Equity and Fairness Equals Civic and Business Success
Guest author Stanley S. Litow is a professor at Columbia University, author of Breaking Barriers: How P-TECH Schools Create a Pathway From High School to College to Career and The Challenge for Business and Society: From Risk to Reward, a columnist at Barron's, and an Albert Shanker Institute board member.
Education leaders across the US have been working overtime in response to a range of very serious changes in federal policies that seem to have a consistent goal of undermining what had been long standing commitments to both equity and diversity. Such commitments were designed to reverse a history of discrimination, not just in education, but in a host of segments of American life, including the workplace
Recently one of New York's most iconic headquartered businesses IBM, agreed to pay $17 million to the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to settle a claim that their diversity, equity and inclusion programs were discriminatory and unlawful. While IBM has fully denied engaging in any practices that were discriminatory in any way, some will interpret the payment as an admission of guilt. The DOJ cited that IBM provided diversity training programs, bonuses based on achieving diversity goals, and considered diverse candidates for promotions. There was a time those practices addressing the need for more equity in the workplace were honored, rewarded, and modeled—not penalized. Over more than a century IBM has always prided itself on being a leader in addressing the need for diversity and equity in the workplace, something that was directly connected to long-term bottom-line business success. While IBM is not a perfect employer, a look at IBM’s history speaks volumes about their progress.
In the 1950's IBM sought a site for a new manufacturing plant. The Governor of Kentucky anxious for IBM to bring thousands of jobs to Lexington Kentucky offered them the best tax incentives. But in the negotiations, he also informed them that the plant would have to be racially segregated since there were zero integrated manufacturing plants below the Mason Dixon Line in the US. IBM's CEO informed the Governor that the company had a core policy enacted in 1953 that IBM "fills jobs regardless of race color or creed” and that was an essential element of opening anywhere. If the state would not support such a policy IBM would not complete the deal. Nervous about losing the jobs, the Governor relented and IBM opened what became Lexmark Computers in Kentucky with a diverse set of employees, a year before the Brown vs. the Board of Education Supreme Court decision and a decade before the 1964 Civil Rights Act. This has always been a critical AND praiseworthy action by a US company.
Several years later JFK was elected President and moved to address the fact that workplaces across the US in a range of industries discriminated against people of color. He put together what was called "Plan for Progress” asking all companies to institute equal opportunity employment practices. Something IBM did in the 1930's. JFK tasked his Vice President Lyndon Johnson with convening major US companies at the White House to ask the companies to make voluntary commitments to end discrimination and increase minority hiring. The President got commitments from 268 companies and from 1961 to 1963 hiring of Black employees increased from 30,000 to 43,000 an increase of 13%. IBM's increase was almost double that, at 24%. President Kennedy and then President Johnson praised the company and its CEO for taking the need to end discrimination in the workplace seriously and providing a model of leadership for others to follow.
The company's commitment to diversity was directly connected to IBMs bottom line success. In the late 1960's working with then Senator Robert F. Kennedy they opened a manufacturing facility in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, at the time an economically challenged minority neighborhood. The plant had 400 employees, 300 of them being men and women of color. The plant fueled IBM’s business success and reinforced support for civil rights across the US.
More recently in 2011 IBM worked with the City of New York to create the PTECH program offering students a combined high school and community college program during grades 9-14 with students getting both a high school and community college degree concurrently, with IBM providing mentors for the students and paid internships, and placing successful completes first in line for jobs The program has grown to over 600 schools across 16 states and 28 countries with 150,000 students enrolled. States like Texas have expanded the program significantly but the initial school in Crown Heights, with a student population consisting of 99% low-income students of color, was recently judged to be the best New York City high school out of over 500 high schools that admit students without screening for admissions. It provided the company with a pipeline of exemplary hires who were skilled and diverse and once more a model for others.
But IBM policy was not only about racial equality in the workplace. In 1935 the company added women into its sales school and had an initial class of 25 women who joined 52 men in the program, which was referenced in major news articles. Thomas J. Watson, Sr. IBM’s first CEO stated, “These women would have neither handicap nor an advantage over the young men, and should expect equal pay and advancement opportunities.” On the 50th Anniversary of women getting the right to vote, the CEO of the company issued a directive against sexual discrimination in the workplace and appointed a corporate officer in charge of equal opportunity for women. In 1996 before any federal actions, IBM adopted a policy providing health and other benefits to same sex partners, making IBM the largest US company to adopt such a policy in the US.
Presidents, government, civic and community leaders and other businesses across the US praised IBM's actions, and employees, shareholders and prospective employees appreciated real leadership and a commitment to equity and fairness.
As we move toward the celebration of the 250th Anniversary of the US this is a time to pause and remember that fairness and equity in the workplace is key to both economic and societal success. Diversity needs to be a core element of education and business success. The lesson of history can inform current and future action, but it will take leadership to achieve results. It has been the case in the past and in can be and should be part of our future.