Identical legal work is rated lower when attributed to a black author

Evidence

In a study performed by Nextions, a Chicago-based diversity consulting firm, identical legal memoranda were sent to sixty law firm partners who were asked to evaluate them. There was only one difference: One group was told that a white man wrote the memos, and the other was told that a black man wrote them. The partners consistently rated the memo lower when they believed that the author was black; they were also more likely to point out spelling, grammar, and technical errors when they were “grading” the black memo. — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth, 379

Categorization

• CANDY: Identical memo rated worse when attributed to a black writer is a compact, memorable study for casual conversation.