While most Americans understand the history of Juneteenth, a University Of Massachusetts Amherst poll found that only 42% of Americans support it being a federal holiday.

Juneteenth is an important holiday for all Americans as it teaches lessons about the rule of law, equality, how the country came to define what it means to be a U.S. citizen, the stain of slavery on the nation’s history and the actions taken by leaders of the past to end it. It’s also a good time for companies to encourage employees to acknowledge the national holiday. According to research from Mercer, more employers are adding Juneteenth as a paid holiday. Juneteenth is just as crucial to the founding of the modern U.S. as the events celebrated on July Fourth.

Becoming a National Holiday

President Joe Biden named Juneteenth a national holiday on June 17, 2021. The day commemorates the 1865 announcement made in Galveston, TX, that slaves had been freed. The decision to officially mark the holiday has been a long time coming. Various congressional representatives and advocates have argued for the designation for decades.

In signing the proclamation, Biden called Juneteenth “a day of profound weight and power.” He said the day offers the chance for Americans to “remember the moral stain and terrible toll of slavery on our country” and the “ long legacy of systemic racism, inequality and inhumanity.”

“But it is a day that also reminds us of our incredible capacity to heal, hope and emerge from our darkest moments with purpose and resolve,” Biden said.

While Juneteenth is a federal holiday, state governments vary considerably on how to commemorate the holiday. In at least 28 states and the District of Columbia, government offices are closed and state workers have a paid day off, according to a Pew Research Center analysis.

The Origins of Juneteenth

While it centers on a specific event in Texas, Juneteenth – a word that combines June and “19th” – marks a day of celebration for the freedom given to slaves through the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln on Jan. 1, 1863. Until then, the freedoms listed in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights applied only to white men.

(Regarding voting, those freedoms applied only to property-owning white men. The first states did not allow non-property-owning white men to vote until 1828. North Carolina was the last state to allow it in 1856. And women did not get to vote until the 19th Amendment passed in 1920.)

More than two years after Lincoln issued the proclamation, a ship carrying Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, TX, on June 19, 1865. Granger announced that the war had ended (officially, it ended on April 9, 1865), and all enslaved people were now free.

While the Emancipation Proclamation legally freed the slaves, it changed nothing in the slave-holding states of the Confederacy. Even after the end of the war, Texas remained the last state with institutional slavery. But Granger and his men had come to enforce the law. Their actions resulted in freedom for an estimated 250,000 slaves in Texas.

The First Juneteenth Celebrations

Granger and the 2,000 Union troops that had come to Galveston marched through the city, reading the following proclamation.

“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”

Juneteenth celebrations began the very next year, with Black Americans celebrating the day much like the Fourth of July. Churches held many of the events, with celebrations including a prayer service, inspirational speeches, a reading of the Emancipation Proclamation, stories from former slaves, food, red soda water, games, rodeos and dances, according to the Texas State Library and Archives Commission.

In some cases, freed slaves purchased land to hold the celebrations. Those “emancipation grounds” include Emancipation Park in both Houston and Austin and what is now called Booker T. Washington Park in Mexia, TX. Celebrations soon spread to Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma. Eventually, they reached every corner of the country as Black people migrated outside the South.

The Legal Importance of Juneteenth

Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation as an executive order, later upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. However, it only related to slaves in the Confederate states. The border states of Kentucky and Delaware did not free slaves until the passage of the 13th Amendment, adopted on Dec. 18, 1865. The amendment abolished slavery in the current states and any future state. It also ended involuntary servitude, the practice of forcing people to work to pay off their debts.

The proclamation also opened the door to the passage of the 14th Amendment on July 9, 1868. The amendment defines a U.S. citizen as anyone “born or naturalized” in the U.S. It nullified the 1857 decision from the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott v. Sanford case in which the court said those descended from African slaves could not be U.S. citizens.

The Emancipation Proclamation and the two amendments that followed marked the beginning of the modern U.S. and “began the long-term goal of achieving equality for all Americans,” according to National Geographic.

Khalfani-Cox and her husband took a home equity line of credit on their three-bedroom, three-bathroom ranch home and needed to appraise it. 

This wasn’t the couple’s first experience with home appraisals. Khalfani-Cox was ready with a one-sheet with all the home’s upgrades and improvements. What she wasn’t prepared for was the dismissive home appraiser. 

“An older white man came to the door,” she says. “He looked my husband and me up and down. Then he sped through and did a really quick photographing and measuring of our house.” 

Khalfani-Cox also wasn’t prepared for the low appraisal.  

“He came back with an appraisal that was about $100,000 less than comparable homes in our neighborhood that had recently sold. We had done a $40,000 renovation for our kitchen. We knew we were getting lowballed right off the bat. Sadly, we knew what the cause of it was. It was that we were African American.” 

Throughout history, Black Americans have faced unequal housing opportunities. A lack of representation in real estate-related occupations has been cited as one of the contributors to the disparities.   

“This is a multifaceted problem that requires a multitude of solutions at the policy level – certainly at the level of corporations and the industry, whether that’s the banking and lending industry, the appraisal industry, the real estate, the brokerage industry and more,” says Khalfani-Cox. “I do think representation matters.”   

Appraisal Bias 

According to research from the Brookings Institution, homes in majority-Black neighborhoods are valued up to 23% below non-Black communities, resulting in $162 billion in lost equity. The devaluing of Black homes is also a systemic problem in predominantly white areas, as Khalfani-Cox experienced.  

The home appraisal industry is overwhelmingly white and property appraisers are less likely than other real-estate-related occupations to be people of color.  

“We observe in education and health that greater diversity – specifically more people of color in those in sectors serving other people of color – have resulted in better outcomes for patients and students of color,” says Michael Neal, Principal Research Associate in the Housing Finance Center at the Urban Institute. “The same can potentially be true here. If there is racial bias, whether conscious or unconscious, diversifying the industry can help with that.” 

The Appraiser Diversity Initiative, a collaboration with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Appraisal Institute and the National Urban League, aims to eliminate disparities in appraiser demographics by providing new entrants with education and resources. U.S. Bank (No. 11 on the Fair360 2023 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list) has launched a trainee program for residential appraisers to increase Black representation in appraiser roles.  

After the low appraisal, Khalfani-Cox and her husband immediately contacted their bank. A second appraisal was conducted at their own expense. But this time, a Black appraiser arrived at their home.   

“He was very meticulous,” she says. “He very carefully measured our property.” 

The appraiser also took pictures of all the rooms, but not before instructing the couple to take down their family photos. The process has been described as “whitewashing,” when non-white homeowners remove evidence they live in their home before an appraisal.  

“It was erasure,” she says. “Talk about having to battle toxic racism and structural inequality. We can’t even be represented in the pictures? The man was trying to pull our coattails and tip us. Even though we were so upset, my husband relented and we took the pictures down.” 

The second appraisal returned $100,000 higher than the previous one. Khalfani-Cox’s story is not uncommon. Not only does appraisal discrimination prevent homeowners of color from building generational wealth, but it also perpetuates the racial wealth gap. 

“It was disturbing to me overall,” she says. “I think about all of the sapped wealth. All of the disenfranchisement. All of the ways in which people who are less familiar with the process don’t have the same access to information or knowledge that I possess and who may not have even been aware that they were unjustly lowballed.” 

READ: How Appraisal Discrimination Devalues Homes Owned By People of Color  

Housing Discrimination   

The real estate professional industry is overwhelmingly white. While Blacks make up more than 14% of the U.S. population, only 5% of real estate agents are Black.  

“If you have a group of people who are racially prejudiced and at the same time, they’re the ones in positions of power, then you run the risk of racially discriminatory outcomes taking place,” says Neal.  

More than 50 years after the Fair Housing Act of 1968, race-based discrimination in housing continues to be a problem.  

Blockbusting is when real estate agents encourage white homeowners to sell their homes for low prices by convincing them minorities are moving into the neighborhood.   

“Real estate agents and speculators and others used the business strategy that allowed them to purchase homes that were owned by white Americans at cheap rates and then turn around and sell those same properties at steep prices to African Americans who had very limited housing options,” says Nikitra Bailey, Executive Vice President of the National Fair Housing Alliance.  “That was the way the market operated for many years.” 

Steering is when an agent guides someone to buy or rent a home in a specific area because of their race, disability, religion or other legally protected characteristics. 

“The industry has admitted that white real estate agents did engage in steering, which resulted in Black homebuyers buying lower-valued homes in less desirable neighborhoods,” says Neal. “This is critical because it contextualizes the homeownership rate gap and that there’s a need to close that inequity.” 

In 2020, The National Association of Realtors (NAR) apologized for its role in perpetuating housing discrimination. The organization, which once supported policies like steering and excluded members because of their race, reports that its demographics are changing.  

“Based on the 2022 data, Hispanics accounted for 11% of Realtors and this is up from 9% in the previous year,” says Nadia Evangelou, Senior Economist & Director of Real Estate Research at the NAR. “Then we have Black Americans with 8% and Asians with 5%. New members tended to be more diverse than experienced members. Among those who have two years of experience or less, 37% were minorities which is up from 34% last year.” 

Mortgage Denials  

According to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, minorities are significantly underrepresented among loan officers, adversely affecting borrowers’ access to credit.  

Minority applicants are less likely to be approved than white applicants working with the same white loan officer when automated underwriting systems aren’t used. However, minority applicants are more likely to be approved and less likely to default when working with minority loan officers—especially when the officer is of the same race/ethnicity. 

Mortgage denials are a significant obstacle for Black Americans trying to get a piece of the American Dream. Not only does the group have the lowest homeownership rate, but the Black-white homeownership gap is the largest it’s been in a decade.  

All mortgage loan providers on Fair360’s Top 50 Companies for Diversity list have diversity goals set or approved by their Executive Diversity Council and are focused on improving opportunities for ethnically diverse populations. 

“A year ago, we hired 12 new Black mortgage loan officers across the country who are part of the bank’s first-ever training and development program designed to deliver on Access Home’s commitment to creating future mortgage leaders who represent all the communities the banks serve, starting with Black consumers,” says Lenny McNeill, Executive Vice President, Strategic Markets and Affordable Lending, U.S. Bank. “Mortgage experience wasn’t required to participate.”  

The U.S. Bank Access Home Program first targeted the Black community, where the disparities are the largest. In 2023 and beyond, the bank will expand its focus to include the Hispanic community.  

TD Bank (No. 20 on the Fair360 2023 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list) is also transforming its mortgage salesforce to increase homeownership in the Black community. Michael Innis-Thompson, Senior Vice President, Head of Community Lending & Development & Fair Lending Center of Excellence at TD Bank believes increasing representation in the banking field can help prospective customers feel more comfortable and welcome. 

“The assumptions that we’ve made are actually playing out in the actual data that we’re seeing in the loans that are being produced by diverse loan officers,” he says. “It’s showing that it works. These individuals are reaching customers who otherwise probably would not have trusted the system because they feel more comfortable talking to someone who looks at them. It’s not enough to just hire diverse loan officers, but to ensure they have the tools to be successful across the board.” 

Jewish Americans first settled in what became the United States in 1654 in New Amsterdam, which later became New York City. They played a key role in many pivotal moments in U.S. history, including founding the American Red Cross, writing the poem affixed to the Statue of Liberty and serving in the Armed Forces (more than 500,000 fought during World War II alone).  

But the month is not meant to serve only as a celebration of Jewish American accomplishments. The focus of Jewish American Heritage Month is to “strengthen our communities and promote a sense of belonging, shared civic life and deeper understanding of cultural heritage,” according to the event’s official website. 

Facts About Jewish American Heritage Month

A statement from the White House in 2023 noted that “the story of the Jewish people — one of resilience, faith and hope in the face of adversity, prejudice and persecution — has been woven into the fabric of our nation’s story.” 

The idea of JAHM began with the Jewish Museum of Florida and South Florida Jewish community leaders. President George W. Bush established the month in 2006. In 2018, the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia became the home of JAHM. The museum leads the nationwide effort to recognize Jewish Americans during the month, including a focus on addressing antisemitism and how to combat it in the workplace.

“We believe that the antidote to antisemitism is to teach Jewish history and heritage, and to create tangible touch points with Jewish people and culture,” Dr. Misha Galperin, Weitzman’s President and CEO, said in a statement about JAHM. 

The Contributions of Jewish Americans

Jewish Americans have played a key role in U.S. history since the colonial period. They have served the country in uniform, as elected officials and as judges. They have made contributions to science, culture, art and intellectual life. Jewish Americans also have continually participated in movements to demand civil and political rights for all.  

Some of the most notable Jewish Americans rank among the most famous Americans in history. They include Albert Einstein, Irving Berlin, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Estée Lauder, Jonas Salk, Steven Spielberg, Barbara Streisand and Harry Houdini. 

 How Can Employers Support Jewish Americans?

JAHM is a good place for employers to start acknowledging the importance of Jewish Americans, both to the nation’s past and future.  

One example of this is respecting Jewish holidays. Just as employers factor in religious observances of Muslim and Christian employees, the same respect should be extended to Jewish Americans.  

The Harvard Business Review notes that while organizations spent over $9 billion on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in 2022, “the inclusion of our Jewish colleagues and the rise of antisemitism is seldom acknowledged or included in those efforts.” That seems especially notable when considering that antisemitic incidents hit an all-time high in 2021. 

Being Jewish is both a religious faith and culture. Some people who identify as Jewish may not practice the religion. But all Jewish Americans are subject to antisemitism, sometimes based simply on their name. It can be even worse online, as the Anti-Defamation League reports that 36% of all Jewish Americans in the U.S. are harassed. 

The best way to deal with antisemitism is to take it on directly. Business leaders should discuss antisemitic hate speech and hate crimes that may have occurred in the community or incidents people have seen on the national news. Organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League, the United States Holocaust Museum and the JAHM website offer a wealth of information about dealing with antisemitism. 

Leaders and co-workers should stand up to any antisemitism at work, no matter how “small” the infraction seems. Microaggressions and disparaging comments about Jewish people or Judaism disguised as “jokes” can leave people feeling unseen and disrespected if they go unchallenged. 

Businesses can also work through employee resource groups (ERGs) and HR teams to include education about Jewish Americans and antisemitism for managers and employees. HBR suggests bringing in outside experts who can help people avoid stereotypical views on Jewish Americans and teach them to not think of them as a monolithic block of people (a common issue for all minority groups). 

Co-workers can also check in on their Jewish American co-workers when something antisemitic happens, giving them a chance to express their feelings.  

“As a Haitian American, celebrating Haitian Heritage Month is significant because it allows us to recognize and honor Haitian Americans’ contributions to the fabric of American society,” says Hans Patrick Domercant, President of the Haitian Chamber of Commerce. “Haitian Americans have significantly contributed to medicine, business, education, politics and culture. Celebrating these accomplishments helps to highlight our rich history, cultural heritage and the ongoing impact that we have on American society.” 

The first Haitian Heritage Month was celebrated in May 1998 in the United States. The Haitian diaspora celebrates the observance worldwide. It coincides with Haitian Flag Day, the month Haiti gained independence from France in 1804.   

Events in Haitian American History  

Haitian American history is rich and complex, with many key moments helping shape the experiences of Haitians in the United States.  

1791-1804: The Haitian Revolution led to the establishment of Haiti as an independent nation, recognized by the United States in 1862. 

