April 2025 DEI – Professionalism as a Racial Construct
April 2025
This article was originally printed in the UCLA Law Review in 2022.
Abstract
This Essay examines professionalism as a tool to subjugate people of color in the legal field. Professionalism is a standard with a set of beliefs about how one should operate in the workplace. While professionalism seemingly applies to everyone, it is used to widely police and regulate people of color in various ways including hair, tone, and food scents. Thus, it is not merely that there is a double standard in how professionalism applies: It is that the standard itself is based on a set of beliefs grounded in racial subordination and white supremacy. Through this analysis, professionalism is revealed to be a racial construct.
This Essay examines three main aspects of legal professionalism: (1) threshold to withstand bias and discrimination, (2) selective offense, and (3) the reasonable person standard. Each Subpart starts with a day in my life as an attorney to illustrate how these elements play out. The final section details ways to disrupt professionalism as a racial construct.
Author Biography
Leah Goodridge is a nationally renowned lawyer, thought leader and writer. Leah Goodridge is an award-winning tenants’ rights attorney with over a decade of experience fighting against gentrification and displacement in New York courts. She is most known for her work advancing the tenant movement and her writings on workplace equity. Former New York City mayor Bill de Blasio appointed Leah to the New York City Rent Guidelines Board where she successfully advocated for rent freezes for 2 million rent-stabilized tenants. She is currently a Commissioner on the NYC Planning Commission. She is the winner of two Bar Association awards for her impact on the legal profession. Leah lectures all over the nation on housing rights and workplace equity. Her work has appeared in USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Teen Vogue, Dame, Forbes and The Appeal.
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