It’s quite simple, really. Lawyers work with laws. Sometimes, frequently in fact, they are elected to positions in which they interpret laws, apply them, or write them. Anyone who has spent five minutes looking at the legal environment in that there are incredible, horrifying disparities with respect to the way that white collar and blue collar crimes are adjudicated, and of how the penalties that apply to them are legislated. There are more people of color who are blue collar than white collar. The Republicans have been stacking the nation’s benches with anti-liberty pro-corporations judges for decades, and one is hard pressed to find a friend on the federal bench to the working class, of all colors. So this sucks. Take a look at the numbers in bold in particular:

The statistics are compelling. For example, 44 percent of women lawyers of color working in a large law firm reported that they had been passed over for desirable assignments, compared to 39 percent of white women, 25 percent of men of color and only 2 percent of white men. Similarly, 62 percent of women of color disclosed that they had been excluded from formal and informal networking opportunities, compared to 60 percent of white women, 31 percent of men of color and 4 percent of white men, and 31 percent of women of color reported receiving at least one unfair performance evaluation, compared to 25 percent of white women, 21 percent of men of color and less than 1 percent of white men.

“This study finally sheds light on a troublesome situation that we must now turn into an opportunity – the opportunity to increase the richness of perspectives in law firms,” said ABA President Michael S. Greco, an ardent supporter of the survey, who served on the Women’s Commission for three years and advocated for it before taking the helm of the nation’s largest lawyers’ organization. “The legal profession must better reflect the communities we serve if it is to serve better both today’s clients and those communities. I encourage legal employers to use this valuable report to recalibrate their strategies for diversifying the profession.”

Many of us fear, from direct experience or because we’ve watched the way national benches develop, that the judicial branch is being stripped of its powers and reduced to a reflexive arm of the Republican party. Stories like these don’t give me great hope for the future, recognizing that a whiter ABA and legal community means less resistance to that transformation. The trial lawyers in particular are a top, if not the top, source of financial and consulting support for the Democratic party. It is important for all of us to remind our friends in the legal community that these numbers are simply unacceptable.