1915-1934: Following the assassination of Haitian president Jean Vilbrun Guillaume, the United States occupied Haiti under the guise of “restoring order” and “promoting economic stability.”   

The 1960s-1980s: A wave of immigrants came to the United States to escape the oppressive regime of François “Papa Doc” Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier.   

1991-1994: In the early 1990s, thousands of Haitians attempted to flee their country by boat, seeking refuge in the United States. The U.S. government responded with a controversial policy of intercepting and repatriating Haitian migrants, which was criticized for violating international human rights law. 

1998: The Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act (HRIFA), enacted by Congress in 1998, granted legal permanent residency to certain Haitian nationals residing in the United States.  

2010: A devastating earthquake struck Haiti, killing over 200,000 people and leaving millions homeless. Following the quake, the U.S. granted Temporary Protection Status (TPS) to approximately 55,000 immigrants. TPS allows migrants from countries with unsafe conditions to reside and work legally in the U.S.   

2022: The United States extended the protected status program that prevents Haitian migrants from being deported to mid-2024.  

Haiti Facts and Firsts 

Once the wealthiest colony in the Caribbean, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Political instability, civil unrest and recurrent natural disasters have contributed to its fragility.   

Haiti was the first independent Black republic in the world. The country declared independence from France on Jan. 1, 1804, after the first and only successful slave rebellion in modern history.  

Haiti is one of the most densely populated and least developed countries in the Western Hemisphere. 

Haiti is the most mountainous country in the Caribbean and one of the most biodiverse countries in the West Indies.  

Haiti is home to one of the world’s largest solar-powered hospitals, the Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais. 

The Citadel, located in northern Haiti, is the largest fortress in the Western Hemisphere. 

Notable Haitian Americans 

From politics to entertainment, here are some people of Haitian descent who have made significant contributions to American society: 

W.E.B. Du Bois, civil rights activist, scholar and writer, was the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1895.  

Karine Jean-Pierre made history in 2022 as the first Black and openly gay White House Press Secretary. 

Jeremiah Hamilton was Wall Street’s first Black millionaire. When he died in 1875, his estate was worth about $2 million, or about $250 million in 2015. 

Mia Love was the first Haitian-American and first Black Republican woman in Congress for Utah’s 4th Congressional district. 

Wyclef Jean is a Grammy-award-winning artist and former member of the Fugees, one of the best-selling rap groups of all time. 

Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick is the first Haitian American Democrat elected to Congress, representing Florida’s 20th Congressional District. 

Claudine Gay will become the 30th and first Black President of Harvard University on July 1, 2023.  

The Haitian American Experience in the U.S. 

As of 2020, the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) says an estimated 705,000 Haitians lived in the United States, the world’s largest Haitian immigrant population. Once they arrive in the U.S., their experience is often varied.   

The Cato Institute says within four years of residency in the U.S., Haitian immigrants have an employment rate of nearly 80%, which is higher than the population on average. In 2018, the percentage of Haitians 25 and older in the U.S. with a high school degree or higher was greater than the total foreign-born population. But compared to all immigrant groups, Haitians were more likely to have lower household incomes, participate in the labor force and work in service occupations, according to the MPI. Haitian immigrants were also less likely to be in management and related jobs than foreign- and native-born groups.  

“One of the biggest challenges is discrimination and prejudice based on race, ethnicity and immigration status,” says Domercant. “As a result, many Haitian Americans have experienced barriers in accessing education, employment opportunities and healthcare services.” 

The Haitian American Policy Institute’s workplace policy recommendations include expanding the Work Opportunity Tax Credit, strengthening worker protections by defending the right of public and private sector workers to collectively bargain and improving access to workforce development training for individuals with low education and English language attainment.  

Language is an integral part of Haitian culture. Haitian Creole, a French-based Creole language, is spoken by most people in Haiti and over 10 million worldwide. The language emerged as a form of African resistance against slavery during the 17th and 18th centuries and can be heard in many Haitian American homes. Domercant says Haitian Americans face challenges in maintaining their cultural identity while assimilating to American culture.  

“Despite these challenges, Haitian Americans persevere and make valuable contributions to American society,” he says. “By celebrating Haitian Heritage Month, we can raise awareness of these contributions and work towards creating a more equitable and inclusive community for all.” 

“In some households, including mine, that’s grown folks’ business. That’s grown folks’ conversation. Nobody talked about money at all.”  

Grant’s grandparents raised her until she was 12 and then she moved in with her mom. She remembers the five-inch high stack of credit cards her mother used when shopping. 

“I knew as a child if we went to the store, I could get whatever I wanted. She would use a credit card, we would walk out of the store and we’d be fine.”  

Grant also learned that actions have consequences.  

“My mom had to file bankruptcy,” she says. “My grandparents had to file bankruptcy. Then my mom went through a foreclosure. Seeing all that as a child, I put two and two together and thought it must result from all these credit cards and things like debt accumulation.” 

According to Pew Research, most Black Americans experience economic insecurity, with roughly seven in 10 saying their finances were in fair or poor shape.   

Grant was determined not to be one of those people. 

The Financial Literacy Gap 

The data doesn’t lie. The United States has a financial literacy problem.  

Only 57% of U.S. adults are financially literate, meaning they have basic knowledge of financial concepts like interest, inflation, risk diversification and compound interest. According to a 2022 report from TIAA (No. 8 on DiversityInc’s 2023 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list), it’s even worse for Black and Hispanic Americans when compared to other groups.  

“If you look at whites and Asian Americans, at least 20% of them have very high levels of financial literacy. But for Black and Hispanic Americans, the number is less than 6%,” says Paul Yakoboski, Senior Economist at the TIAA Institute. “Those racial gaps in financial literacy levels are significant threats to many in those communities. To be sure, the gaps have nothing to do with capability. They’re more likely because of systemic factors and demographic differences, such as age, education and income.” 

TIAA also found that people with a low level of financial literacy are twice as likely to have decreased their retirement savings and more than four times as likely to have stopped saving for retirement compared to their peers with very high levels of financial literacy. 

“Cutting back on retirement savings may appear to be a painless way to cope, but it involves costs that those with greater financial literacy may be more aware of, such as lost employer-matching contributions and lost compounding over time of the money that is not saved,” says Yakoboski.  

READ: The Retirement Race Gap: An Uncertain Future for People of Color  

With low financial literacy rates comes stress and anxiety about money and finances, primarily among Black and Hispanic adults.  

Aya Egbuho remembers questioning why her primary caretaker struggled to pay the rent when the amount was the same monthly.  

“I internalized a lot of emotional baggage around financial literacy, fear, anxiety, avoidance and that’s not the way to go,” she says.  

The anxiety about money continued when Egbuho was older.   

“I would have more than enough money,” she says. “I was paying all my bills on time, but still feeling so anxious. For me, a lot of it was a feeling thing. I just dreaded it. One day it hit me. I was reading a book, not even about financial literacy. I was reading a book about something else. Maybe you have these feelings because you don’t know too much. So it’s time for you to learn about it.” 

READ: The Inheritance No One Wants: Breaking Generational Poverty 

Educating the Next Generation of Workers  

Most Americans think schools should teach financial literacy. Yet, only 23 states require students to take a course in personal finance to graduate, according to an annual survey from the Council for Economic Education.  

“A lot of them are leaving it up to the school district and to the educators to figure out how to integrate some key concepts into their coursework,” says Bonnie Wallace, Head of Financial Health Philanthropy at Wells Fargo (No. 32 on DiversityInc’s 2023 Top 50 companies for Diversity list). “There’s not a lot of standardization in terms of content or curriculum, and there’s very little measurement going on.” 

Wallace says that’s why digging beyond the state mandates is essential.  

“One, are the teachers trained? Two, do they have a curriculum, resources and tools? And three, are those curriculum resources and tools deployed equally across that state? We know that there’s a lot of inequity with schools to begin with,” she says. “We start with a situation where there’s inequity in the community and then you layer on top of that inequity in the efforts to provide financial education.” 

READ: Unbanked and Unstable: The Financial Dilemma for Low-Income and Communities of Color  

Financial Literacy for All is a 10-year national initiative to educate millions of youth and young adults. Member organizations include U.S. Bank (No. 11 on DiversityInc’s 2023 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list) and Mastercard (No. 1 on DiversityInc’s 2023 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list). 

Companies like TIAA and Wells Fargo are targeting the next generation’s workforce by teaching financial literacy to students as young as kindergarten and as advanced as college. Since 2015, EVERFI has powered TIAA’s community impact and education initiatives, serving more than 25,000 K-12 learners. Wells Fargo’s Money Matters program collaborates with historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to improve financial wellness for college students of color. 

“We believe at HBCUs that these students can be catalysts for closing the racial wealth gap,” says Wallace. “Not only do they have the ability to change their financial situation, but many of the HBCUs — and I would probably dare say all — focus on giving back to the community.”  

READ: The Cost of Getting Sick: Black Americans and Medical Debt 

Financial Wellness at Work  

A little more than half of employers offer financial wellness programs, including investment and planning education or webinars that provide broad-based financial knowledge, according to a survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI). The EBRI notes that increased adoption of the programs could be challenging as companies weigh increased costs and the impact on productivity, worker satisfaction, attraction and retention.  

“More employers should consider taking steps toward empowering employees,” says Yakoboski. 

“Help them learn more about their financial wellness before they reach the age of retirement. Just like companies offer medical benefits, financial wellness benefits should also be a given. The end objective is not financial literacy for the sake of financial literacy. The end objective is financial well-being and financial security.” 

Capital One (No. 28 on DiversityInc’s 2023 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list) focuses on giving its employees the same support as its customers. The company recently launched a financial literacy program to help workers understand their financial situations.   

“Through 30-minute self-paced modules with articles and webinars, our associates can learn practical strategies for building savings, sticking to a budget, and getting rid of debt — the topics we heard are most important to them,” says Ralph Haro, Managing Vice President of New to Credit at Capital One. “These programs are helping build healthy habits to improve financial well-being, lower financial stress, and feel healthier all around.”   

READ: What is Health Equity? 

Financial literacy and financial wellness are interconnected. People with higher financial literacy tend to have more retirement and non-retirement savings and manage their debt better. The National Urban League says that’s especially true for Black Americans. 

Grant’s childhood experiences inspired her to start a financial counseling and education website. She wishes financial wellness programs had been available when she entered the workforce. 

“Employees spend eight or nine hours of their day at the job, so they’re there the majority of their waking hours,” says Grant. “People that may not have access to financial wellness outside of the employer still have to show up at work every day. As an employer, you could be the catalyst that helps your employees develop better spending habits and budgeting skills.” 

Egbuho believes that financial wellness programs will only be effective if they are mandatory. She stresses that companies need to be sensitive in their approach in a way that fosters equity.   

“You have to account for things, such as people’s backgrounds. People have different starting points,” says Egbuho. “If you don’t have X, Y, and Z and you tell me it’s the basics, I’m already feeling excluded. You’re not accounting for those people.” 

Although women on average live longer and therefore require more retirement money, statistics show they typically retire with less money than men, in part because they spend their careers making less money than men.

It’s even tougher on working moms who have made childcare expenses and spending time with their children a priority for most of their adult lives. The COVID-19 pandemic further complicated the situation, requiring many mothers to leave the workforce because of inadequate childcare options or the ability to work remotely in their job.

Working moms know they face an uphill climb. When the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) created 14 different focus groups of women to discuss financial issues, members of every single group had “some level of anxiety” about financial security and retirement, including the rising costs of healthcare and housing.

Data on the Retirement Gap for Working Mothers

Emily Oster, a professor of economics at Brown University, writes about money and parenting. She also conducts research on the different financial outcomes for women, including working mothers.

For example, Oster reports on her website that women not only retire with less money than men, but they also know less about saving for the future. Approximately 32% say they never learned about saving for retirement, according to information on Oster’s website.

A recent report from TIAA (No. 8 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list) delves into data related to women and retirement. Based on information gathered from a survey of 1,586 mothers, TIAA addresses a number of specific issues women encounter when it comes to closing the retirement gap.

A Lack of Awareness

The data in this area revealed that women place their children ahead of themselves, especially any consideration of future financial well-being.

For example, when considering leaving a job to stay at home with a child, a decision that can significantly reduce the amount of retirement savings a working mother accumulates, almost 20% of women reported they “didn’t think of it” when asked about the impact of the decision on retirement savings. Only a third reported giving the issue a lot of thought.

They also said that childcare costs dominated most of their labor market decisions. Perhaps most significantly, almost 33% of mothers said they never learned about retirement savings, mirroring what Oster reported.

A Lack of Action

Given the lack of awareness about the impact of parenting decisions on finances, it’s not surprising that working mothers also fall behind in taking action on retirement. The survey found that almost half of the mothers who took the survey reported having no retirement savings at all. Among the rest, only 26% said they are saving at a level where they feel comfortable, while 27% are saving but not at the level they want.

There are stark differences in the data between women of different levels of educational attainment. Only 39% of women who have no education beyond a high school diploma reported any retirement savings at all. For women with a postgraduate degree, that number reached 72%.

Mothers also feel the monthly cash flow squeeze that is increasingly experienced by millions of Americans. Almost half of the women surveyed (49%) said they had no money to put into retirement savings after paying their monthly expenses.

Lack of Support

TIAA reported that fewer working mothers have access to employee matching contributions for their 401(k) than others do. They also have limited maternity leave, with only 32% saying they have access to any type of paid maternity leave. More than 52% said they are forced to take money from savings or a 401(k) plan to pay for costs when they take maternity leave.

Why Working Mothers Aren’t Offered Higher-Paying Jobs

The gender pay gap is a big contributor to women facing a steeper climb than men when building robust retirement savings. The gap has remained fairly steady for two decades, according to the Pew Research Center. Women continue to make about 82% of what men make for the same job.

The GAO also reports that women are more likely than men to take on caregiving responsibilities for children, including leaving work to stay at home with the children. This leads to reduced retirement savings as well as fewer Social Security contributions, another factor that leads to less money in retirement.

At some companies, an unconscious bias against women — more specifically, the idea that a man can perform a job better than a woman — is behind the fact that far fewer women get promoted to higher-paying jobs, according to research cited by CNBC.

There’s one more complication for women. Data from the GAO shows that women are more likely than men to become the primary caregiver of a grandchild. Women in these situations also are more likely to be poor than the general population.

Closing the Working Mothers Retirement Gap

Closing the retirement gap for working mothers requires a focused effort. Financial education is the first place to start. Women can take steps to learn more about savings by visiting websites such as the one from Oster.

However, systematic change is needed. Financial education is woefully lacking for both women and men in the U.S. Oster and others advocate for more teaching of financial basics for all children. Women can take steps to reverse some of the issues listed above, such as failure to set aside even small amounts for retirement. These amounts can make a big difference over time.

The GAO also has recommended that Congress increase access to retirement savings plans for working mothers, improve tax incentives to save for retirement and expand Social Security benefits.

The Arab America Foundation launched NAAHM in 2017. The President of the United States, Congress, the U.S. Department of State, and 45 state governors have all recognized NAAHM. Many states have also passed permanent legislation to designate April as NAAHM month.

This month holds special significance as it highlights the rich cultural heritage and diverse contributions of Arab Americans to American society. This is an opportunity to contemplate the struggles experienced by Arab Americans and attempts to support fairness and inclusion.

