Diversity Matters

Until President Jimmy Carter launched an effort to diversify the lower federal courts, the U.S. courts of appeals had been composed almost entirely of white males. But by 2008, over a quarter of sitting judges were women and 15 percent were African American or Hispanic. Underlying the argument made by administration officials for a diverse federal judiciary has been the expectation that the presence of women and minorities will ensure that the policy of the courts will reflect the experiences of a diverse population. Yet until now, scholarly studies have offered only limited support for the expectation that judges’ race, ethnicity, or gender impacts their decision making on the bench. In Diversity Matters, Susan B. Haire and Laura P. Moyer employ innovative new methods of analysis to offer a fresh examination of the effects of diversity on the many facets of decision making in the federal appellate courts. Drawing on oral histories and data on appellate decisions through 2008, the authors’ analyses demonstrate that diversity on the bench affects not only individual judges’ choices but also the overall character and quality of judicial deliberation and decisions. Looking forward, the authors anticipate the ways in which these process effects will become more pronounced as a result of the highly diverse Obama appointment cohort.

Today, no institution can ignore the need for deep conversations about race and ethnicity. But colleges and universities face a unique set of challenges as they explore these topics. Diversity Matters offers leaders a roadmap as they think through how their campuses can serve all students well. Five Key Sections Campus Case Studies: Transforming Institutions with a Commitment to Diversity Why We Stayed: Lessons in Resiliency and Leadership from Long-Term CCCU Diversity Professionals Voices of Our Friends: Speaking for Themselves Curricular/Cocurricular Initiatives to Enhance Diversity Awareness and Action Autoethnographies: Emerging Leaders and Career Stages Each chapter in Diversity Matters includes important discussion questions for administration, faculty, and staff.

Social justice rhetoric is prevalent in contemporary America, but are we as a nation ready to do the work to effect real change? Emily Allen Williams has gathered a group of essays that interrogate matters of inclusion, diversity, equity, and access. In doing so, the essays contribute to what Williams call “tilling the ground,” i.e. a process by which the nation is prepared for the changes that must follow the rhetoric through the work of diversity and inclusion in a variety of social arenas. With subject matters ranging from the Black Lives Matter movement and children’s literature to the contemporary workplace and university, the collected essays present and analyze progress that is already being made and outline ways for our society to continue to move this process forward until the rhetoric of social justice manifests in actual conditions of inclusion, diversity, equity, and access throughout the nation.

Stand up for what you believe in, no matter where you are! Noah and Justin are two similar brothers, but with one visible difference. One weekend at a cousin's birthday party and one comment at the lunch table prompts Justin to implement a change in his life. He jumps into action so that he can knock down and change the social and cultural barriers that he sees happening in his middle school. What better way to generate change than to bring awareness to the problem? Filled with advocacy, activism, and organizing, Differences Matter, Diversity Matters: A Story About My Brother and Me brings awareness to the lack of social and cultural awareness in Justin's middle school. Do you think 11-year-old Justin has what it takes to generate change?

How does economic geography influence industrial production and thereby affect industrial location decisions and the spatial distribution of development? For manufacturing industry, what are the externalities that matter, and to what extent? Are these externalities spatially localized? The authors answer these questions by analyzing the influence of economic geography on the cost structure of manufacturing firms by firm size for eight industry sectors in India. The economic geography factors include market access and local and urban externalities-which are concentrations of own-industry firms, concentrations of buyer-supplier links, and industrial diversity at the district (local) level. The authors find that industrial diversity is the only economic geography variable that has a significant, consistent, and substantial cost-reducing effect for firms, particularly small firms. This finding calls into question the fundamental assumptions regarding localization economies and raises further concerns on the industrial development prospects of lagging regions in developing countries.

In DIVERSITY, INCLUSION & BELONGING, Leila McKenzie-Delis explores how D&I today is about more than race, gender, age or sexuality, but extends to how people think via cognitive and neurodiversity, and, crucially, how we make people feel. Statistical research has long proven diverse teams equate to better business. Now we also know that, combined with diversity, inclusion, purpose and belonging are also paramount to bolster employee engagement, profit, performance and growth, whilst enhancing innovation, brand equity, productivity and enabling talent attraction and retention. This book explores the innate human requirement of belonging and what people and organisations alike really need in order to thrive. The book is about getting the most out of every single individual who works with you whilst cultivating trust, empathy and inspiration. It provides a toolkit for existing leaders and those who aspire to lead and provides a framework for leading well in an ever-changing world.