Sherry D. Soanes, Founder BLS Inclusion Mentors
Sherry D. Soanes is a Black woman, a lawyer, educator and advocate for a world in which differences are valued. She lives by the philosophy that before we can change anything we have to first reflect and identify the myths that are consciously and unconsciously the foundation of our beliefs. There can be no permanent societal change, if we cannot have the uncomfortable & difficult fact-based conversations about structural barriers rendered invisible because they are normalized.
Ms. Soanes is a humanitarian committed to uplifting the dignity of all human beings. Before she was a lawyer, she was an early childhood educator, and social science researcher on a longitudinal study that observed the effects of multigenerational poverty on African American families in Baltimore, Maryland.
She has over twenty-five years as a legal advocate both in the private and public sector. She has represented small and large companies, and developed a specialty defending Fortune 50 companies in employment discrimination suits. As an attorney with the Department of Justice she represented government agencies and the people of the United States in numerous federal courts throughout the United States. In her current capacity with DOJ, she is responsible for the professional development of the attorneys in her section.
In January 2017, The American University designed a pilot course as a part of the first-year curriculum on social identity and race addition. The course became compulsory for all incoming first-year and transfer students in the academic year 2018-2019. Ms. Soanes joined the faculty in the School of Education and until 2022 taught this multi-disciplined and innovative course with the goal of giving students the tools they need to engage in productive discourse around issues of historical and current structures of power, privilege, and inequality.
Ms. Soanes served on several boards in her community including The American University Alumni Board, and its President Council on Diversity and Inclusion. The Justice Advisory Council, formed by the Office of the Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney to engage the local community in discussing ways to improve and make tangible steps towards criminal justice reform. Additionally, she served on the board of Just Us Kids Child Development Center, a private non-profit corporation sponsored by the Department of Justice.
Using her familiarity with the corporate and institutional world, and merging her professional experience with antiracist pedagogy, she founded BLS Inclusion Mentors, LLC using her mother’s initials who she credits as teaching her to actively work towards ensuring the human rights of others. Through her company she raises awareness by designing courses and lecturing on the historical underpinnings of structural racism. She has presented at national and local organizations throughout the USA on “The Historical Exclusion & Current Marginalization of Blacks in the Legal Profession”; “How Practitioners Can Recognize Current Patterns in Structural Racial Oppression”; “Awful but Lawful” practices, “(Not So) Historical Racism: How Institutionalized Prejudice Impacts Workers” (pointing out gaps in our legal system that permit racism in the form of microaggressions to go unchecked); “Fractured Trust and the “Forgotten” Contributions of Blacks to Medical Science”; “How a history of Violence Against Black Women Shows Up as Acceptable Normal Behavior”; “Recreating a Just Legal Structure Requires Understanding the Legal & Historical Roots of System We Inherited.” She also developed a six week Episcopal faith-based course “Let Justice Roll: From Not-Racist to Antiracist”.
In addition to lecturing and speaking engagements, Ms. Soanes has spoken at the Harry L. Carrico Professionalism Course regarding a lawyer’s obligation to the profession and community to make society better. She has been interviewed by “Observer AM,” a morning radio show that broadcast from St. John’s Antigua where she attended high school. She has also been interviewed and quoted in “Virginia Judge Won’t Try Black Man in Courtroom Lined With White Portraits,” New York Times By Derrick Bryson Taylor, Published Jan. 1, 2021. In February 2002, she appeared as a panelist on “The Racial Divide: What Has Changed?” A 7News Town Hall.
Ms. Soanes received her Juris Doctorate, cum laude, from The American University, Washington College of Law, and her Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, from Howard University. She is a member of the Virginia bar, admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court, and was sworn in as a Solicitor of England and Wales in 2008.