Arab American History

Arab Americans have a rich history in the U.S., with immigration from Arab countries dating back to the 1880s.

Nearly 3.7 million Americans have Arab roots, according to the Arab American Institute. This community is present in every state in the U.S. However, most Arab Americans reside in just 10 states, including California, Michigan, New York and Florida.

Most Arab Americans are native-born citizens with ancestral ties to countries such as Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Iraq. Arab American demographic information is derived from reputable sources like Census Bureau surveys and projections from respected scholars and organizations.

Arab Americans are a significant presence in the U.S. However, they still face challenges. These include misconceptions and a lack of understanding among policymakers of the population’s size, diversity and interests.

Recognizing Contributions, Addressing Challenges and Advancing Equity

When President Joe Biden declared April 2023 as Arab American Heritage Month, he noted the role that Arab Americans play in both their communities and his administration.

“Today, the achievements of Arab Americans are reflected in the arts and sciences, in businesses and faith communities, in classrooms and hospitals, and in police stations, firehouses and every branch of the military. Arab Americans are also proudly serving throughout my Administration, bringing a diversity of expertise that helps make this country stronger, more prosperous and more just.”

He acknowledged the challenges faced by Arab Americans, such as prejudice, bigotry and violence. He highlighted the importance of fighting hate and discrimination.

Biden said his administration took steps to advance equity for historically underserved communities, including Arab Americans. The government is taking steps to combat racism and religious discrimination by ending entry bans, hosting a summit to foster unity and creating a task force to address antisemitism and Islamophobia.

There are also efforts to add a new data category to the census for Middle Eastern and North African communities. This ensures they will be properly considered in policymaking.

The President declared that he had been working with allies in the Middle East and North Africa to create a unified outlook for the region, including a peaceful, prosperous and integrated region.

“Together, we are strengthening our ability to address shared challenges, from regional security to climate change, fostering economic development and cooperation in science, technology, renewable energy and space, and bringing greater peace and prosperity to all of our people.”

Support Arab Americans Through Inclusive Workplace Practices

There are several ways companies can support Arab Americans not only during NAAHM but year-round.

Promote diversity and representation. Companies must build a workplace that is inclusive of Arab Americans and reflective of the diversity of our society. Inclusive hiring practices promote diversity in leadership positions, and valuing and respecting diverse perspectives fosters an inclusive workplace culture.

Companies that value diversity, equity and inclusion must have diverse hiring panels. Diverse hiring panels have interviewers of different backgrounds and orientations. and help mitigate bias during the hiring process.

Research from Glassdoor shows that 76% of job seekers and employees consider a diverse workforce important when evaluating companies and job offers. This applies to candidates regardless of whether a company actively promotes diversity.

For underrepresented groups, the importance of diversity is even higher, with 32% stating they would not apply for a job at a company with a lack of diversity. Therefore, evaluating the entire recruiting process with diversity in mind is crucial, regardless of whether a company is actively hiring for diversity.

Subscribe to Fair360 Enterprise to read more about the importance of diverse hiring panels.

Address discrimination and bias. Companies that take prompt and appropriate action to address discriminatory behaviors or practices ensure that employees feel safe and supported in reporting any incidents.

Create employee resource groups (ERGs). ERGs offer a supportive community for Arab American employees. Dedicated groups for Arab Americans help to foster a sense of belonging and inclusion within the company.

Arab Americans are religiously diverse. The first wave of Arab American immigrants was mostly Christian, with a few Muslims. Today, the Arab American community includes many different religious backgrounds. These include Christians, Muslims, Druze, Jews, Mandaeans, and people without religious beliefs.

Some companies have created interfaith ERGs to help employees of diverse faiths. This was explored in our March Meeting in a Box. These ERGs allow faith-driven employees to find community within their organizations and help Arab Americans connect to other employees.

Support community initiatives. Companies can support Arab Americans in various ways.

They can sponsor events and offer volunteer opportunities. They can also financially support non-profit organizations that promote the welfare and advancement of Arab Americans.

“If you’re an employer, you want your employees to be in the best possible health because that’s when they’re going to be most productive,” says Lisa Cooper, Professor at Johns Hopkins University in the Schools of Medicine, Nursing and Public Health. “If you want to be seen as a good employer or even as somebody who is a good neighbor within a community, it behooves you to pay attention to what it takes for people to be healthy.”

Many studies show that improving health equity can lead to increased productivity, lower healthcare costs and people living longer and healthier lives. The gains from reducing healthcare disparities are estimated at $135 billion annually. Here are five steps businesses can take to advance health equity in the workplace. 

Expand Benefits 

About 155 million people in 2021, or approximately half of the U.S. population, had employer-sponsored health insurance. But just because your company provides you with health insurance or you have a high salary doesn’t mean you are free from healthcare disparities. 

Women of color and LGBTQ+ employees have the highest share of unmet needs, which can lead to decreased access to healthcare and lower satisfaction with the care they receive from their employers, according to McKinsey & Company research. 

“We know good health includes having a safe place to live, access to nutritious food, enough money to pay the bills, strong social connections, and clean air to breathe — the essentials of life,” says Ronald L. Copeland, MD, Senior Vice President and Chief Equity, Inclusion and Diversity Officer at Kaiser Permanente (a DiversityInc Hall of Fame company.) 

“We believe that being healthy isn’t just a result of high-quality medical care – through our resources, reach and collaboration with other nonprofit organizations, we are addressing unmet social needs and factors that impact the health of our communities.”

Cigna (No. 24 DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list) says responding to those unmet needs can include offering employer-assisted housing programs, flexibility for fully remote or hybrid working arrangements, career training or financial training opportunities. 

With an eye on talent acquisition and worker retention, more companies have provided mental health support, family caregiving, parental leave and other benefits. But Cooper notes that expanding benefits is only one piece of the puzzle. 

“People should be thinking about, first of all, paying wages that will allow people to afford a good quality of life, a type of life where they can be healthy,” she says. “In addition to providing basic health insurance, if possible, provide other ways that people can cover things that are out of pocket.”

Many companies have expanded benefits like flexible spending accounts (FSAs) and high deductible health plans (HDHPs). FSAs are pre-tax benefit accounts that help workers set aside money for out-of-pocket costs, while HDHPs combined with health savings accounts allow people to save for certain medical expenses tax-free. 

Lower Costs 

While companies contribute to the most significant share of employer-sponsored health insurance, consumers need help with what they have to pay, according to Kaiser Family Foundation research. In 2019, individuals paid $1,299 in premiums for single coverage and $5,969 for family coverage.

“If everyone’s paying the same amount for their premium, that means that people that make less money are paying a higher percentage of their take-home pay towards premiums than someone making more money,” says Shantanu Nundy, co-author of an article titled “Employers Can Do More to Advance Health Equity” for the Harvard Business Review and primary care physician and Chief Health Officer at Accolade.

Average deductibles also left middle-income households underinsured and exposed to high out-of-pocket costs, a 2020 Commonwealth Fund survey found. In half of the states in the United States, the median out-of-pocket spending for people with employer-sponsored coverage was $1,000 or more. 

Consumers that can’t afford healthcare are more likely to avoid seeing a doctor when sick, skip a recommended follow-up visit or not fill a much-needed prescription. 

“There are working people who have health insurance, but all health insurance is not the same,” says Cooper. “Some health insurance covers catastrophic illness and things like hospital or emergency room costs, but they don’t cover other things like medications, eyeglasses or dental care and vision care. Things like that cost a lot of money and people have to pay out of pocket because it’s not considered part of their benefits package.”

Health management solutions offered by third-party vendors and health insurers, member advocacy solutions and navigation and health management tools are among the solutions companies have implemented to manage medical costs and improve the member experience. 

READ: The Cost of Getting Sick: Black Americans and Medical Debt

Address the Social Determinants of Health 

Social determinants of health (SDOH) are the non-medical factors that affect people’s health outcomes, like where someone lives or works. Research shows that SDOH disproportionately impacts people of color, especially Black people. 

Medtronic (No. 10 DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list) believes healthcare technology is a bridge to helping providers identify patients who may benefit from treatment earlier, drive better patient outcomes and help dismantle disparities across the healthcare system.

“We also believe that by combining healthcare technology with community partnerships, we can overcome the barriers facing each unique population and provide sustainable solutions,” says John de Csepel, MD, VP and Chief Medical Officer, Global Regions at Medtronic and Executive Sponsor of the Medtronic Health Equity Advisory Committee. “While technology is critical to advancing health equity solutions, it’s also critical to have on-the-ground collaboration with health systems, governments, NGOs and patients to identify gaps in care and build programs to overcome barriers.” 

People who experience adverse impacts of SDOH are almost two times more likely to have an avoidable emergency room visit and more than one and a half times more likely to have an avoidable inpatient visit, according to 2022 claims data from Cigna.

To address racial disparities in maternal care, Walmart (No. 26 DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list) expanded its doula services in 2022 beyond Georgia to three additional states: Indiana, Louisiana and Illinois. Kaiser Permanente’s initiatives to improve health equity include $50 million to bolster programs that increase food and nutrition security and improve health outcomes for the country’s most vulnerable populations.

“We continually look for ways we can innovate to address the social drivers of health that lead to poorer health outcomes for communities of color and other traditionally underserved groups,” says Copeland.

READ: Prioritizing the Health and Well-Being of Pregnant Workers

Improve Awareness and Accessibility 

Most participants in employer insurance plans do not open or read benefits materials and almost half of them need help understanding the materials, according to research from the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans.

To bridge the understanding gap, employers should ensure that the value of benefits is communicated to employees in simple language throughout the year, not just during open enrollment. Workers can tap into multiple channels like email, materials mailed to their homes and internal websites. 

Businesses can encourage healthy employee behaviors with fitness classes or smoking cessation programs and provide workplace access to preventive care screenings. The adoption of telehealth remains high following the COVID-19 pandemic. Companies can improve employee access to healthcare by delivering virtual primary care and mental health services. 

“If you live in a community that doesn’t have enough doctors with therapists, virtual can overcome that because suddenly you have a doctor anywhere in the country,” says Nundy.

“If you have doctors in your area that you don’t feel like look like you and are like you, you now have access to a much broader list. And finally, it gets rid of that logistical barrier for a lot of people.”

Focus on Data and Research 

DiversityInc’s benchmarking services can help companies measure their policies and practices to ensure they are fair and equitable. Measuring the business case of health equity is the first step companies should take to improve the health and well-being of their employees, says Nundy.

“A lot of businesses are putting their heads up and saying, ‘this is a moral or ethical imperative. But if we don’t have a business imperative behind it, then it’s unlikely you’ll be able to make the sustained investments required to meaningfully move this stuff forward.”

Companies also need to understand more about the health status of their communities. All DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 Companies for Diversity have made specific commitments to address the health and safety of its general workforce in the coming year.

“What are the healthcare costs for certain racial groups or marginalized groups? Or companies get data from their insurance company that say this is how many people did a preventive visit last year. Let’s look at the preventive visits and the mammograms by race, ethnicity or socioeconomic status. Those things create a strong baseline and help you understand where to start first,” says Nundy.

Cooper suggests that companies partner with public health or healthcare experts when collecting data and learn how to serve their employees better. 

“You can’t emphasize enough the importance of being a trustworthy and reliable partner not only to your employees but also to the people and the organizations in the community around you. That’s one of the ways to advance your business but also advance your whole community.”

Ramadan is more than fasting from dawn until sunset. It’s a time of serious spiritual devotion and introspection. It also provides Islamic adherents a chance to learn to control desires and practice self-discipline.

Learning the basics about the Islamic faith and Ramadan – as well as all the major faiths and cultures – should become a priority in modern, diverse workplaces.

Subscribe to Fair360 Enterprise to read through these Ramadan resources:

• Meeting in a Box: Exploring Interfaith Inclusion as Part of Company Culture
• DiversityInc Digest: Ramadan
• Ramadan: Creating an Inclusive Workplace

Misconceptions About Common Terms Related to Islam

The place for employers and coworkers to start is by understanding some basic terms, the meaning of which can become confusing from misuse in the media and on social media.

For example, Islam is the name of the religion, while Muslim refers to a follower of Islam. The two terms are the equivalent of Christianity and Christian or Judaism and Jewish.

Another common misunderstanding is thinking of the term Arab as synonymous with Muslim. Arab describes a member of a group of people united by a common language who first emerged from the geographic area known as the Arabian peninsula and neighboring countries.

Many Arabs are Muslims, but others are not. Similarly, many Muslims live in Arabian countries, but many others live far outside of Arab countries. That includes millions of Americans.

Islam Is the Second Largest Religion in the World

Islam is now the second-largest religion in the world behind only Christianity. An estimated 1.8 billion people worldwide consider themselves Muslims, with about 3.5 million living in the U.S. That number is only expected to grow, with Islam eventually becoming the second-largest religion in the U.S. by 2040.

Islam is a monotheistic faith that worships one all-powerful, merciful God (Allah) and adheres to the teachings of his prophet Muhammad. The faith started in the city of Mecca (now part of Saudi Arabia), Muhammad’s birthplace and home Kaaba, a stone temple located in the center of the Great Mosque. It is considered to be the most sacred spot on earth and is the destination for Muslims performing the Hajj pilgrimage.

The most important religious book in Islam is the Quran, which dates back to the year 610 AD.

Approximately 80% of all Muslims are Sunni, with roughly 15% practicing another denomination known as Shi’a.

The Importance of Ramadan in Islam

For practicing members of the Islamic faith, Ramadan is a month of fasting each day between sunrise and sunset. Fasting includes all food and drink, including water. Muslims also abstain from sexual activity during the day.

Other practices during Ramadan include visiting mosques, giving to charity, doing good deeds and introspection. In addition to the five daily prayers Muslims practice throughout the year, there also is a special night prayer during Ramadan called the Tarawih.

Ramadan marks the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, which follows the lunar cycle. Because of this, the dates for Ramadan change every year. For 2023, the dates are from March 22 (after the moon is sighted over Mecca) and lasts until April 21. The celebration called Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, is expected to last April 21 through April 22 or April 23 (it does not begin until the crescent moon is sighted in Mecca).

During Eid al-Fitr, it’s common practice for Muslim friends and family to gather together for a special prayer and also to celebrate a successful month of fasting with a feast. It’s common to hear (and read on social media) “Eid Mubarak,” a term Muslims exchange during this celebration (it essentially means “blessed feast/festival” in the Arabic language).

Another significant day during Ramadan is Laylat al-Qadr, which occurs near the end of Ramadan and marks the night Muslims believe that the first verses of the Quran were revealed to the Prophet Muhammad. This year, Laylat al-Qadr night falls on April 18.

Ramadan is considered one of the five pillars of the Islamic faith. They include:

• Shahadah: Affirmation that there is only one God and Mohammed is his messenger.
• Salat: Praying five times each day
• Zakat: Charitable giving
• Sawm: Fasting during Ramadan
• Hajj: The pilgrimage to Mecca that Muslims make at least once in a lifetime

How Employers Can Support Muslim Employees During Ramadan

The first and best step employers can take is to educate people within the organization about the basics of Islam and Ramadan. As with employees of any faith, a respectful understanding of the faith and practices of Muslim employees will be appreciated by employees and also boost morale and productivity.

“We’ve got to have a workplace where every story matters and where every person has a sense of belonging,” Nouman Ashraf, an assistant professor at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, told CBC.

