IBE Honors Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Randall T. Shepard

The Indiana Black Expo will honor Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Randall T. Shepard during its’ corporate luncheon. Amos Brown's column expressed puzzlement by the direction that the IBE was headed,Indy Recorder. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. did not say we would achieve a color blind society, probably at best a society that could learn to judge each individual's character beyond the color of their skin. Many who have met Chief Justice Shepard has judged him beyond his skin color and on the content of his character.

Albeit that Indiana Black Expo is about the African-American community, it as always been for the whole community. Therefore it should come as no surprise that Chief Justice Shepard who has supported many African-Americans entering the legal education and the legal profession. Shepard commitment gives meaning to the words from the Black National Anthem, Lift every Voice, under Indiana Conference on Legal Education Opportunity (ICLEO) program and its staff. ICLEO supports, celebrates a diverse group of individuals to the table of inclusion.

At a time when affirmative action has been gagged and bounded, Indiana’s law schools welcome a critical mass of students every year thanks to ICLEO. Shepard, ask only of the legal community what William E. Dubois, Dorothy Height, and Clarence Thomas, have asked “to throw wide your doors.” Thomas suggests that law schools needs to commit beyond its “aesthetically” approach and fling open its doors if the law school truly believes that a diverse student body is a compelling state interest rather than the educational benefit the school receives from having the appearance that it believes in Affirmative action for African-American students. In other words, provide an environment that is welcoming of others who may be different, but still have the ability to make a difference in the world.

These students coming from such unique and diverse backgrounds are supported by a legal community that didn’t asked them to assimilate or to be something other than who they were as they moved toward achieving their goals. In Justice Shepard and ICLEO, they quickly learned the meaning of the lyrics of Donnie Hathaway, and Roberta Flack’s song, “you got a friend.” A friendship based simply on the willingness to make a different in the world to those Derrick Bell refers to as being “in the bottom of the well.”

Some of these students while reaching for their dreams never lost focus on their commitment to reaching back and lifting others as they climbed. Or in the words of Lani Gunier, suggestion of “mining the canaries,” who others have mindlessly labeled as perennial losers. But Chief Justice Shepard reminds the students along with his ICLEO staff, they are a family of achievers and that there is more than enough room for them at the table.

Who can better give a message back to the corporate sponsors of IBE that more dollars beyond marketing strategies and toward programs of inclusion in the hiring and training of African-Americans can close the gap of inequality. Chief Justice Shepard, as W.E. Dubois would suggest, can not do it alone. And the African-American media should always be in the room.