PHILADELPHIA, January 18, 2012—Duane Morris is pleased to announce it has been named a finalist in PR News' national Corporate Responsibility Awards in the category of Diversity Communications. The firm's George B. Vashon Lecture Series will be honored as a finalist on April 17 at the CSR Awards Luncheon at the JW Marriott in Washington, D.C. Duane Morris is the only law firm on the list of finalists, which includes Fortune 500 companies.
Duane Morris' George B. Vashon Lecture Series commemorates Vashon, an African-American legal scholar and abolitionist, who was posthumously admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in October 2010, more than a century and a half after he was first denied admission to the bar in Allegheny County because of the color of his skin. The Duane Morris lecture series in Vashon's honor began last April, as part of Duane Morris' Annual Diversity Retreat for the firm's diverse attorneys. The lecture series recognizes the life of Vashon by exploring issues of justice and fairness and the intersection of politics, economics and law. The 2011 panel included Cynthia Baldwin, retired Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Robert Wonderling, President and Chief Executive Officer, Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce; Rudolph Garcia, Chancellor, Philadelphia Bar Association; Pamela P. Dembe, President Judge, Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas; and Robert L. Archie, Jr., Duane Morris partner.
Duane Morris Chief Diversity Officer Nolan N. Atkinson, Jr., who is the great-grandson of Vashon, played a key role in finally winning official recognition for Vashon from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Vashon was twice rejected by the Allegheny County Bar, in 1847 and again in 1868, and was later admitted to practice not only in New York, but also before the U.S. Supreme Court.
During his lifetime, Vashon was active in the abolitionist movement in Pennsylvania. He was also a dedicated scholar and linguist who studied Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Sanskrit. He was the first African-American to graduate from Oberlin College in Ohio, where he was class valedictorian. His father John Vashon was an abolitionist who established the first school for black students in Pittsburgh. Over the years, friends of the Vashon family included abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison as well as Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington.
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