Wishing a Muslim co-worker a “happy, blessed and successful Ramadan” acknowledges an understanding and appreciation of Ramadan. On a practical note, managers can also assign more demanding tasks in the morning when Muslim employees typically have more energy.

The Issue of Fasting

When it comes to Ramadan at a non-Muslim office, most of the issues revolve around the fasting that the month requires.

Essentially, managers and coworkers need to understand that Muslim employees and coworkers cannot participate in eating or drinking at work as they do the other 11 months of the year. No coffee breaks or runs to the local diner for lunch – even when everyone else is doing it or “no one is watching.”

Coworkers can help in this area by not having a big event involving food. Managers can do the same by not scheduling a “working lunch” for teams that have Muslim members. However, if these events happen, it’s OK to eat around Muslims (most do not mind) but don’t offer them food, according to Edward Ahmed Mitchell, Deputy Executive Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington, D.C.

Research suggests that a person’s appearance can affect their experiences in the workplace. Not only are attractive people more likely to be hired and land better jobs, but they are also more likely to be paid higher wages.

“Physical appearance discrimination grants privilege to those who meet the standard of beauty and disadvantages those who don’t,” says Cynthia Sims, adjunct faculty member at Northeastern Illinois University and the author of research focused on gender, leadership and development.

“It’s okay to have preferences, but you cannot make a hiring or promotion decision that discriminates against someone based on your preferences.”

But it still happens. And the economic and social cost is real.

Appearance discrimination cost the United States economy $501 billion in 2019, according to research from Harvard University. That includes $269 billion in financial costs and $233 billion in loss of well-being. Experiencing appearance discrimination can also lead to poor health and labor market outcomes by limiting employment opportunities and lowering wages for those affected.

Where Sexism and Racism Meet

Research indicates when a woman doesn’t conform to beauty expectations or “look the part,” they are paid less, even if they are physically attractive. From clothes to makeup to hair – the physical and professional expectations placed on women are known as the grooming gap and the bias can disproportionately affect Black women.

“Representation, diversity and inclusion have to be more than just words, because people’s livelihoods and careers are on the line, especially when some managers are not culturally competent enough to identify their biases,” says Minda Harts, Founder and CEO of The Memo. “It’s a known fact that Black women are over mentored and under sponsored and I believe much of this is due to the grooming gap.”

Hair discrimination and colorism are also realities experienced by Black women in the workplace. Research suggests that Black women with natural hair are less likely to get interviews and are perceived as less professional. The World Economic Forum points to studies that have shown the wage gap widening as the skin tone of the worker darkens.

“There is definitely a beauty bias in the workplace, and we need to highlight it just as we do any other biases,” says Harts. “We have to deal with who gets to deem something as professional, and we should be having the same conversations on colorism/beauty bias and call it out and stand as allies for each other when we see it taking place.”

WATCH: WOCA 2022: Fireside Chat w/Minda Harts: Healing from Workplace Trauma

Education can go a long way in helping to combat lookism. All companies on the DiversityInc 2022 Top Companies for Executive Diversity Councils list have systemic efforts to promote cross-cultural competence and educate employees on anti-racism.

“Organizations should provide diversity training, including lookism to increase awareness of the issue for both employees and employers, especially leaders,” says Yuanlu Niu, Assistant Professor of Human Resources & Workforce Development at the University of Arkansas and author of research focused on appearance discrimination. “Organizations should adopt and enforce policies that explicitly prohibit discrimination based on physical appearance. They should also ensure hiring, promotions and compensation decisions are based on objective criteria, not appearance.”

READ: Implicit Bias in the Hiring Process

Age Is More than a Number

Women often experience the triple jeopardy of lookism, sexism and ageism at work in a way that men do not. AARP reports that approximately 30% of women aged 50 and older are discriminated against in the workplace because of their age. Ageism can take many forms, including fewer training or promotion opportunities for older workers or incorrect assumptions about their abilities.

Lorianne Glassford was 49 years old when she decided to stop coloring her gray hair. She remembers the day she was approached by her boss, a C-suite executive, who gestured at her head. “I hope that comes off,” he said.

“His biggest concern was how that was going to affect my team, which to this day, I still don’t understand and also our clients,” says Glassford. “He felt he could no longer have me pitching certain clients when my hair looked the way it did.”

A few months later, she left the company. Glassford is now 59 years old and proudly wears her gray hair.

“When you’re excluding any group from a table where decisions have to be made, the right decisions aren’t going to be made because you’re missing something, you’ve excluded something,” she says. “You’ve just excluded a gender, race, a look, hair color or age. When you’ve excluded something, you don’t have all the data and that constitutes a gap.”

Appearance discrimination isn’t illegal unless the discrimination falls under one of the protected classes like race, color, disability or age.

“We need to clearly define what constitutes physical appearance discrimination and establish the penalties for consequences for organizations that engage in discriminatory practices and provide a mechanism for employees to report the lookism issues,” says Niu. “We should encourage organizations to adopt policies and practices that promote diversity and inclusion.”

READ: The Damaging Effects of Age Discrimination in the Workplace

Pregnancy Discrimination

Thirty-one years ago, Sims was a pregnant, single mother working at a Catholic university. She was removed from a prominent office to a secluded area and wasn’t told why. When Sims returned from maternity leave, she was sent back to the main office without an explanation.

“I felt excluded, devalued and somewhat ashamed because my status as a soon-to-be single mother was the focus instead of my value as a competent employee,” she says. “I didn’t know about the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, but I knew my office transfer was not proper, fair or warranted. When I became aware of physical appearance discrimination, I reflected on the timing of the transfer, which I realized occurred once my pregnancy was visible.”

The recently passed Pregnant Workers Fairness Act is a law that requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations to workers related to pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions. Accommodations include flexible hours, closer parking or being excused from activities that are unsafe for pregnancy unless they would cause an “undue hardship” on the employer’s operations. The law is set to go into effect on June 27, 2023.

“Pregnancy discrimination is damaging in the workplace because it further marginalizes women employees,” says Sims. “It can negatively impact her earning power, adversely affecting families. Pregnancy discrimination can also cause a woman to feel stress and anxiety, which impacts her health and well-being, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy if her productivity and performance decrease.”

Twenty percent of mothers say they have experienced pregnancy discrimination in the workplace, according to a 2022 survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center and Morning Consult. Almost the same percentage of pregnant mothers have considered leaving their jobs due to a lack of reasonable accommodations or fear of discrimination.

READ: Beyond Maternity Leave: Prioritizing the Health and Well-Being of Pregnant Workers

Combating Ableism

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination and guarantees equal opportunities for people with disabilities in employment. In 2022, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received almost 74,000 new discrimination charges and filed 91 employment discrimination lawsuits.

“It can affect whether or not you’re hired,” says Felicia Nurmsen, Managing Director of Employer Services at the National Organization on Disability. “You might need an adjustment or an accommodation to do the job. So you do disclose that you have the disability or you can see it. Automatically we just begin to think, ‘I can’t imagine how this person with no hands is going to work in the office or is going to work in a warehouse.’ So we just allow those biases to take over.”

Lookism can be hard to eradicate in the workplace because it can manifest as unconscious bias, limiting options for disabled people. All 2022 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity have systemic efforts to combat unconscious bias.

“Recruiters need to understand what unconscious bias is – lookism, ableism, all of our ‘isms,’” says Nurmsen. “They need to understand what that is, be able to identify their unconscious bias and then work through that knowing that they are limiting people based on how they look rather than their skills and qualifications.”

Amendments to the ADA protect individuals with extreme obesity from discrimination if they have a real or perceived disability. But that doesn’t stop overweight people from falling victim to lookism.

A Vanderbilt University study found that overweight women make less money compared to average size women and are less likely to get higher-wage positions that include interaction with the public. They are also more likely to work in lower-paying and physically demanding jobs.

“People may exclude themselves for that reason,” says Sims. “Their productivity can go down because they’re stressed. They feel exclusion and anxiety. When productivity and performance go down, that negatively impacts the organization. That’s why it’s important for companies, non-profits and educational institutions who have this happening — they need to become more aware of this phenomenon and the negative impacts of it because it’s going to impact the bottom line.”

A significant boost came when Medicaid and Medicare expanded coverage to include digital services, often referred to as telehealth. However, that expanded coverage may soon end. If that happens, it will be a serious setback for health equity.

Some lawmakers and healthcare companies are calling for the pandemic changes to be permanent. An act extending telehealth medicine support for Medicare patients to at least 2024 is currently under consideration in the U.S. Congress.

“To ensure continued access to telehealth, Congress should make key pandemic-era telehealth policies permanent,” wrote healthcare provider Kaiser Permanente (a DiversityInc Hall of Fame company) on its website. “They should support access to phone-based care while working to expand digital access.”

Achieving true health equity requires taking steps in two key areas. The first is continuing to support the use of telemedicine. The second is ensuring that those in low-income and underserved areas can access the digital tools needed to benefit from digital care.

What Is Telehealth?

Telehealth is not one, specific type of healthcare service. Instead, the term encompasses the wide variety of health services that providers can offer patients by using modern communication channels and advanced medical technology. The goal is to improve access to medical care and education for everyone.

During the height of the pandemic, accessing healthcare remotely proved especially important for older patients who were more at risk of suffering the worst outcomes from the virus. But telehealth continues to provide advantages to many types of patients.

For example, patients from disadvantaged areas may have few transportation options and benefit from speaking with clinicians through video chat or a phone call. The same advantage also applies to those with chronic conditions or illnesses that limit mobility or those who live far from the nearest medical clinic.

Increased Popularity of Telehealth

Telehealth remained a popular choice for patients even as the worst threat from the pandemic receded.  A survey published in late 2022 by the National Center for Health Statistics found that 37% of adults used telehealth services in 2021.

The survey found that women (42%) used telehealth more than men (31.7%) and that telehealth services increased with education.

The decision to expand Medicaid and Medicare coverage to include telehealth also impacted the number of patients using digital health services because of the sheer number of people using each service. Medicaid enrolls about 76 million low-income Americans, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), while Medicare provides coverage for about 64 million older Americans and those with certain disabilities.

The California-based Center for Connected Health Policy (CCHP) developed a list of areas where telehealth is practiced.

Synchronous Video Conferencing. Live conversations between clinicians and patients using various audio/visual communications technology. As for types of visits, they include everything from going over routine lab results to a mental health counseling session.

Store-and-Forward. Asynchronous communication such as transmitting recorded health history to a practitioner, often a specialist, who uses the information to evaluate a patient’s condition.

Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM). This involves wearable, connected medical devices that collect health data from a patient in one location (typically their home) for transmission to a provider in a different location.

Mobile Health. This refers to any healthcare-related communication using cell phones, tablets and PDAs. The type of communication can range from one-on-one conversations between a patient and a clinician to text messages to large groups from health educators promoting healthy behaviors or alerts about disease outbreaks.

Health Equity Issues With Telemedicine

Given the wide range of services provided and the popularity with patients, digital care services represent the future of healthcare for many people. However, achieving true health equity will require changes to the current approach, both in healthcare and technology.

Extending Telehealth Availability

Expanding Medicaid and Medicare coverage to include telehealth services during the pandemic is not permanent. Before that change, no Medicare patients had telehealth covered. Medicaid only paid for digital health services under a limited number of specific examples, such as when a patient’s location limited their access to in-patient care.

The GAO found that the use of telehealth services by Medicaid patients increased 15 times during the pandemic, while the use of telehealth by Medicare patients increased 10 times between 2020 and 2021.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Advancing Telehealth Beyond COVID-19 Act in 2022. The act, which extends Medicare coverage of telehealth through at least 2024, is currently in a Senate committee for consideration. The act, introduced by Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, allows:

• Patients to continue receiving telehealth services at any site, regardless of type or location
• Occupational therapists, physical therapists, speech-language pathologists and audiologists to continue providing telehealth services
• Health centers and rural health clinics to continue to serve as a “distant site,” the location of the health care practitioner who provides telehealth services
• Hospice physicians and nurse practitioners to continue completing certain requirements relating to patient recertifications via telehealth

Address Access to Telemedicine

Even if Congress continues to act, achieving health equity will require addressing the existing technology barriers for patients and providers.

In its report on telemedicine, the GAO noted that previous research has shown that “millions of Americans still lack access to high-speed internet.” The GAO suggests that certain healthcare providers, especially small medical practices, may lack the technological tools to facilitate a confidential and secure video consultation. Additionally, patients may not be fully informed about the potential privacy and security risks related to telehealth technology.

The U.S. Congress has invested billions in broadband expansion across the country. However, those living in rural areas, as well as low-income people in both rural and urban areas, are less likely to have reliable access to the internet or own a smartphone, tablet or laptop computer.

Kaiser Permanente suggests a three-pronged approach by federal and state lawmakers in addition to making Medicare and Medicaid coverage of telehealth services permanent.

• Continue to establish high-quality standards for healthcare providers to govern telehealth (such as ensuring they have secure electronic records systems)
• Expand investment into providing reliable broadband services to low-income and rural areas
• Support efforts to train both healthcare practitioners and patients on the proper use of digital health services technology

According to a 2022 survey from the Bipartisan Policy Center and Morning Consult, 1 in 5 mothers have experienced pregnancy discrimination in the workplace, with millennials being 18% more likely to witness bias than Gen Xers (9%) and Baby Boomers (7%). In some cases, this has led mothers (21% of respondents) to fear telling their employer about their pregnancy because they believe they will discriminate against them or retaliate in some way.

Pregnancy discrimination isn’t a new phenomenon. And people are paying attention.

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act

On Dec. 29, 2022, President Joe Biden signed the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) into law. It will go into effect on June 27, 2023, requiring employers with more than 15 workers to provide arrangements for employees who are pregnant and for childbirth. The PWFA also bans businesses from discriminating against an employee or job candidate for accommodations related to pregnancy.

The legislation is like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 in the sense that it requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations on a temporary basis.

While this is a step in the right direction in terms of providing rights to pregnant employees during and after their pregnancy, there are a few other things for employers to consider that go beyond the law.

Support for Pregnant Workers

Many companies in the United States have policies in place to support pregnant workers, including offering paid parental leave, flexible work arrangements and accommodations for pregnancy-related needs. DiversityInc Top 50 companies that have been recognized for their policies and practices in supporting pregnant workers include:

Johnson & Johnson: All employees at Johnson & Johnson (a DiversityInc Hall of Fame company) can take up to eight weeks of paid time off during the first year of the arrival of a new child to the family, whether that be leave for “maternal, paternal, adoptive, surrogacy-assisted or foster parents,” according to its website.

Accenture: The company (No. 1 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list) provides birth parents with 16 weeks of paid maternity leave and eight weeks for other parents. It also provides support for fertility management and adoption as well as reimbursements for surrogacy fees and adoption fees. Primary caregivers also have the option to work from home for one year after giving birth or adopting a child.

Capital One: Birth parents at Capital One (No. 22 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list) receive 18 weeks of paid time off while other parents receive eight weeks. The company also provides fertility coverage and reimbursement for surrogacy or adoption.

Intersectionality for Pregnant Workers

Some people think of the term “intersectionality” as the intersection of different identities, but for Samantha Erskine, Assistant Professor of Management at the University of Massachusetts Boston and a member of The PhD Project, intersectionality is more than intersecting identities: it’s intersecting marginalization.

