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Why Do We Celebrate Diversity?

Moritz College of Law, 1L Orientation 2012

Sharon L. Davies Executive Director, Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race & Ethnicity John C. Elam/Vorys Sater Professor of Law, Moritz College of Law,

The Ohio State University

August 15, 2012

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Why do we celebrate diversity?

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Why do we celebrate diversity?

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Do we celebrate diversity?

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Who did “We the People” include?

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Do we celebrate diversity?

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U.S. Const. Art. I, sec. 2: “…three fifths of a man”

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U.S. Const. Art. IV, sec. 2 Fugitives “shall be delivered up…”

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Lynching in America

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Celebrating Diversity?

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1896: Plessy v. Ferguson United States Supreme Court

“Separate but equal”

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U.S. Military, Tuskegee Airmen

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Anti-miscegenation Laws No Black/White Marriage

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Brown v. Board of Education, 1954

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Loving v. Virginia, 1967

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Birmingham, Alabama

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Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Women in American History

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1920—Nineteenth Amendment

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Mass Killing at Sikh Temple August 2012

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Celebrating American Diversity?

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Celebrating American Diversity?

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“The past is not dead. It’s not even past.”

-- Faulkner

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Moritz College of Law Class of 2015

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Reason #1:

Some of the worst moments in human history have occurred when we have failed to celebrate

the value and worth of all of us.

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“History does not repeat itself exactly, but it does rhyme.”

-- Mark Twain

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Reason #2:

Diversity deepens our understanding of those not like us, and makes us better thinkers.

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Reason #3:

We understand the error and danger of prejudice and bias, and the need to arm ourselves

against them in every way we can.

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Unconscious

Automatic Associations

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Implic it B ias

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Why do we celebrate diversity?

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c elebrate divers ity