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WMU law professor weighs in on where we are in diversity after the inauguration

Posted at 10:54 PM, Jan 20, 2021
and last updated 2021-01-20 23:04:48-05

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Renalia DuBose is no stranger to change and seeing progress made in our country. Her father took college courses in Montgomery, Ala., under Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and DuBose herself was part of the integration process of public schools in Escambia County, Fla.

“During my lifetime, women of color were not allowed to vote,” she told FOX 17.

Today, DuBose is a ;aw professor at WMU-Cooley Law school.

FOX 17 asked DuBose about Wednesday’s inauguration and where we are today as a country. “I will admit that we’ve made a major step. But have we arrived? Absolutely not,” DuBose explained in referring to our country’s progress in diversity after Kamala Harris became the first female and black vice president and Pete Buttigieg was nominated as the first openly gay cabinet secretary. “Not until we don’t have cases going through our federal courts about the rights of members of the LGBTQ community,” DuBose explained.

DuBose said such a diverse cabinet in the Biden Administration is a big step, but unfortunately many people felt the same way after Barack Obama was elected in 2008, but she believes that wasn’t the case.

“I know members of the Hispanic community will be in the cabinet. I’m excited about the fact that women will be prominently featured in positions such as treasury secretary that have never been there,” explained DuBose. "Joe Biden said something early: ‘My cabinet will look like America’. Think about this now. He’s the first president to make that statement."

She noted that the resumes of Biden's nominees should speak for themselves, like Vice President Harris’s time as attorney general of California. “She took on major corporate attorneys and won. Buttigieg graduated from Harvard; he is highly educated and highly qualified, yet today in 2021 it’s an anomaly that they are now in high positions."