“It refers to multiple overlapping and intertwined social dynamics that arise at the intersection of race, ethnicity, gender, class, age, sexuality, and all of the injustices that come along with sexism, classism, racism, misogyny, transphobia, xenophobia and ableism.”

Before the PWFA takes effect in June, Erskine suggests that employers provide comprehensive training on intersectionality in the workplace. In addition, organizations should collect and analyze qualitative and quantitative data on the experiences and outcomes of pregnant employees and workers who are seeking to become pregnant to offer tailored accommodations.

When considering the treatment of pregnant workers, businesses might also want to consider biases that may come into play and address them. Erskine described the concept of “misogynoir,” which is the combination of misogyny, hatred towards women and anti-Blackness.

“The ways in which that shows up include not believing women about the pain they are experiencing, for example, or feeling like Black women are stronger, which is kind of a legacy of slavery, the ways in which Black women are perceived to not experience pain, and so they are not believed,” she said.

As Erskine mentioned, this mistreatment of Black women dates back to the 1800s, when slaves were cut open and experimented on by J. Marion Sims, who is considered the “father of gynecology.” You can read more about this and the impact racism in healthcare has had on Black women here.

For Latinas, they may experience xenophobia, or this “not-American identity that impacts how people perceive them,” according to Erskine.

“When I worked at the National Latina Institute of Reproductive Health a long time ago (now the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice), we got a lot of hate mail saying, ‘go back to your country,’ ‘close your legs, you won’t populate our country with your inferior babies,’ sentiments like that are angry towards Latinas.”

Preventing Gendered Racism

Another form of discrimination that happens and could affect pregnant employees is systemic gendered racism, or the intersection of gender-based and racial discrimination. Erskine said this type of discrimination shows up in pay disparities, lack of representation at senior levels within the organization and even healthcare disparities.

To address these issues, employers can create anti-racist management practices by developing and implementing policies and procedures that prevent discrimination. However, Erskine emphasized that it is important to tend to emotions in the workplace, especially around required trainings, which can be met with resentment. This requires more of a wellness and well-being perspective rather than just avoiding lawsuits.

In addition to implementing fair and equitable hiring and promotion practices, employers can provide accommodations for pregnant workers, such as flexible scheduling, access to lactation rooms and time off for medical appointments. They can also conduct regular equity audits to identify areas that need improvement and engage with community-based organizations that work with marginalized groups and pregnant workers.

Broadening the Definition of Pregnancy

To be inclusive, Erskine said employers need to broaden their definition of pregnancy to include people of all genders.

“I think a lot of people still refer to people who get pregnant as women,” she said. “It’s important for employers to reiterate that not all people who can become pregnant identify as ‘a woman,’ so broadening the definition of pregnancy and policies and practices to include people of all genders who might be affected by pregnancy-related conditions is important.”

More and more employers are providing access to gender-neutral restrooms in the workplace, and this should be extended to also include gender-neutral lactation rooms and other pregnancy accommodations.

According to Erskine, these efforts should tie in with trans-inclusive policies that prohibit discriminating against someone based on how they decide to express their gender.

“Provide trans-inclusive policies with clear guidelines for even addressing complaints in a way that feels psychologically safe to do so because often when people address their complaints, they experience retaliation or they experience apathy or gaslighting, so provide policies but also attend to the emotions that come with discrimination.”

In addition, she recommends providing training for employees on pronoun usage, respectful communication and avoiding microaggressions while also encouraging senior leaders to display more allyship and curiosity to create a supportive and inclusive workplace culture.

Tokenism is when a company hires or promotes someone from an underrepresented group to make it appear that the organization values diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

“There’s a reason why DEI isn’t just diversity, it’s equity and inclusion. Tokenism doesn’t address DEI in its totality,” says Esther Uduehi, Assistant Professor of Marketing and International Business at the University of Washington-Seattle and member of the PhD Project. “Organizations need to focus on what it means to feel included. You can bring in candidates that speak to the type of diversity the firm wants, but if they don’t feel included, they don’t feel like they belong. That will only be a short-term solution to a long-term issue.”

All companies on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top Companies for Executive Diversity Councils (EDC) list have systemic efforts to achieve a proportional racial representation in management by a specific timeframe. Every company on the EDC list has also committed to addressing opportunities for women and ethnically diverse populations and increasing opportunities for segmented populations like LGBTQ+, people with disabilities and veterans.

Here are four steps companies can take to prevent tokenism from impeding their DEI efforts in the workplace.

Build a Diverse Pipeline

Hiring someone just because of their demographic background is not an effective way to increase diversity.

“To increase diversity in a meaningful way, you must increase the pipeline,” says Ella Washington, Professor of Practice at Georgetown University. “When you have a stronger, diverse pipeline, then you will have more opportunities for people of color or other marginalized groups to be hired.”

Ninety-four percent of the companies on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top Companies for Executive Diversity Councils list set enterprise diversity goals. One way companies can diversify their pipeline and make the hiring process equitable is by standardizing interview questions and viewing the questions through a diverse lens.

“If you interview five people, you don’t want to have an organic conversation with the first person and another organic conversation with the second person because then you’re not asking them the same questions,” says Aneika Simmons, Professor of Management at Sam Houston State University.

Simmons says companies can be successful when they state their goal in the interview process, like determining they need to assess the leadership potential of every person they hire. But diversifying the pipeline at the top levels of management may be easier said than done.

“Depending on the type of leadership opportunities or levels that we’re focused on, the pipeline can become more of a problem,” says Uduehi. “The further up in the pipeline we go, for example, the number of Black candidates gets smaller and smaller.”

READ: 5 Best Practices for Establishing Diverse Hiring Panels

Review Employment Processes

Diverse workforces can foster innovation and increase profitability and worker retention, but hiring someone just because of their demographic background can have the opposite effect.

When affinity biases are present, hiring decisions aren’t based on skills, but on the relatability of the worker. All the 2022 DiversityInc Top Companies for Diversity have systemic efforts to combat unconscious bias. If companies want to give all groups of qualified people opportunities, Simmons says they need to revamp their hiring practices.

“There are all kinds of behaviors where people hire ‘like’ people, whether they intend to do so or not,” she says. “When you want to have a DEI lens, you want to make sure that you review how you’ve been hiring and looking at talent. Expand it to make sure that you’re not just giving opportunities to the same type of person.”

Simmons recommends that employers review job postings to ensure they are written properly. Blind recruitment can also be effective, like removing identification details like names from candidates’ resumes and applications.

“Understand that onboarding and retention are two sides of the same coin and that you want to make sure you’re hiring the best person,” she says. “Focus on what the job description is, what the requirements are for the job and then look at the qualifications and what people bring to the table. If you anonymize it and take the names off, for example, that is another way to ensure an equitable hiring process.”

READ: Workplace Fairness Trends to Watch in 2023

Create a Supportive Environment

DEI roles have quadrupled in the past year in the United States and more than half of Fortune 500 companies have a chief diversity officer (CDO) or equivalent position. But among CDOs and similar individuals holding the role in 2018, McKinsey & Company says 60% have left the position.

“We’re seeing organizations appointing people of color in leadership roles or increasing their diversity hiring, but not thinking about the cultural elements that need to be in place to support that individual or those individuals in those positions,” says Washington. “From making sure they have the resources they need, making sure they have a strong support network to making sure that they’re qualified to lead their work in a meaningful way.”

Washington says many companies have put people of color in diversity-related positions without making sure they have applicable skills.

“Just because you’re Black doesn’t automatically mean that you know how to speak about diversity or be a practitioner in that space,” she says.

Washington warns that tokenism can lead to imposter syndrome.

“They feel they’re placed in this role because of their demographic background. Additionally, it can impede their ability to do their jobs if they are not set up for success,” she says. “If people view them as someone that was placed in the role as a token, they’re not going to have respect and are not going to have that organizational power. They’re not going to be able to do their job effectively.”

READ: Workplace Transparency: How to Boost Employee Engagement

Embed Inclusion Throughout

Building a diverse workforce should not be for appearance’s sake.

“You want to be careful. As an organization those are cultural elements that matter,” says Washington. “If I go through my workday and it’s about showing clients we have a diverse team, but I’m never called for leadership roles or social elements, that’s where you start to feel the deep impacts of tokenism.”

Simmons teaches leadership and team courses on psychological safety and says creating a safe place for workers is an important factor in building an inclusive workplace.

READ: DiversityInc’s Carolynn Johnson Discusses Psychological Safety with Dow

“If you allow people to bring their whole selves to work, who they are, their beliefs, how they present and their psychological safety, what will happen is you will get a reputation that you can work for ‘X’ company, be who you are and be successful,” she says.

Companies that don’t embed inclusion throughout their organization risk alienating workers.

“You’re going to have higher turnover,” says Simmons. “You’re going to have people be demoralized, you’re going to have people burn out. All kinds of things are going to happen.”

Greek American History

Greek people started coming to the United States in significant numbers in the 20^th century, with the first large wave of people coming over between 1900 and 1924.

Between 1890 and 1921 421,000 Greeks came to the U.S. Most of these immigrants came from rural areas of Greece and were seeking economic opportunities in the U.S. They settled primarily in urban areas, such as New York City, Chicago and Detroit, and worked in factories, mines and other blue-collar jobs.

A second, smaller wave of Greeks came to the U.S. between 1965 and 1980 as a result of ethic quotas being removed by the Hart-Heller Act. Approximately 200,000 Greeks came to the U.S. during that time. There hasn’t been another wave of people coming to the U.S. from Greece since the 1980s due to an improvement in economic conditions that came with Greece being admitted into the European Union.

According to the Hellenic American Project, there could be another wave of immigration from Greece to the U.S. due to “the economic crisis in the beginning of the 21^st century, which is evident in countries of the European Union.”

According to the Greek Reporter, there are over 3 million Greek Americans in the U.S. today, and that number is made up of mostly third or fourth generation immigrants. The U.S. has the largest population of people of Greek decent outside of Greece.

Greek Americans Making a Difference

Today, Greek Americans continue to make significant contributions to American society in a variety of fields, including business, politics, academia and the arts.

Here are a few Greek Americans who have made significant contributions to society:

Michael Dukakis: Dukakis was a Democratic politician who served as the governor of Massachusetts from 1975 to 1979 and from 1983 to 1991. In 1988, he was the Democratic nominee for president but lost to George H.W. Bush. He was the first Greek American to be a major-party nominee for president.

Arianna Huffington: Huffington is the co-founder of The Huffington Post, a popular news website. She was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2011.

Tina Fey: Fey is an actress, writer and comedian who is best known for her work on ‘Saturday Night Live” and “30 Rock.” She has won numerous awards for her comedic performances, including multiple Emmys.

George Stephanopoulos: Stephanopoulos is a political commentator and journalist who has worked for ABC News since 1997. He was a senior advisor to President Bill Clinton and played a key role in his 1992 presidential campaign.

Dean Kamen: Kamen is an inventor and entrepreneur who is best known for inventing the Segway personal transporter. He has received numerous awards for his inventions and contributions to science and technology.

The History of International Women’s Day

The history of International Women’s Day dates back to 1908 when 15,000 women marched through the streets of New York City to demand better pay, shorter working hours, and the right to vote. The first International Women’s Day was celebrated in 1911 in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland. Since then, it has become a global event with countries around the world celebrating it in their unique ways.

The theme for International Women’s Day 2023 is “Embrace Equity.” The theme recognizes that businesses must prioritize inclusion and belonging because it is not enough to just provide equal opportunity as “people start from different places,” according to the International Women’s Day campaign.

To truly embrace equity, the IWD campaign suggests calling out discrimination, challenging gender stereotypes and identifying biases to seek inclusion.

Recognizing Women in the Workplace

To promote gender equality and a more inclusive work environment, there are many ways in which companies can recognize women at work.

Equal Pay: Women still face a gender pay gap in many industries (even in sports), which needs to be addressed. Companies can conduct regular pay audits to identify disparities and take corrective measures to close the gap.

Retaining and Developing Women Leaders: Promoting women into leadership roles helps create a more diverse and inclusive leadership team, leading to better decision-making and more innovative solutions. Companies can provide mentorship, training and development programs to support women’s career advancement.

Flexible Work Arrangements: Offering flexible work arrangements, such as remote work or flexible hours, can help women balance their work and personal responsibilities. This can lead to higher employee retention and increased productivity. Companies can also offer paid parental leave to support women who are starting families.

Women in Sports

Another area where women are underrepresented is in sports. 2022 was a pivotal year for women’s sports, with the Women’s Sports Network’s debut of 24/7 streaming content and becoming the first network to ever focus on women athletes. But women still face an unlevel playing field when it comes to investment in women’s sports, what female athletes are paid, and diversity and fairness challenges.

One main area where women are still not treated the same as men in sports is pay. Professional female athletes are paid much less than male athletes and the pay gap increases each year. In the NBA, the average man makes $5.3 million a year while a WNBA player earns an average of $130,000 annually.

RELATED: Subscribe to Fair360 Enterprise to read more about women in sports and Women’s History Month.

Celebrating Women Year-Round

It is great to acknowledge the achievements of women on International Women’s Day and during Women’s History Month, but women should also be recognized year-round.

One way this can be done is by highlighting the achievements of women at your company, whether during a monthly town hall meeting, a quarterly email or by sharing success stories in a company newsletter or on social media.

“We were just trying to make ends meet,” he says. “You pair living in a food desert with being homeless and, or having low income, then you start to see a trend. I couldn’t go to college because my at-home situation wasn’t stable enough.”

While Dawson didn’t attend college, he did serve six years in the military. When the Navy veteran returned home from duty, the opportunities were slim. He was forced to live in his car and once again found himself homeless and food insecure. 

“The first filter is, am I going to eat today? The next filter is not if it’s healthy or not, but will it be enough to satisfy my hunger?”

What is Food Insecurity?

In 2021, almost 34 million people lived in food-insecure households in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Globally, that number in 2022 amounted to 1.3 billion people.

“Food insecurity is a household that doesn’t have access to nutritious or culturally relevant foods, particularly driven either by income disparities or access through transportation,” says Kymberly Graham, Head of Diversity Initiatives at NielsenIQ. “It’s a problem that disproportionately impacts Black and brown communities in lower-income areas.” 

In 2021, nearly 20% of Black and 16% of Hispanic households were food insecure, higher than the national average. The typical white family has eight times the wealth of the typical Black family and five times that of the typical Hispanic family. 

Poverty, racism and lack of affordable housing are among the contributing factors to food insecurity. A job loss, lack of access to healthcare or unexpected medical bills can also push families over the edge. 

“Couple that with the areas in which they live, which are largely urban areas,” says Graham. “What we’re seeing is grocers or retailers making decisions to move out of urban areas that are lower income because of lack of profitability.”

Impacts of Food Insecurity 

Thirty-three percent of the population lives in a food desert, which is an area that’s more than one mile from a supermarket or large grocery store. Food deserts are more prevalent in low-income and minority neighborhoods. The disparity can create a vicious cycle of inequality for those communities. 

“That leaves Black and Brown populations in these areas hanging in the balance when accessing healthy food distributors,” says Graham. “The transportation issues when it comes to getting to some of these food stores make it increasingly difficult. They’re having to make difficult decisions as it relates to the amount that they’re spending on gas versus food, prescription drugs and other needs that are basic for living.”

