About Us
Photo: LPFI Staff. ©2008 Level Playing Field Institute
Mission
Level Playing Field Institute promotes innovative approaches to fairness in higher education and workplaces by removing barriers to full participation.
Vision
Fairness matters.
Work hard, get ahead. This is the way it's supposed to happen; it just doesn't happen this way for everyone. That's the part that's unfair. No one should have to work twice as hard to get half as far.
We envision a world where a true level playing field exists – a world where everyone has access to opportunities, including the historically disenfranchised. Racial and cultural differences would be acknowledged as positive attributes for a diverse society.
It would start in our educational system. The economic poor wouldn't be educationally disadvantaged anymore. All talented students, regardless of socio-economic status, would be academically prepared to apply to, and graduate from, top colleges and universities.
In the workplace, individuals would go as far as their interests and capabilities would take them. This is what getting ahead should be about: no hidden barriers or obstacles and no unfair advantages.
1 California Department of Education, 2008
2 U.S. Department of Education, 2004
3 Source: Discrimination Research Center, "Names Make a Difference: The Screening of Resumes by Temporary Employment Agencies in California," October 2004.
4 Source: Vince Beiser, "Rise of the Corporate Plutocrats," Los Angeles Times, October 17, 2004.
5 Source: Betsy Morris, "How Corporate America Is Betraying Women," Fortune, January 10, 2005.
6 National Science Foundation.