Despite not being able to prove it, judicial leaders in Ohio are convinced that some judges here may not run color-blind courtrooms.
Posted by Reginald Fields
Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Most of us, I think everybody, tries to be impartial but our own life experiences shape the way we color the world and we have to be aware of those things,” said William “Milt” Nuzum, director of the Ohio Judicial College.
As part of the new http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2882 that every first-time elected judge receives, the judicial college, an off-shoot of the Ohio Supreme Court, has added a seminar dealing with diversity and racial fairness.
In December, 26 new judges — who now represent about 3 percent of judges in Ohio — got the first part of the training and will get the rest in March. It’s a start, but the diversity effort falls well short of any type of program that reaches each of the 700-plus sitting judges in Ohio — from the supreme down through municipal courts — that some judicial leaders have wanted.
“My dad always told me that progress is measured in inches and not feet,” said Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Ronald B. Adrine, who last month helped facilitate the new seminar. “So, I see this as progress.”
http://blog.cleveland.com/plaindealer/2008/01/new_judges_getting_racial_dive.html