Lack of affordable and nutritious food can also raise the risk of obesity, heart disease, diabetes and other chronic health conditions. Black and Latino children are especially vulnerable to food insecurity. Research shows a connection between food insecurity and behavioral and health problems in children like anxiety and asthma. 

“There are several studies that show food insecurity is a critical issue for children because lack of access to nutrients can impact cognitive and physical development,” says Neddy Perez, Vice President of DE&I for McCormick & Company (No. 50 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list). “It is important nationally and internationally that companies work to close the food insecurity gap to ensure underrepresented communities can thrive.”

Food insecurity remains an issue as young children of color age. In the fall of 2020, Indigenous, Black, American Indian or Alaska Native college students were more food insecure than white students. 

“A lot of these students often come from a history of food insecurity, so it’s very hard to get out of that cycle,” says Maureen McCoy, Associate Teaching Professor in the College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University. “Just because they’ve gone from a school system into a college system, it doesn’t mean they’re automatically going to figure it out.”

McCoy says addressing food insecurity is critical as it impacts the future workforce.

“We’ve somewhat normalized that starving college student mentality, that it should be normal to eat noodles every single night or skip a meal here and there,” she says. “Over the years that’s become the mindset that, well, you’re in college, you have to make sacrifices and some of that is going to be your food source. But if we think about raising the future leaders of America in our universities, that’s not going to happen by them not getting proper nutrition.”

How to Tackle Food Insecurity

The World Economic Forum says businesses can play a crucial role in targeting food insecurity. Thirty-four percent of the DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity in 2022 say enhancing how their diversity and inclusion strategy is incorporated into philanthropic goals is their top priority this year.  

The Power of People 

Sysco’s Global Volunteer Recognition Program celebrates employees for serving their communities. 

“In our most recent fiscal year (FY22), Sysco colleagues volunteered 10,500 hours and Sysco donated 16 million meals and $11 million,” says Neil Russell, SVP, Corporate Affairs & Interim CFO, Sysco.

Through McCormick & Company’s Employee Ambassador Groups, workers routinely support organizations focused on improving food insecurity. The company’s Purpose-Led Performance Progress Report contains goals involving 80% of global employees in its Power of Giving program. 

Since the pandemic, workers have made it clear that they want to contribute more to society and work for companies with a purpose. 

“We work with a wide range of stakeholders to develop solutions to address challenges caused by lack of access to healthy food and proper nutrition, financial insecurity, and inequitable environments,” says ​​Jami Leveen, VP of Community Partnerships at Aramark (No. 45 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list). “These opportunities allow and encourage employees to give back and create meaningful change in their communities.”

The Power of Perspectives 

Food companies are using multi-faceted approaches to target food insecurity. 

“We address food insecurity from several angles including effective operational and food management practices, minimizing surplus food waste, building strategic partnerships, leading food recovery efforts, and fostering collaborative dialogue,” says Leveen.

If food insecurity is identified as a need, McCormick & Company’s Grown for Good framework creates programs to address that challenge. The spice company’s Flavor For Life program provides underserved communities access to healthy foods, culinary classes, education and more.

Aramark and Kellogg’s (No. 35 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list) are dedicated to tackling food insecurity on college campuses. Kellogg’s efforts include charitable donations to the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities. 

“Our work on college campuses is critical for ensuring that we have a diverse pipeline of future talent not only for Kellogg’s but for organizations across industries,” says Stephanie Slingerland, Senior Director for Philanthropy and Social Impact at Kellogg’s. “For companies like Kellogg, as for many other industries, we need to reflect the diverse consumers we serve.”

The Power of Partnerships 

Partnerships and collaboration are also playing a critical role in targeting food insecurity. Aramark has teamed up with community non-profits and leaders in the food insecurity solutions space to eliminate hunger. Sysco’s Global Good Goal aims to generate $500 million worth of ‘good’ for communities around the world.  

“We work to reduce hunger in our communities by working with local community partners and donating food and have a goal of donating 200 million meals by 2025,” says Russell. “We partner with many global, national and local charitable organizations to provide funds and aid in hunger relief. Through our Nourishing Neighbors program, a portion of proceeds from each Sysco branded case sold in local communities is donated back to charitable organizations in those communities.”

Kellogg’s has partnerships with food banks on six continents and nearly 30 countries.

“The issue of food security is certainly not something that can be tackled by any entity alone,” says Slingerland. “Through the Better Days promise strategy, we’re committed to working with partners, government officials, NGOs, etc., to help tackle this critical issue.”

Dawson is doing his part on a local level. He went from homelessness to founding Dion’s Chicago Dream, a non-profit organization focused on feeding the food insecure. Dawson has partnered with a Chicago-based distributor to deliver 30,000 pounds of fresh produce a month to almost 700 needy households in the Chicagoland area. His efforts include a community-stocked refrigerator where residents can access fruits and vegetables. Dawson’s business has grown so much that he added 15 jobs paying at least $20 an hour. 

“We’re building equity and relationships and that makes me extremely proud,” he says. “I remember young Dion who nobody checked on, nobody built relationships with and they gave us what they thought we deserved. To do it with the residents, not at the behest of the residents, to do it with a team, to pay them a living wage, not hope that they volunteer, to create opportunities not only for wealth building but for job development and meeting critical needs, it’s something I would never have imagined.”

While she knew she was having a heart attack, the paramedics that responded to her 911 call told her she was having a panic attack, and that’s what they told the nurses and doctors when they took her to the hospital. All the EMS team members in the ambulance were white.

“Consider if there were some African American people on that ambulance,” Gray said. “Maybe they would have considered I was telling the truth, and something was really wrong with me. Maybe they would have done the handoff a little differently.”

Gray, who is a Board Certified Chaplain with experience serving as a hospital, hospice and corporate chaplain, told the EMTs and paramedics about her symptoms and her experience handling handoffs before. Despite this, the EMTs continued to tell the hospital she was having a panic attack. She’s also now a member of The PhD Project and a predoctoral trainee in Administration – Health Services with a concentration in Health Informatics at the University of Alabama Birmingham.

“So, how did they treat me when I got to the hospital? They treated me by giving me a sedative to calm down. Meanwhile, I was having a heart attack,” she said.

Her friends came to the hospital to support her, and the hospital staff told them she was fine and that they could go home.

“Here I am as a single Black female being treated by all white people, all white males mind you, and the only Black person was the clerk taking payments,” Gray said. “I got to the hospital at 1 o’clock. They did not take me to have two stents until 6 o’clock in the evening. Imagine the damage that was doing to my heart because I didn’t have a paramedic or a nursing staff that believed I was having a heart attack.”

Representation Among First Responder Positions

When considering the small number of people of color who serve as EMTs and paramedics, the fact that Gray was treated by an all-white crew of first responders comes as no surprise.

According to research studying the employment characteristics of emergency medical technicians and paramedics in the United States from 2011 to 2019, most people holding these positions are non-Hispanic white, even with a decrease of 8% over eight years.

The total number of Latino or Hispanic EMTs and paramedics in the country did increase from 10% of the workforce in 2011 to making up 13% of it in 2019, but the number of people in the field identifying as non-Hispanic Black hasn’t changed much over the years (7% in 2011 to 8% in 2019).

The lack of diversity in first responder roles has led to a disconnect between those who are responding to emergency situations and the people who are experiencing these emergencies, meaning that other people from underrepresented communities are, like Gray, often not being heard and are not receiving the best treatment.

In an article written for Northwell Health (No. 1 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top Hospitals and Health Systems list), Bernard Robinson, Director of Operations for the company’s Center for Emergency Medical Services, said cultivating diversity in the emergency services field starts with improving the cultural humility and competence of EMTs and paramedics.

“They need to take to heart that we always have something to learn from our patients. Listening will only make us better at what we do,” he wrote.

The fire service is another branch of first responders that doesn’t have much minority representation. Sixty-nine percent of firefighters are white, 15.3% are Hispanic or Latino and only 8.1% are Black or African American.

Brian Agnew, who is Assistant Chief of the Holmes County Marshall Fire Company in Piscataway, New Jersey, has been a volunteer firefighter for 17 years and was the first African American member of the first department he worked for.

To create more minority representation in the fire service field, Agnew said he wants to serve as a role model for young professionals coming into the industry.

“I feel this way about a lot of things,” Agnew said. “I have a doctorate, and I think it was helpful to see others who look like me in the industry, so that when I needed advice and counsel, I felt comfortable with their background, their experiences, which were shared backgrounds and shared experiences. I think that will be the biggest shift we’ll need to see in the future of the fire service.”

As Assistant Chief, Agnew is mentoring young men of color in urban environments on the opportunities presented in the fire service while also teaching the next generation of firefighters in the state of New Jersey.

“At the end of last year, I completed and passed my New Jersey State Level 1 Fire Instructor Certification, and I am currently taking my Level 2 Fire Instructor Certification,” he said. “In that sense, this is the certification that allows you to train the next generation of firefighters.”

“It’s great to talk about it, it’s great to share experiences, it’s another thing to be in the front of the classroom to be a person that can mentor and guide you on the front lines in the academy,” Agnew added.

Hiring More People of Color in Emergency Service Positions

In Allegheny County and the Pittsburgh area, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) has partnered with workforce development organization Partner4Work to employ more people of color in the EMS field through a program launched in late 2020 called Freedom House 2.0. The program is named after the original Freedom House, an ambulance service established in 1967 and staffed mostly by Black Americans. It was shut down in 1975 and Black first responders were replaced by white ones.

Dan Swayze, UPMC Health Plan Vice President of Community Services and Director of Operations, UPMC Innovative Health Care Solutions, said it is “critically important” to offer this training to hire more EMTs of color and provide better treatment to underserved communities.

“We cannot continue to have people in it that look like me,” he said.

The Freedom House 2.0 training program, which was changed from an initial 10-week course to a five-week course based on feedback from students, is funded through a $235,000 grant through Partner4Work and is free for students to enroll in. The only requirement is to be at least 16 years of age and ready to commit to the full program.

Susie Puskar, Chief Policy and Research Officer at Partner4Work, said an important aspect of the program is the different career pathways graduates are able to take.

“There are some people who become an EMT, and they love it and they thrive there and that is what they want to do as their career,” she said. “There are others where an EMT position is one step on a career pathway and what they are really interested in is becoming a paramedic or an RN or another clinical role in the healthcare system.

“What we’ve worked on with UPMC is really making those pathways explicit to students in the course and within UPMC so once someone is hired, they have a real opportunity to engage in additional training and learning and access to benefits offered through UPMC.”

Getting the Word Out About EMT and Paramedic Jobs

Why are there fewer people of color in EMT and paramedic roles? Gray believes a lack of knowledge surrounding these career fields is partially to blame.

“There’s a lack of knowledge in terms of people knowing this is something they can do,” she said. “It’s not something that’s on their radar. When young people are coming up, for example, they know they can be a nurse, they know they can be a doctor. But who has ever said, ‘have you considered being an EMT, being a paramedic, making sure that patients get to the hospital to get to the nurse and to the doctor?’”

Some organizations have plans in place to address and hopefully help demographics within the field evolve.

Jefferson Health (No. 8 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top Hospitals and Health Systems list) trains approximately 5,000 students in the Greater Philadelphia and South Jersey area every year in roles like EMT, paramedic, advanced cardiac life support, CPR and more through its JeffSTAT Education Center.

Cathleen Vandenbraak, Operations Manager of the JeffSTAT Education Center, said the organization has done a lot of outreach within the local community to encourage students to go down one of these career paths. In April, they will take part in a career fair at a local high school in Philadelphia to talk about the medical field. She is also reaching out to one of the local ambulances JeffSTAT works with and a nursing school to talk to students about what Jefferson Health does.

“A lot of people don’t know what it is to be an EMT or a paramedic or a nurse and what it is they need to do, so we’re starting to really ramp that up a lot more,” she said.

Overcoming the Pay Barrier

Another barrier that might be keeping people of color out of EMT roles is the low pay, long hours and high stress, which often leads to high turnover in the field.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median salary for EMTs in 2021 was $35,470, which was approximately 34% less than what the median American worker was bringing home that year. While this number was lower, paramedics were making a bit more at $46,770 annually.

Since Freedom House 2.0 knows being an EMT or a paramedic is a high-stress job, Puskar said the program has made it a focus to provide mental health resources to students in the program.

“These are roles that do witness a lot of trauma as a part of their job, and so really making sure that the trainees get access to support even before they start on the job so they understand how to process all of this. And here’s how I can make sure that I’m not as affected by secondary trauma, for instance,” she said.

While the pay has gotten better across emergency service roles, it’s not where it needs to be yet. To make it in these roles, Vandenbraak said it’s something you have to be passionate about.

“An EMT can actually be the first person on the scene to do CPR and save a life,” she said. “It has to be the impact, it has to be the inner drive. To do this just for money, there are probably other things to do just for money.”

People who want to be EMTs, paramedics, nurses or any type of first responder should know they will have to work the day shift, night shift and holidays.

“You have to change things around your life,” Vandenbraak said. “It’s a part of the job, unfortunately, because we are that important. We have to be there 24/7.”

After attempting to pursue a relationship that didn’t work out, the pregnant, Black mother of two children had nowhere to stay. Fontes went to the county for help and her “home” became motels and shelters. 

Fontes vividly remembers the vouchers she received for motels in seedy areas. The shelter bathroom she was required to clean and share with a family of five. The mother with a teenage boy who was indifferent to cycling in and out of the shelter. 

“You’re trying to function in normal society, but you’re not normal in any way,” she says. “A lot of your food is donated. A lot of your clothes are donated. Some people don’t necessarily share the same desire to get out as you do.”

Racial Disparities in Homelessness

Race and homelessness are often intertwined. 

Over half a million people in the United States are homeless. Historically disadvantaged groups, including African Americans, Native Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, experience homelessness at higher rates than whites. 

“To truly address this crisis in our country, we must acknowledge the disparities that exist and the fact that people of color are disproportionately impacted by homelessness and housing insecurity,” says Stephanie Ledesma, Vice President of Community Health Programs for Kaiser Permanente (a DiversityInc Hall of Fame company). 

While African Americans are 13% of the general population, they account for more than 40% of the unhoused population, with families making up a significant portion.

The reasons behind homelessness are multifaceted. Some people become homeless because of domestic violence or substance abuse issues. Lower incomes, less access to healthcare and higher unemployment and incarceration rates are among the factors contributing to higher rates of Black homelessness. The slowing economy, housing shortage and rising rents have worsened a bad situation.

A legacy of redlining and housing discrimination is also to blame, says Jennifer Friedenbach, Executive Director of the Coalition On Homelessness.

“African Americans have not had access to purchasing properties in areas where the real estate values have risen much higher,” she says. “They have not been able to accumulate wealth through that. Then there’s housing discrimination on the front end. People are seeking housing and landlords are discriminating against African Americans. Homelessness is where you see the visible effects of continued racist policies in the city and across the country.”

READ: The Role of Credit in the Black Homeownership Gap

Corporate Social Responsibility and Homelessness

Corporate social responsibility (CSR), which can address societal issues like homelessness, is a win-win for employers and employees. 

Research from the MIT Sloan School of Management found that not only does CSR help attract talent and boost employee morale in the workplace, but it can also lead to greater productivity and profits. Fifty-eight percent of organizations with a strong and a clear sense of purpose experienced 10% or more growth during the last three years, according to a study sponsored by EY, a (DiversityInc Hall of Fame) company. 

