Our Mission
Along with our predecessor organization, WorkLife Law, the Equality Action Center has changed the lives of millions of workers and students. Our initiatives address inequality based on race, class, and gender at a structural level with concrete, evidence-based interventions.
We have transformed diversity, equity, and inclusion practice through Bias Interrupters, our evidence-based, metrics-driven tools for interrupting bias in organizations. In roughly 20 experiments inside companies, we have demonstrated that companies can make year-over-year progress towards their inclusion goals — and the process can improve the workplace experience for every group.
Our renowned leadership programs have trained roughly 600 women to be tomorrow’s leaders in the legal profession. Our new partner accelerator program will help remedy an abiding problem; while half of law firm associates are women, they make up less than a quarter of equity partners.
Our work to eliminate social class disadvantage includes innovative approaches to including class in DEI initiatives as well as widely-acclaimed thought leadership in how to change the class dynamics in American politics that are fueling far-right populism.
Areas of Impact
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Bias Interrupters
Our Bias Interrupters program is designed to help companies worldwide address systemic racism and sexism by interrupting bias in basic business systems. Our training, best practices and model policies, and open-source toolkits give companies tools to take action in hiring, performance evaluations, and other systems. While corporations allow us to study their workforce, we are also gathering data to research what is necessary to eliminate racial and gender bias in the workplace.
- Our Bias Interrupters web pages have been accessed over half a million times by individuals and companies worldwide.
- Before our intervention at one company, only 10% of people of color received mentions of their leadership skills in performance evaluations. One year later, with our help, that number jumped to 100%
“[The EAC] is one of the few teams that I’ve worked with that has brilliantly married the academic and the corporate space together with a very pragmatic approach. 5 stars”
– Senior Director of DEI at a large retail company that implemented Bias Interrupters
Leadership Programs
The Equality Action Center is a pioneer in leadership programs for women in the legal profession. Our main program, the Leadership Academy for Women at UC Law SF, is an executive education program for women law firm partners who are current or emerging leaders within their organizations. Women who attend are the rising stars of the legal profession, and the Leadership Academy gives them the tools and confidence they need to realize their leadership ambitions.
“Career-changing…Nobody ever teaches these things!… [The Academy] freed me up… Our job is to ensure that female associates and partners at the firm are getting the same opportunities as male associates and partners, and that they know how to recognize and make the most of those opportunities.”
– Stacey Rappaport, executive committee member – Milbank
Beyond our Leadership Academy for Women, we’re also launching our Partner Accelerator program, a leadership training that empowers women law firm associates to successfully navigate the partner review process and have the momentum to succeed when they make partner.
The curriculum covers the essential elements for promotion to partner, including:
- Building the relationships you need to make partner;
- Making the case for partnership;
- Successful self-promotion;
- Projecting an executive presence;
- Getting feedback early.
The curriculum was developed with an advisory board of women in leadership roles at 20+ top law firms.
Bridging the Diploma Divide
The sharp increase in inequality in the US has been accompanied by the “diploma divide”: a shift towards the far right among non-college voters of all races—despite the fact that far-right policies exacerbate inequality. The diploma divide reflects far-right populists’ success in sculpting economic anxieties into racism, masculinity contests, and culture wars. Bridging the Diploma Divide in American Politics seeks to reverse this process, redirecting economic anxieties into demands for greater income, wealth and social equality.
For more information, access our initiative’s website!