eJournal

MBA President Victoria M. Santoro

The following President’s Message was originally emailed to members on Feb. 4.

"We want you, we support you and we will show up for you." These are the words I delivered on the evening I gave my first remarks as MBA President. I used that evening to talk about the pillars of my upcoming one-year term as your president, which were (1) reproductive justice, (2) Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging and (3) well-being and mental health. To think how those words and those themes would be tested, and the manner in which they are being tested, was perhaps beyond my comprehension at the time. 
 
The Trump Administration's flurry of executive orders has upended many decades of legal precedent and decades of hard-fought gains and progress in the outward and proud participation of historically marginalized groups. As the law is being dramatically challenged around us, the result is fear and despair among our own members and practitioners, particularly among immigrants, communities of color and the LGBTQ+ community. 
 
Among the first items I responded to was the executive order rescinding and disallowing DEI programs and initiatives nationwide. The executive order specifically identified bar associations for potential investigation. My response was simple: we are proud of our accomplishments and continued efforts toward inclusivity, our bar association has done nothing wrong, and our efforts will remain steadfast. Our events have always been, and will remain, open to everyone. Our efforts at outreach and inclusivity have been met only with positivity among our membership. 
 
We must also vocally support our other communities, most particularly our immigrant and LGBTQ+ colleagues. Efforts to end the constitutional right to birthright citizenship, ICE raids in elementary schools, and the attempt at wholesale exclusion of our Trans citizens from military participation, to name only a few, are the cause of widespread fear, anxiety and pain. The MBA plans to continue its collaborative efforts with all of our intrepid affinity bar associations, to put on education programs and know your rights events, and to vocally support our LGBTQ+ and Trans citizens.
 
Our Massachusetts Bar Association was founded 114 years ago by a group of legal giants, such as Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Louis Brandeis and Moorfield Storey (who became the first president of the NAACP), all of whom prioritized diversity and inclusivity that was unavailable elsewhere in the legal profession. From its inception, the MBA has welcomed African-American members and immigrants, including those of Jewish, Polish, Irish and Italian descent and all of whom were new immigrants at that time. By 1913, the MBA welcomed women members, making it one of the first bar associations in the country to do so.

The MBA is proud of its lifelong track record of supporting diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, in accordance with the law and independent of the political winds. Remembering these roots is always important, but today it is even more crucial because the essence of who we are as a statewide bar association demands that we stay true to the mission established when this organization was founded in 1911. And so I'll conclude with another quote from that first speech and which I now repeat for my colleagues, peers and friends in our MBA community: if you are a member of a historically disadvantaged group, a member of an affinity bar group, if you are a woman, if you are Black, Hispanic, Asian, South Asian, part of the LGBTQ+ community, I want the overwhelming message you hear from me and the MBA this year to be “we want you, and we will show up for you.” 
 
We will meet chaos with consistency. We will meet this moment of uncertainty with pride and strength. And we will continue our work together.