CSR has become a critical issue for workers, especially Millennials, the largest generation in the workforce. One study found that 83% of Millennials would be more loyal to a company that helps them contribute to social and environmental issues and 64% won’t take a job if their employee doesn’t have a strong CSR policy. Workers want to be involved in their company’s CSR initiatives and for its mission and values to align with their own. Companies are responding by encouraging volunteerism and some are paying workers for their time.

When viewing corporate philanthropy through this lens, it should come as no surprise that the percentage of total giving directed to community and economic development among the DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity has increased over the past three years.

Keith Brown, Director of Community Impact at Randstad (No. 21 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 companies for Diversity list) views social responsibility as a trifecta.  

“How do we engage around creating profits so we have a quality product or service that we provide and we’re doing it through our skilling efforts?” he asks. “How do we create an opportunity to support our communities so we can mitigate your crime and create good citizenship and a neighborly perspective? Then how do we create an ecosystem to ensure that the environment supports all that we’re doing and that these communities are thriving?”

Tackling the complex issue of homelessness requires a coordinated approach beginning with communities and continuing with strategies like government and corporate involvement. 

“One way is one-time funding towards the capital purchase of buildings and then trying to match that with ongoing government support,” says Friedenbach. “Another way is working with local organizations and hiring. Make sure they’re reaching out to employment organizations whose clients are Black and brown community members disparately impacted by poverty and homelessness and ensuring jobs within their companies.”

Homelessness often creates new health problems and exacerbates existing ones. Cleveland Clinic (No. 2) and Jefferson Health (No. 8 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top Hospitals and Health Systems list) have launched initiatives that provide healthcare and social services to patients experiencing homelessness.

But despite the support of healthcare providers, no amount of healthcare can substitute for stable housing.

The National Low-Income Housing Coalition says almost 7 million more affordable housing units are needed nationwide for extremely low-income families. Corporate efforts can include partnering with local organizations or investing in affordable housing to improve outcomes for the homeless. That’s what companies like TD Bank (No. 13) and U.S. Bank (No. 17 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 companies for Diversity list) have done. 

“It’s almost impossible to stabilize economically while you continue to live on the streets,” says Friedenbach. “It’s difficult to hold on to identification and it’s difficult to get enough sleep to be able to successfully compete in the job market.”

Corporate tax increases on businesses in California have also been cited as one way to help solve the homelessness crisis.

“Often, it’s left to the municipal governments who don’t have the existing tax base and have to pass measures to get revenue to pay for housing, treatment and other things that the federal government has neglected,” says Friedenbach. “A lot of the corporate community opposes those measures very vigorously and it makes it difficult to generate revenue through taxation. Companies need to rethink what it means to be a good corporate community member and support efforts that are moving toward ending homelessness.”

READ: Socially Conscious Profits Turn Steady Profits 

Homeless Prevention Initiatives in Action 

Kaiser Permanente says it’s in its DNA to invest in the health of the communities it serves. The nonprofit healthcare provider addresses homelessness by investing in affordable housing, strategic partnerships and shaping policy. 

Kaiser Permanente has committed $400 million to the Thriving Communities impact investment fund, which will help create or preserve 30,000 affordable housing units by 2030. Since March 2022, the company has also contributed a total of $3.4 million to 21 crucial medical respite care programs to provide up to 15,000 individuals experiencing homelessness with a safe place to recover from illness. 

“We want to support systems change through our investments and efforts in our communities,” says Ledesma. “We want to challenge assumptions within affordable housing and community development investing, contribute broadly to programs that provide for disruption and innovations and create attainable solutions to entrenched problems.”

Seven years ago, Randstad founded Hire Hope. The program provides career-readiness training and job-placement services for women who are victims of human trafficking, domestic violence and homelessness. Hire Hope is only available in the Atlanta area, but Randstad is expanding the effort to other markets.

“In the U.S. alone, racial minorities experience homelessness at a higher rate than the white population,” says Brown. “How do we engage racial minority populations so they can be skilled in a thoughtful, streamlined way that aligns with our client ecosystem? We will have a much more dynamic workforce that is loyal to our client ecosystem, as well as loyal to being great community and corporate citizens.”

READ: Advancing Health Equity Through Community Partnerships

From Homelessness to Housing

When Fontes was homeless, she was determined to improve her children’s lives. 

After 500 employment applications and numerous bus trips from the shelter to interviews, she eventually secured a job and moved into transitional housing. After that, Fontes and her kids lived in a home donated by a local church for a year. 

“When I was going through my journey, I didn’t focus on the fear,” she says. “I stayed focused on – this is the next step that I need to get to. Through that, opportunities opened up and I was able to navigate.”

Fontes is thankful for the private landlord that rented her an apartment, despite having poor credit. She benefited from WANDA, a program that taught her and other single mothers about financial literacy. WANDA is supported by sponsors and partners, including Capital One (No. 22 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 companies for Diversity list). The program connected her with a mentor who encouraged her to set goals. 

Fontes survived homelessness and is now a business owner that helps companies evolve or transform their culture. She is married with six kids. While her husband was recently laid off, she believes her family’s better equipped to deal with economic uncertainty. 

“I tried to pursue this entrepreneurial journey and it’s not as secure and there is a lot of risk with what I’m doing right now,” she says. “We worry a bit, but I have better tools to help me.”

Nevertheless, Fontes admits that the feeling of living on the edge of homelessness never leaves those who were once unhoused. 

“Even though you get out of the situation you’re in, it’s the mindset you have to rewire,” says Fontes. “It’s that fear of, oh my gosh, if I lose my job or get laid off, I’m gonna go back into this system because our society isn’t set up unless you have a lot of reserves. It’s not set up to help people maintain levels of housing.”

According to a study from Syneos Health titled “How to Boost Racial Ethnic and Gender Diversity in Clinical Research,” 83% of clinical trial participants were white in 2018. While Black and Hispanic people make up nearly 40% of the population, they represented just 2% and 1% of clinical trial participants, respectively.

Participation and access has historically been low for a variety factors, but it typically comes back to three key issues, according to an analysis from the National Center for Biotechnology Information:

• Issues of trust for communities that have historically been underserved, deceived or exploited by the scientific and medical communities
• Physician or researcher bias
• Structural hurdles such as access to care or health education

Changing Criteria

When examining the criteria that is used to determine who is eligible for a clinical trial, researchers suggest that in some cases, the criteria unnecessarily excludes certain target patient populations. According to Food and Drug Administration guidelines, this can lead to a failure to discover vital safety information about the drug under investigation. Target populations might be unintentionally excluded when certain comorbidities are excluded or included in a trial.

“For instance, in diabetes trials in many instances, the eligibility criteria excludes people with hypertension,” Sasha Tyndale, Director of Patient Engagement and Inclusion Solutions at AbbVie (No. 23 on the 2022 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity list) said. “But hypertension is very common within the Black community and they’re also at a higher risk of having type two diabetes, so we need to think about how to balance those as we work to increase representation within our clinical trials.”

In addition to the eligibility barriers some communities face in gaining access to these trials, there’s also the barriers many face in terms of what it takes to participate. Clinical trials can be time consuming or may require regular visits to a study site. That isn’t always realistic for communities that are disproportionately represented in jobs that require them to be in a physical location or work long hours.

“We have to be able to balance maintaining the integrity of our protocols with our understanding of people’s lifestyles and the challenges they face,” Kim Ribeiro, Head of Diversity and Patient Inclusion at AbbVie, said. “While everything else in society is pretty much on-demand, clinical trials are one of the few areas where we’re often asking the patient to come to us. For participants, this may involve taking time off work, traveling and spending long hours at the study site. That’s a hard sell for anyone, especially those who don’t have the luxury of working remotely.”

Actions to Expand Racial and Ethnic Participation

This issue is tied to health equity at the root level and health equity is something that businesses are beginning to pay closer attention to. So, what can companies do about this issue? All companies can drive health equity through education, and many are moving the needle on broader issues in health equity through a variety of community partnerships.

For those with a vested interest in clinical trials, namely pharma companies, finding ways to increase access and participation must be more than just lip service. It’s a business imperative.

At Eli Lilly and Co. (No. 5 on the 2022 DiversityInc Top 50 list), the push to address the issue of representation within clinical trials is part of the company’s broader Racial Justice Initiative and is outlined in its Racial Justice Progress Report. One key action was changing where the trials take place.

In 2021, Lilly accelerated its efforts to improve diversity in its clinical trials, including its oncology and Alzheimer’s studies using a decentralized clinical trial approach. The company also established a partnership with the Network for Excellence in Healthcare Innovation (NEHI) to form a Community Focused Research Organization (CFRO) focused solely on driving diversity in clinical trial participation.

Lilly stood the effort up with an initial $500,000 in seed funding.

“Our clinical trial population must reflect the patient population the trial medicine may treat,” Kelly Copes Anderson, Global Head of DEI at Eli Lilly and Co., said. “We are constantly evolving our strategies to enhance diverse representation in our trials by establishing novel partnerships, identifying a diverse range of trial sites and investigators, expanding accessibility and convenience and raising awareness via digital outreach campaigns.”

At Abbott (No. 3 on the 2022 DiversityInc Top list), the company has identified a number of actions it can take to diversify clinical trials. The first centers on communication, an important part of helping people from different cultural backgrounds find their way toward clinical trials, but also in establishing trust.

“There’s a history of researchers not doing a good job of making it clear to patients or participants exactly what we want them to do,” Dr. Joseph Ravenell, member of the Abbott Medical Advisory Board on Diversity, said. “Once we reach them, we must communicate clearly exactly what we want them to do and the risks and benefits of participating in this trial. Communicating clearly, I think, is the second biggest barrier after figuring out where we go to identify the populations we want in our studies.”

To reach them in the first place, companies have to meet people where they are. Ravenell noted that most public hospitals aren’t participating in clinical trials, meaning those without insurance aren’t being seen at hospitals where clinical trials tend to be.

“Insurance is another proxy for access to clinical trials,” Ravenell said. “If we want to think of a big intervention target for increasing minority participation in clinical trials, we need to think about how we equip the places where many minority patients and people in low-resource settings go, and we need to go to where they’re more likely to be.”

How the company is addressing this was outlined in a case study published on Abbott’s website in late 2021. Life-BTK was a clinical trial which studied a new treatment for severe disease in arteries, a condition known as Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD). Patients with PAD experience narrow or blocked blood vessels, particularly in the legs, which can lead to amputation. It’s a condition disproportionately found in Native American, African American and Hispanic patients.

Abbott set about addressing the most common barriers by first partnering with physicians these communities trusted. If the physicians didn’t have experience participating in clinical trials, Abbott provided training and guidance around how to help its patients apply and enroll.

The next step was to reach people with materials that could help them understand the benefit of the trial to not only the patient, but the broader population, and do it in a way that made sense to the patient. Ditching scientific jargon for more plainly spoken terms and in non-English speaking patients, native languages helped create a better connection and establish the trust and understanding needed to ensure enrollment.

“When we choose to communicate only in English, we miss a whole segment of the population,” Jennifer Jones-McMeans, Divisional Vice President of Global Clinical Affairs at Abbott, said. “Something as simple as multilingual educational materials could open the possibility of increasing enrollment of patients whose mother tongue might be, for example, Spanish, Vietnamese or Hindi.”

Finally, Abbott sought out clinical care centers in communities where clinical trials had never taken place before, prioritizing facilities with a diverse staff as well as a diverse patient population.

Building on the Efforts of the Past

These efforts aren’t the first to build diversity into scientific research. You may have heard the term “precision medicine” in the past, which refers to a more personalized model of care that accounts for demographics, lifestyle and social determinants of health to provide interventions or treatments tailored to individual patients.

Efforts to promote precision medicine have been stood up by the National Institutes of Health and date back to the Obama administration’s Precision Medicine Initiative.

Dr. Elizabeth Cohn, Rudin Professor of Community Health at Hunter College, City University of New York, was an Obama White House Champion of Change in Precision Medicine and Health Equity. She is now involved in what the PMI has become under the Biden Administration, the All of Us study, an effort she refers to as the lesser-known sibling of the Biden Moonshot Initiative.

“The All of Us study was designed collaboratively between the Obama White House and the National Institutes of Health to fill in that gap that we were afraid we would advance through precision medicine, where we would advance medicine for some but not for everyone and by doing that, we would create a larger gap than we originally had,” Cohn said at the Center for Healthcare and Innovation’s recent Diversity, Inclusion, & Health Equity Symposium – East Coast event in New York City. “The All of Us research program has 80% underrepresented minorities. We’re 585,000 on our way to a million-person longitudinal cohort of 10 years or more.”

The study includes 80% underrepresented minorities and is 50% multiracial and ethnic. The rest of the 30% is rural populations and gender and sexual minorities, including people who are transgender, have a disability and other understudied populations. One of the key components driving All of Us is the complete lack of inclusion criteria.

“This is part of a work that thinks about what’s it’s like for real world research. A patient with hypertension may not be eligible for a study. Something we wanted to study was how people are in the real world,” Cohn said. “There’s no inclusion criteria, anybody can join, but it is really designed for racial and ethnic and other underrepresented minorities. We do skew in that direction, so for that reason, we recruit from federally qualified hospitals, Walgreens, if you live in a rural area can recruit you, and it is not a research study that does anything, it’s a platform for all of you. Every single person in this room. It’s a platform that allows you to do research that will close the gap in minority health. The project will fail if we don’t use it to close the gap, so I have to ask everyone to please go on and register because we need you to help. We have built this for you in hopes that you will come.”

Grant and her colleagues paved the way for people of color to become frontline employees in aviation while battling racism from co-workers and passengers alike. They were sometimes banned from the cockpit by pilots, forbidden to work first class, and even denied hotel rooms during layovers because of their race.

“When I first started writing my book,” Grant said, “I wanted people to understand the hardships of being a stewardess, the loneliness of it, the psychological impact it had on us that people just didn’t understand the things that we did.”

International Black Aviation Professionals Day

Grant’s passion for sharing African American aviation stories led her to create International Black Aviation Professionals Day or IBAD. Feb. 16, 2022, was the first observance of IBAD, honoring prominent Black aviators like Bessie Coleman, Cornelius Coffey, Janet Bragg, John C. Robinson, and Willa Mae Brown. Two days later, the Georgia Congressional Delegation introduced a resolution to observe IBAD annually on February 16, in the middle of Black History Month.

“The resolution has been presented to [Congress] and it’s got great support and a lot of signatures,” Grant said, adding that she hopes the resolution will be passed during the current session.

Grant has received support from Sisters of the Sky, a woman-led organization dedicated to removing barriers for women of color who want to become pilots or work in other aspects of aviation.

Promoting Racial Diversity in Aviation

According to a recent Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University study, the aviation industry needs to promote racial diversity to ensure that its workforce is big enough to handle future demand. The study’s findings showed a very low percentage of Black employees across the occupations of Aircraft Pilot/Flight Engineer, Air Traffic Controller/Airfield Operations Specialist, Aerospace Engineer, Avionics technician and Aviation Mechanic/Service Technician, ranging from 1.6% to 13.1%. The multiple-year study found that the disparity should be addressed along three dimensions:

1. Developing these individuals’ interest in aviation careers
2. Providing opportunities to develop basic academic competencies
3. Addressing any remaining barriers impeding access, either formally or informally, by these groups to pursue aviation careers

The Role ERGs Play in Increasing Representation

Lawanda Scott, chair of the Black Excellence Network employee resource group (BXN) at Raytheon Technologies (No. 41 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list), has rolled out a robust calendar of events for Black History Month, including a panel discussion with some of the company’s top Black leaders.

