DiversityInc - May 2008

legal column

BY WELDON LATHAM

Lessons on Personal

Responsibility From a Top

Discrimination Lawyer

How does change happen? Attorney Weldon Latham answers the question in one word: leadership. What does it take to be a leader, and how do you get there? In this Q&A with DiversityInc, Latham tells us his personal story of growth and accountability—how he made it, and how you can make change within your company.

DIVERSITYINC: TELL US ABOUT YOUR EARLY EXPERIENCE.

WELDON LATHAM: I was born in
Brooklyn, N. Y., grew up in the ’60s.
These were times of turbulence and
change ... We went to integrated
schools, lived in an integrated
neighborhood. Our elementary
schools were excellent, but as
you went in the middle schools
and above, the schools got to be
questionable—the talent you
would get from your teachers,

as well as the lack of safety and security. Our parents decided it was time for us to move.

There were parts of New York that weren’t segregated; you just didn’t go into [them]. Those parts were as risky to go into as it was for my brother to go to junior high school in the ghetto because African Americans weren’t welcome.

I remember going to the beach in Rockaway with my brother and my uncle who happened to be a detective in the New York City police force. When they noticed us on the beach, we were surrounded by a group of hostile white teenagers and adults who told us that we weren’t permitted on the beach. They did not move back until my uncle drew his gun and cleared a path for us to leave the beach.

DIVERSITYINC: HOW DO THESE EXPERIENCES FACTOR INTO YOUR CAREER TODAY?

LATHAM: As someone who seeks to ferret out when you have true hostile work environments versus less-than-productive employees, I have a lot to draw upon.

Through elementary school and junior high school, I was always in the top 1 percent to the top 10 percent of my class. My parents always held me to a high standard of performance. In the eighth grade, some of the less-talented kids were giving me a hard time because I

had scored so high on standardized tests, and they tried to make me feel as if that was something to be ashamed of. My training was just to reverse that and say, “It sounds to me like I got the best grade in the class and you got the worst. I’m not the one that ought to be ashamed.”

All those experiences put me in this unique position to help judge and assess companies as they look to have high-quality performance standards that, when they’re working well, are not race-conscious at all.

Standards of performance should not relate to whether the person is Black/white, male/fe-male, gay/straight. The standard should be an objective standard that determines if this person is preparing and presenting quality work, and [if they’re] getting rewarded for it. Are they getting trained for it and are we giving them all the appropriate opportunities? When we find somebody who’s a diamond in the rough, are we taking that diamond and polishing it as effectively as we can, not for just the benefit of that individual but for the benefit of the company and the folks they serve?