Arbitration & Mediation

Diversity, bias, gender, and race in ADR: a hard fight to level the playing field

By Diane Levin

As I was getting ready for the start of the mediation training I was teaching, one of the participants, just arrived, approached me to tell me to get him a cup of coffee. Despite my power suit and the flip chart markers in my hand, he had mistaken the lead trainer for a member of the support staff.

If you think that this is an isolated incident in the life of an ADR professional who happens to be a woman, think again. Challenge yourself by reading commercial mediator Victoria Pynchon?s gutsy series on gender, race, and diversity in the ADR profession:

“Negotiating Prejudice at U.C. San Diego”

“Negotiating Gender: Why So Few Women Neutrals?”

“Update on Gender Diversity in the Judiciary and in ADR”

Then do as Vickie suggests and take the awareness-raising tests at Project Implicit, an ongoing research project inquiring into the implicit biases that affect our judgment. What associations do you draw about identity, capability, and role?

Full post as published by Online Guide to Mediation on March 04, 2010 (boomark / email).