The West Virginia State Bar is responsible for overseeing the legal profession within the state. Eve[...]
The West Virginia State Bar is responsible for overseeing the legal profession within the state. Every licensed attorney in West Virginia is required to be a member of this organization, which is governed by a committee known as the Board of Governors. The Board is comprised of 25 voting members and one non-voting member, who is the dean of the law school at West Virginia University.
Among the voting members, there is a designated seat for an “African American Representative,” as stipulated by the Bar’s bylaws. This seat is only available to lawyers who are registered as African American with the Bar, and only registered African Americans are permitted to vote in the election for this position.
Last week, an organization named the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR) filed a lawsuit against the Bar in federal court. The lawsuit contends that reserving a seat for an African-American member constitutes racial discrimination, violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It also claims a violation of the Citizenship Clause, which grants every U.S. citizen the rights of citizenship, alleging that the right to serve on a state board is a citizenship right denied to some West Virginia lawyers by the Bar’s bylaws.
Additionally, the lawsuit points to a provision in the Fifteenth Amendment that prohibits racial restrictions on the right to vote, arguing that the bylaws impose such restrictions by not allowing non-African-American lawyers to vote for this seat.
FAIR has requested the court to prevent the Bar from enforcing the bylaws related to the African-American seat. The next election for this seat is scheduled for 2025, meaning the lawsuit could have a significant and immediate impact.
This West Virginia case is part of a broader trend of challenges to diversity and inclusion programs across the United States. These efforts follow a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision that invalidated affirmative action in college admissions. In a related case, the State Bar of Wisconsin agreed to alter the definition of “diversity” for an internship program, shifting from a direct reference to race to encompassing “differing characteristics, beliefs, experiences, interests, and viewpoints.” In contrast, the New Jersey State Bar Association recently succeeded in litigation defending its diversity quotas, with a state appellate court ruling that the Bar could reserve certain seats for lawyers from underrepresented groups without contravening the state’s anti-discrimination laws.
