+ community members—would be eradicated in “her day.” I told her it stood to reason that if her generation worked to o ff set what was in all probability a momentary disruption in the progress of American society, our profession would weather the current turmoil. When I hung up, I knew that I

had misrepresented the truth. Awash with hope tempered with a deep sadness, I knew that it was reasonable to believe that unless she and her friends were ready, willing, and able to sacri fi ce a great deal of stability and peace in their lives, their willingness to be champions of diversity would not be enough to overcome the drumbeat’s crescendo of hate not seen since the 1930s in Europe or the mid-19th century in the United States. So, think about what you do and say. Understand that you cannot express a com mitment to equality if you are not working the problem every day. Show the people who are watching you that you mean what you say. Please do not be bamboozled or misdirected by people who are the huck sters of inauthentic diversity, regardless of their race or gender or sexual orientation. As this year’s Martin Luther King Day has faded in the rear-view mirror, prove to yourself that the commitments you make when you dare to speak the truth to power will change the very face of power itself. Stand like Earl B. Dickerson as a zealous advocate for those who are described on the Statute of Liberty and for those who were brought to America as indentured servants or whipped and shackled in chains. As lawyers and judges, our life’s work chal lenges us to live that way, too. Remember we are in the fi ght of our lives, and that in the fi nal analysis, history will judge us by what we say and do.

Nina Fain, counsel to the JS Schirn Family Trust, is a 2020 CBA Earl B. Dickerson Award Recipient, member of the CBA Board of Managers and the CBA Editorial Board, and Co-Chair of the CBA DICE Committee.

36 March/April 2022