Robert Smith Forgives the Student Loan Debt for 400 Morehouse Graduates

On Point

Nike adds language protecting pregnant athletes under contract After Alysia Montaño, an Olympian and U.S. national champion, wrote a devastating op-ed claiming that Nike would pause the contracts of athletes if they got pregnant, the athletic apparel maker has wised up. Nike is adding specific language to their contracts to protect the pay of athletes when they become pregnant. Previously, Nike held the right to reduce pay if runners failed to meet performance benchmarks for any reason, including pregnancy or childbirth. For her part, Montaño switched sponsors when Nike told her that they would stop paying her if she started a family. “The sports industry allows for men to have a full career and when a woman decides to have a baby it pushes women out at their prime,” she said in a video. Wall Street Journal

Today in mixed blessing news: GM has more women on their board than men And, according to this must-read piece from Fortune’s Emma Hinchliffe, GM is not alone. Five others—Bed, Bath & Beyond, Casey’s General Stores, Viacom, CBS, and Omnicom Group—have boards of directors with more women than men. Another five—Ascena Retail Group, Best Buy, Navient, Williams-Sonoma, and Ulta Beauty—are at equal representation and some two-dozen others are above the 40% mark. And yet, women still held only 22.5% of Fortune 500 board seats in 2018, and many of them are the same white women, holding multiple seats. Fortune

A list of countries where same-sex marriage is legal The Pew Research Center has done the talent and human resources divisions of global companies a service by providing this updated list of countries (or in some cases, certain jurisdictions) which have legalized same-sex marriage. It’s searchable alphabetically or chronologically. Either way, it’s a chronicle of progress. Give it up to The Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Spain and South Africa for being the first five on the board. Pew Research Center

Racist “promposal” shows the increase of casual bigotry among students An image of two Palos Verdes High School students went viral on social media as they were documenting a “promposal.” The problem was not adorability, it contained a racial slur. Experts say it’s a sign of the increasingly casual use of hate-speech in both in California and across the country. Brian Levin, director of Cal State San Bernardino’s Center on Hate and Extremism says that segregated communities like those found in California breed ignorance and bigotry. “Many of these people who are engaging in hate speech are not hardcore hatemongers,” he says. “We have this middle group of people who think bigotry is funny.” In California, there was a 65% increase in hate crimes on elementary and secondary school campuses from 2012 to 2017 which Levin also attributes to the increased use of social media. “In today’s social media world, all kinds of bigotry — whether it’s committed purposefully or recklessly — oftentimes is going to be aired in a way that’s hurtful and divisive in a community, irrespective of intent.” Los Angeles Times

On Background

Ghana stuns at the Venice Biennale It’s the art world’s biggest international event, and Ghana’s long-awaited debut did not disappoint. The country’s first-ever pavilion, titled “Ghana Freedom” was designed by British-Ghanaian architect David Adjaye, with exhibits curated by Nana Oforiatta Ayim. It’s a multi-generational, multi-platform examination of Ghana’s post-colonial history and how independence has affected artists in Ghana and around the world. “I chose to show half male, half female, half rooted in Ghana and half in the diaspora, which is a small selection of our country’s artists but presents as pluralistic an idea as possible,” Ayim told CNN. Enjoy. CNN

Online diversity training offers mixed results at best A group of seven researchers created the best of all possible diversity trainings with an eye to testing the obvious: Do these things actually work? Click through for a detailed look at how they designed and distributed their training, which focused on gender diversity primarily and racial diversity secondarily. (I know, I know.) The tale of the tape? “Our diversity training had a significant positive effect on employees’ attitudes toward women across all measures collected,” they report. Sadly, it didn’t last long. Weeks later, researchers measured inclusion behaviors – like referrals of women candidates to mentorship programs, or the willingness of leaders to reach out to new, female hires and found no real impact. On race, “We found a significant main effect of diversity training on employees’ willingness to acknowledge the extent to which their own personal racial biases matched the racial biases of the general population (b = 0.193, P < 0.001), which was our sole attitudinal measure addressing racial bias,” they find. PNAS Journal

Saying “in this #MeToo era” needs to stop This is the pointed opinion of writer Leah Fessler, who is not here for it anymore. After a rollicking intro in which she documents the efforts of the “good guys” to separate themselves from the now-tainted rapists and abusers, she calls out how the phrase is deployed in corporate settings as some sort of gender cover. “There’s the hiring manager: ‘In this Me Too Era, we really need to be making sure we’re interviewing at least half women,’” she cites. Or the start-up bro. “All my VC intros have been to straight white dudes, but in this Me Too Era I should probably look for female partners, too.” The problem is, it’s a tell. “[T]he phrase ‘in this Me Too Era’ implicitly suggests that if it weren’t for the bounty of famous men exposed for being sexual predators, you wouldn’t be thinking this way,” she observes. Medium

Aidan Taylor assisted in the preparation of today’s summaries.

Quote

Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education… If we are not careful, our colleges will produce a group of close-minded, unscientific, illogical propagandists, consumed with immoral acts. Be careful, ‘brethren!’ Be careful, teachers! —Martin Luther King, Jr, writing in Morehouse College student newspaper, The Maroon Tiger, 1947