Minorities Accounting Profession

“Affirmative action ensures that African American students are allowed access to prestigious universities such as Harvard and Berkeley, which have long been gateways to positions of power and influence in American society” (Glazer 14).

Under the committee’s guidance, the number of minority CPAs increased from 150 to 1,000 by 1979. (CPAs of Color) Since then, the MIC has continued to make great strides to proactively address the needs of minorities in the profession by implementing scholarships, fellowships, leadership conferences, and other campaigns. In 2009, the MIC celebrated 40 years of a continued commitment to assisting minorities, however, it recognized that there is still much more work to be done in order to have a completely diverse profession.

Even so, while both of those organizations presented excellent strategies and opportunities for networking and advancement as an Information Technology professional, I chose to become a member of two different groups. The first of these was the Black Data Processing Associates (BDPA). BDPA drew my interest for membership because of the organizations focus on diversity for IT professionals. As a minority person, who lives and works in a community with a large Latin and Caribbean populations, diversity is an important part of my everyday experience, as such, I was interested in join an organization

Minority administrators have an astronomically immense portion of Americans believing that minorities no longer face segregation in the work environment. The fact of the matter is that these examples of surmounting adversity are the exemption and not the tenet. They are more a consequence of the tirelessness, ability, desire, and resoluteness of these bellwethers than anything else. Numerous minorities have possessed the capacity to get access into the work environment, and conventionally move into lower and center level administration positions. Notwithstanding, by and sizably voluminous, the way to achievement deadlocks. In opposition to prominent feeling, minorities probing for achievement in the work environment consistently experience

Rob Nelson brought this article with an extrinsic ethos in it based on the character of the author. Rob Nelson is a well known African-American editor in Chief of Chapel Hill’s Daily Tar Heel newspaper. Its estimated print readership of 38,000 makes it the largest community newspaper in Orange County (DTH Media, 2011). This is a well-known magazine for the audience; therefore, all the information and article from Daily Tar Heel must be reliable to the audience. Since he was born and raised in an African- American community, Nelson usually reflects on issues about race and practicing racism in his writing. Later on, the article was re-published in the academic journal, the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, a journal that has a high academically reliable and strong authority. The readers knew about Nelson and his authority before they read his article.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Digest of Education Statistics (2010) compiles data on educational trends and statistics in the United States. According to the digest, in 2009 African Americans earned about 10 percent of all bachelor degrees awarded. Furthermore, about 20 percent of African Americans currently hold a college degree. When compared to the same rates for the white non-hispanic population, African Americans are largely lagging behind. The challenges that African Americans are facing must be met by post secondary institutions if this group is going to continue on the path of economic and career prosperity. This need is discussed in the report Minorities in Higher Education:

Companies and educational institutions greatly benefit from the guidelines of affirmative action because they profit from the different ideas, work styles, and contributions unique to each diverse individual. As quoted in Paul Connors’s compilation, Affirmative Action, President of Columbia University, Lee Bollinger, addresses the importance of a diverse educational system by stating, “The experience of arriving on a campus to live and study with classmates from a diverse range of backgrounds is essential to students' training for this new world, nurturing in them an instinct to reach out instead of clinging to the comforts of what seems natural or familiar” (12-13). A statement by Southeastern Oklahoma State University further supports the idea that success in modern day society stems from diversity saying, “Our country is strong because of the rich diversity of our culture, not in spite of it” (Affirmative Action).

Within the upper echelons of upper management is scant room for African American women. This mini-proposal outlines a research project that focuses on the phenomena of the nominal amount of African American women are in positions of management or organizational leadership within the City of Philadelphia.

The equal opportunity that affirmative action provides has also increased the amount of minority applicants applying to each school. It has “resulted in doubling or tripling the number of minority applications to colleges or universities, and have made colleges and universities more representative of their surrounding community” (Messerli). Since the playing field has been evened, it has encouraged more of those who are disadvantaged because of their ethnicity to apply for and get admitted into college. However, the quotas cause schools to admit under qualified students of minor races who don’t meet the limit over highly qualified students who’s race has reached the limit.

It is important for Blacks to lead in the accounting profession because they need to remember that their success and experiences are not entirely about them but serve as lessons to future Black accountants. Those that dare to lead are paving the way and acting as role models for those that are coming after. Therefore, it is imperative that minorities take leadership roles so that they can learn even more about the trade and share the mistakes that they made to future generations so that they will not make those same mistakes again. This cycle will promote continuous improvement within minorities to prove that we deserve to lead in this

Across the nation, millions of Americans of all races turn on the television or open a newspaper and are bombarded with images of well dressed, articulate, attractive black people advertising different products and representing respected companies. The population of black professionals in all arenas of work has risen to the point where seeing a black physician, attorney, or a college professor are becoming more a common sight. More and more black people are holding positions of respect and authority throughout America today, such as Barack Obama, Colin Powell, Condelezza Rice and many other prominent black executives. As a result of their apparent success, these black people are seen as role models for many Americans, despite their race.

Institutions welcome diversity, however, they also introduce minorities to a profession of glass ceilings. The number one reason I often see firms and institutions push diversity is for monetary value. Although this may be true, for me, this reasoning of including diversity in the legal system can be flawed and quite off base. It is time to establish real value in minorities and people of diverse ethnic backgrounds. That value requires adequate representation. Having assorted groups of excelling attorneys in the legal profession creates an accurate depiction of recognizing and addressing pressing issues.When minorities thrive in the legal profession it is an adequate reflection of reality, especially in the community and the people attorneys serve. Attorneys play a number of roles, often times, changing the life of their clients, Therefore, it is up to the legal profession to embrace excellence of all backgrounds to better serve the legal community. Diversity in the legal system includes, but is not limited to, race and ethnicity, gender, cultural backgrounds, sexual orientation, and disability. Inclusion and diversity in the legal system are a reflective representation of attorneys by bringing people from all backgrounds and all different experiences to make the legal profession more efficient and

Harvard Business Review September, 1996 / October, 1996 HEADLINE: MAKING DIFFERENCES MATTER: A NEW PARADIGM FOR MANAGING DIVERSITY BYLINE: by David A. Thomas and Robin J. Ely; David A. Thomas is an associate professor at the Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts. Robin J. Ely is an associate professor at Columbia University 's School of International and Public Affairs in New York City. Their research and teaching focus on the influence of race, gender, and ethnicity on career dynamics and organizational effectiveness. ABSTRACT: MAKING DIFFERENCES MATTER: A NEW PARADIGM FOR MANAGING DIVERSITY DAVID A. THOMAS and ROBIN J. ELY Diversity efforts in the workplace have been undertaken with great goodwill, but, ironically, they often

As a testament to the next discussion point of opportunities, especially within the realm of college admission, I have experienced firsthand the opportunities presented by affirmative action. As a low-income, first-generation college student, Virginia Tech had offered me a full scholarship based solely on merit and financial need. As a “minority” according to Virginia Tech, I had an

A research on how the lack of minority diversity in business has affected the new wave of entrepreneurs in the U.S. expands ones range of interests and knowledge in the sense of understanding why minorities have decided to leave the business sector to become entrepreneurs. With racial discrimination, lack of access to capital and a mirage of other things, minorities will make up 56% of the U.S. population by 2030. With the new travel ban that President Donald Trump has implemented, this has hurt American business from a diversity standpoint and fiscally. My intentions for this research is to fully help the reader understanding where America is trying to go for the long term and it’s thought on minorities as a whole