When: Tuesday, 11 April 2023 at 3pm-5pm (Reception to follow)

Where: Room 2.10, Second Floor, School of Law, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS (via Westfield Way)

Hosts: QMUL IHSS & School of Law, Centre for Research on Law, Equality and Diversity

Discussants: Lizzie Barmes, QMUL and Paul McFarlane

About

The workshop will be a discussion of Professor Oppenheimer’s book project, A History of the Idea of Valuing Diversity. This work combines historical and comparative analysis of law and practice to illuminate the evolution of the modern idea that diversity ought to be valued. It spans the development of this notion, first, in different places, focussing on the USA – where valuing diversity has been central to US Supreme Court equality law jurisprudence - and tracing its intellectual roots in European thought and recent developments in South Africa. Secondly, the project excavates different contexts in which the idea has mattered, both historically and now, in particular, the higher education and corporate worlds.

This topic is of considerable appeal to anyone working in the field of equality and diversity, whether from a legal perspective or more generally, because it addresses how far the equality ideal either has in practice, or should in principle, draw the line between merely requiring equal treatment, and mandating positive or affirmative action. In other words, to what extent does realizing equality merely require that we refrain from disadvantaging others, whatever their existing situation, and how far does it call for the positive pursuit of greater diversity and inclusion? The United States’ distinctive, long history of engaging with this dilemma, legally and in political and public discourse, makes Professor Oppenheimer’s study a particularly valuable and timely one.

Speaker Profile

David is a Clinical Professor of Law (JD, Harvard) at University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. He serves as the Faculty Co-Director of the Pro Bono Program, and the Director of the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality & Anti-discrimination Law. He was a staff attorney for the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, prosecuting discrimination cases, and the founding director of the Berkeley Law Employment Discrimination Clinic. In addition to Berkeley Law, he has taught at the University of San Francisco, Golden Gate University (where he served as Associate Dean), the University of Paris (Sorbonne-Pantheon), the University of Bologna, LUMSA University Roma, and the Paris Institute of Political Science (“Sciences Po”). Professor Oppenheimer has published articles on discrimination law in the Pennsylvania Law Review, the Cornell Law Review, the Columbia Journal of Human Rights Law, the Berkeley Women’s Law Journal, the Harvard Latinx Law Review, the Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law, Droit et Cultures, and many others. He is the author of The Ubiquity of Positive Measures for Addressing Systemic Discrimination and Inequality: A Comparative Global Perspective (Brill 2019), a co-author of the casebook Comparative Equality & Anti-Discrimination Law (3d ed. Edward Elgar 2020) and a co-editor of Comparative Perspectives on the Enforcement and Effectiveness of Antidiscrimination Law: Challenges and Innovative Tools (Springer 2018). His co-authored book, Whitewashing Race: The Myth of a Color-Blind Society (with M. Brown, M. Carnoy, E. Currie, T. Duster, M. Schultz and D. Wellman) (University of California Press 2003) won the 2004 Benjamin L. Hooks outstanding book award.

Paul McFarlane is a Partner in the employment department at Capsticks and has over 25 years’ experience advising clients in the public sector on all aspects of employment law, including advising police forces for the past 15 years. His particular specialisms include: advising on complex discrimination and whistleblowing claims and on all aspects of industrial relations law. Paul regularly comments on equality law issues in the national, legal and HR press.

Paul is the Chair of the Employment Lawyers Association (an apolitical association representing approximately 7,000 employment lawyers who act for both employers and employees). He is also a board member of the Black Solicitors Network (with responsibility for managing its relationship with the BSN Corporate Members). Paul also sits as an external assessor for the College of Policing and on IMPRESS (a press regulator) Appointments Panel.

Paul was named as Chambers & Partners Minority Lawyer of the Year 2019 for work he has done to make the legal profession a more diverse and inclusive.

Workshop on A History of the Idea of Valuing Diversity