Monday 27 February 2017

Wonkbook: Racial bias could be hurting Silicon Valley’s bottom line

Sponsored by UnitedHealth Group | By Tracy Jan Apple shareholders will decide next week whether to force the tech giant to diversify its leadership — possibly by tying executives' compensation to racial diversity goals — in the industry's latest effort to grapple with a severe underrepresentation of blacks and Latinos in its ranks. The long-shot shareholder proposal, aimed at moving people of color into Apple's …
 
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By Tracy Jan

Apple shareholders will decide next week whether to force the tech giant to diversify its leadership — possibly by tying executives' compensation to racial diversity goals — in the industry's latest effort to grapple with a severe underrepresentation of blacks and Latinos in its ranks.

The long-shot shareholder proposal, aimed at moving people of color into Apple's C-suite, comes amid accusations of racial bias at various tech firms from customers, researchers and federal investigators. 

There was Google's image-recognition software that initially identified photos of black people as gorillas in 2015. Then last year, Airbnb, Uber and Lyft confronted a barrage of complaints after studies found evidence of discrimination against black customers trying to book lodging and hail rides.

Now, Oracle, a computer software giant, and Palantir, a data mining start-up that has worked with the FBI and CIA, face losing their government contracts after lawsuits filed by the Labor Department accused the Silicon Valley companies of discriminatory hiring practices.

Companies that fail to diversify, from management on down, risk hurting their bottom lines, say some shareholders, investors and other advocates of diversity.

Read the rest on Wonkblog.


Chart of the day

Since the election of President Trump, Republican lawmakers in at least 18 states have introduced or voted on legislation to curb mass protests in what civil liberties experts are calling "an attack on protest rights throughout the states." Christopher Ingraham has more.

protests


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