Scott says that groups like BXN are a “tool to increase representation within our industry, while developing and strengthening the pipeline of future leaders to come.” BXN’s pipeline goes straight back to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), where they reach out to both recent graduates and seasoned professionals searching for job opportunities.

Grant is encouraged by the enthusiasm she sees for Black aviation history.

“I want children in all the school systems to know that February the 16th is designated for you to pick one or several Black pioneers in aviation. Study them, learn about them, become encouraged by them, know their struggle, and never give up.”

For example, Black Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 are two times as likely as whites to die from heart disease and people between the ages of 35 and 64 are 50% more likely than whites to have high blood pressure, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Many factors contribute to the lack of care for people of color and low-income communities, which include a lack of insurance, healthcare access and education. While these disparities are far from being solved, some companies have found ways to advance health equity in underserved communities through partnerships. 

Access to COVID-19 Vaccines

In 2021, the Biden Administration expressed the hope of getting to a point where 75% of the U.S. population was vaccinated against the virus to reach “herd immunity.” Research shows that roughly 69% of the country’s population is fully vaccinated, so that goal remains unmet. 

Some believe we haven’t reached herd immunity yet because there are too many people who are against getting vaccinated against COVID-19. But research from the John Hopkins Center for Communications Programs shows this isn’t necessarily true and that people who are on the fence could be motivated to get vaccinated.

Aetna, a CVS Health Company (No. 28 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list), is one organization that is working to get people from underserved communities into its retail pharmacies to get a COVID-19 vaccine.

RELATED: “Lessons Learned from COVID-19 to Advance Heath Equity Going Forward”

To get people to retail pharmacies, the company partnered with Lyft to facilitate non-medical transportation for vulnerable communities, “specifically Black and Hispanic populations,” according to DeRonn Kidd, Senior Manager, Project Program Manager for CVS Health. Kidd outlined the program during a panel titled “Health Disparities in the U.S.: Lessons from COVID & the Path Forward” at the Center for Healthcare and Innovation’s Diversity, Inclusion & Health Equity Symposium – East Coast event in New York City last month.

“That was something that was hugely successful in terms of achieving and providing access to the COVID vaccines in our retail pharmacies,” Kidd added. “The pandemic provided us with the chance to really drill down on this and achieve this in a new way that we have not done before.”

Promoting Vaccine Confidence

Aetna/CVS acknowledged hesitancy in getting the vaccine within communities of color and found ways to reach those communities and build confidence around getting COVID vaccines, which was successful because of partnerships the company formed with community organizations.

“One of the reasons why it was hugely successful was because we were really able to tap into some of the nonprofit organizations, faith-based organizations and health and wellness organizations within these communities,” Kidd said. “Be that the YMCA, be that organizations that we know our members and our patients are regularly involved with. We knew that we could trust them to reach those individuals, to build that confidence and more importantly to also help drive forward our ability to reach these vulnerable communities in the best possible way.”

To encourage people of color to get a COVID-19 vaccine, Kaiser Permanente (a DiversityInc Hall of Fame company) also worked with faith-based organizations to create trust and promote vaccine efforts. Yvette Radford, Regional Vice President for External and Community Affairs at Kaiser Permanente, explained the program for an article in DiversityInc’s “Meeting in a Box: The Importance of Community Partnerships.”

The company partnered with the Conference of National Black Churches (CNBC) and provided it with the tools and resources to “educate, mobilize and encourage vaccination efforts and increase trust,” Radford said. 

“There was so much distrust out there, especially among communities of color, so working with faith-based organizations to provide them with tools and resources so that they can communicate information to their parishioners and the broader community was a partnership that we’re really proud of. It has been effective and could go beyond the pandemic in terms of using faith-based organizations to deliver important health messages,” she said. 

Through a partnership that started in 2021, Abbott (No. 3 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list) and the University of Minnesota Community University Health Care Center worked together to form a mobile clinic of healthcare workers from the community who went out and gave people COVID tests and vaccinations.

Kathryn McKenzie, Divisional Vice President, Global Citizenship and Sustainability at Abbott, said the mobile clinic has helped build trust within the community and has led to people coming into clinics for “screening and care for diseases like hypertension and diabetes as well as other needed health and social services.”

She gave an example of how care coordination was created for over 150 Afghan refugees “alongside continued health outreach and connection to additional clinic offerings like pro-bono legal or mental health support in local communities seeing significant health disparities.”

“Our goal this year is to provide targeted care for 1,800 people by staff who understand the needs and cultures of the people they serve,” McKenzie added.

Meeting People Where They Are

One of the best ways to advance health equity is by meeting people where they are, said Paul Bousquet, who heads up oncology partnerships at pharmaceutical company Roche at the healthcare event in New York City. He mentioned four places where companies can do this: the bodega, the barbershop, the bishop and the beauty salon. 

RELATED: “Creating a Fair Workplace While Prioritizing Health Equity”

Meeting people in these common places within their community, and forming partnerships with those organizations and places, is a way to meet future patients. 

“You are building trust for those patients but you’re also building trust for your employees,” Bousquet said. “You’re not in the ivory tower anymore. You’re in the places where patients are being affected the most. That really creates a culture of belonging.”

Abbott recognizes the importance of good health and that barriers exist for people getting the care they need.

“Poverty is at the center of many of these challenges, but there’s many other interconnected social issues like racism and access to food, healthcare, transportation and technology as well,” McKenzie said. “These gaps exist everywhere, in our own backyard, in cities and rural areas across the U.S., and in the 160-plus countries where we have a presence.”

To overcome these barriers, the company made it a priority to innovate greater access to health equity across the company and in its partnership with others.

“This work focuses on three areas: creating new health tech solutions, advancing diversity in healthcare and removing barriers to good health in communities,” McKenzie said. “And to deliver results, we’ve laid out long-term targets for our business and made health equity a key principle for our community partnerships. Our efforts to expand access to health are global in scope, with focused efforts in communities where we have a presence.”

Helping Vulnerable Populations Navigate the Healthcare System

Emory Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center has made it its mission to recruit Black Americans into its research studies, Dr. Monica Parker, Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Department of Neurology, said at the Center for Healthcare and Innovation’s healthcare event. 

When looking at its research pool, Dr. Parker said Emory has learned that Black participants aren’t coming to the studies from Emory. They are coming from within the wider community. 

“Why are they coming from the wider community? Because we partner with 26 different organizations that operate in the African American community, and one of the things that we need in these communities is education and information,” she said. 

She added that it is important to help Black patients navigate the healthcare system so that they can get the care that they need. When a person is unable to participate in a research study because they have hypertension or another issue that prevents them from being in the study, Emory connects them with a healthcare provider to manage their health, even if that provider isn’t through Emory. 

“If you want to engage people of color regardless of what their stripe is, you have to be able to address what their need is first, and I’m not even talking about compensation,” she said. “But for a population that’s aging, healthcare access is a big deal, and whether you’re Black, white or purple, if you’re an older person, you need a doctor who is sensitive to geriatric care issues.”

To help people in historically marginalized communities fight chronic diseases, Abbott launched its Future Well Communities program, which addresses social and health challenges people face daily.

Future Well Communities was implemented in Stockton, California, where nearly 60% of the population is living with prediabetes or diabetes, and the city is known as the most diverse city in America. The program is also now offered in Chicago and Waukegan, Illinois.

“You’re seeing a broad array of health barriers across a diverse collection of communities, languages and cultures,” Abbott’s McKenzie said. “There are many trusted organizations doing tremendous work at the community level to address different gaps, from food insecurity to health education to transportation. But we saw a great opportunity to coordinate these efforts across organizations and communities to better address the complex, multiple issues that people often face. For example, a person with diabetes who lives in a food desert can’t get healthy food – but they’re also having trouble getting a ride to their doctor’s office and finding a health worker who understands their needs and speaks their language.”

This sort of holistic approach from Abbott is something that the company hopes will have broader health impacts than what can be achieved with traditional patient care. By accounting for social determinants of health, how they drive health outcomes and what can be done to improve the overall picture of public health through community partnerships, the company is able to set some ambitious goals.

“Our goal is to improve the health of 10,000 people facing the greatest impact of health disparities and diabetes by meeting people where they are and helping connect them to the health and social services they need,” McKenzie said.

“One example is a ‘food as medicine’ initiative we call Healthy Food Rx, which brings together a local health center, food bank and research partner. Boxes of healthy foods are prescribed to people with diabetes and delivered directly to their doorstep, alongside cooking classes, health education and follow-up care to measure their glucose levels – which is delivering encouraging results in helping them to eat healthier and better manage their diabetes.”

During a panel titled “Health Disparities in the U.S.: Lessons from COVID & the Path Forward” at the Center for Healthcare and Innovation’s Diversity, Inclusion, & Health Equity Symposium – East Coast event, panelists shared health disparities they saw emerge as a result of the pandemic and what their organizations have done toward preventing these issues. 

Richard Chapman, Chief Science Officer at the Innovation and Value Initiative, said the pandemic made his organization realize they couldn’t just look at the average, individual patient. 

“COVID-19 has a lot of implications for society and those around us. And if you look at individual patients, you’re going to miss a lot of the benefits or values of treatments or interventions that can help alleviate COVID-19,” he said. 

Chapman said the health technology assessments his company does don’t necessarily look at the impacts COVID has had on family and caregivers. It also doesn’t look at “the impact of contagion or infection on others around us in society.” 

“I think it really pointed out that you can’t just atomistically look at individual patients, you really need to look at the context around them, and I think that’s something that [Healthcare Distribution Alliance] hasn’t done very well before.”

To help minimize health disparities brought to light by COVID-19, the Innovation and Value Initiative started a health equity movement. Chapman said it’s a two-year initiative and the goal is to have the results of it “permeate the rest of our work.” 

A “methods summit” will be held in March as part of the initiative. 

“What we’re hoping will come out of this is some actionable steps that people doing these types of assessments have to be accountable for. These assessments claim that they are paying attention to health issues, which the health technology assessment frankly in the past just hasn’t done,” he said. 

Aetna, a CVS Health Company, learned to focus more on personalized care during the COVID-19 pandemic and understanding the needs of its patients on both the Aetna side and the retail side, said DeRonn Kidd, Senior Manager, Project Program Manager. (CVS is No. 28 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list.)

“COVID did reveal both the disparities that exist, the inequities that exist, but at the same time, it also highlighted some of the segment growth drivers which played a pivotal role in key initiatives that are moving forward in the company,” he said. 

CVS has also been working on its omnichannel strategy, whether that’s through text messaging, mailers or through local retail pharmacies, to reach patients and help them understand the resources that are available to them to achieve their highest level of health. 

“We’re continuing to innovate and we’re continuing to work around some of the challenges we see around health equity,” Kidd added. 

What Would Help Advance Health Equity?

Organizations learned a lot from the COVID-19 pandemic, and now it’s time to take action to advance health equity. But how? 

According to Kenneth Mendez, President and CEO of The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, expanding insurance coverage would be a good step toward advancing health equity. 

Providing or increasing insurance coverage to more people has “been proven to reduce emergency room visits for asthma by 50%, improve quality of life and reduce hospitalizations. 

“What insurance companies need to understand is it’s worth the investment for these upstream interventions because it improves outcomes later,” he said. 

Shannon Stephenson, CEO at Cempa Community Care, based in Chattanooga, Tennessee, said it’s going to take a collective effort to make a change, adding that everyone in the room at the healthcare event needed to build trust in their communities and let people know they are not being judged when they walk in for care. 

“No one of us is going to do this, but together we could. A lot of times we are really just looking through our lens. I look through the primary care or infectious disease lens. We have the capability to really make a difference,” she said.

Blacks have the lowest homeownership rates of all ethnic groups. 

At its high in 2004, Black homeownership peaked at 49.7%, trailing well behind the record 76.2% homeownership rate for white people. The gap in rates between Black and white families is wider now than in 1960 when housing discrimination was legal. 

Credit disparities across generations have been one of the barriers contributing to the Black homeownership gap.

“We know the outputs of lower credit scores, missing credit scores, fewer financial resources and lower incomes,” says Michael Neal, principal research associate in the Housing Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute. “A part of that is economics, but what informs it is partly due to structural racism and discrimination.” 

From Slavery to Sharecropping 

Today’s racial wealth gap is a legacy of unequal wealth for Black and white Americans following the Civil War. 

After emancipation, 4 million slaves were freed with no money, education or means of survival. Reparations were paid to slaveholders, not slaves and the ‘40 Acres and a Mule’ proposal to grant former slaves land never materialized. Credit and its impact on wealth-building for Black families began with a system known as sharecropping, a form of indentured servitude. 

Poor and in need of income, most freed Blacks were forced into sharecropping, renting and farming a portion of landowners’ property in return for a crop’s share. Landowners extended credit to the sharecroppers to purchase materials like seeds and fertilizer from them. Sharecroppers also relied on short-term credit from local merchants to pay for essentials like food and clothing.

Landowners and merchants often charged higher prices and interest rates for goods bought on credit. When it was time to sell the crop, Black farmers were often cheated. Sharecropping created a cycle of poverty and debt, preventing Blacks from being property owners and accumulating wealth.

Redlining Destroys Black Wealth

Redlining is the discriminatory practice of denying loans to creditworthy borrowers because of their race or where they live. 

“An example of this is in the 1930s following the Great Depression,” says Nikitra Bailey, Executive VP of the National Fair Housing Alliance. “The New Deal’s Federal Home Owners Loan Corporation developed one of the most harmful policy decisions in housing and financial services markets by creating a system that included race as a fundamental factor in determining the desirability and value of neighborhoods.”

Neighborhoods with high Black and immigrant populations were shaded red or considered high risk. That was a signal to lenders to avoid providing loans in these areas. 

“It wasn’t based on whether a person could afford a loan,” says Bailey.

Redlining prevented Black families from participating in the homeownership boom of the 1950s and 1960s. While the Fair Housing Act of 1968 made redlining illegal, the economic impact of the discriminatory practice is still felt today. 

A report from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) says over 8 million people living in formerly redlined areas experience lower home values, higher rates of poverty, greater vacancy and abandonment and poor health outcomes.

Learn More with Fair360 Enterprise: The Ongoing Impact of Environmental Racism and Redlining  

The Subprime Mortgage Crisis 

During the housing boom of the 2000s, some lenders approved high-risk mortgages to borrowers with weak credit histories. 

African American borrowers were more likely to receive subprime purchase and refinance loans than comparable white borrowers, according to The Center for Responsible Lending’s research of 2004 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data.

When the Great Recession took hold between 2007 and 2009, the housing market collapsed, job losses accelerated and interest rates began to rise. Borrowers were unable to pay their mortgages, resulting in foreclosures.

“Families living in those communities, not the people who experienced foreclosure itself, but people who lived in proximity to the foreclosure lost a trillion dollars in wealth in Black and Latino communities,” says Bailey. “Black and Latino families were disproportionately targeted in subprime loans despite data showing many qualified for homeownership on safer and more affordable terms.”

The subprime crisis had an immediate impact on Black homeownership rates. In 2010, fewer than half of African American and Hispanic families owned homes. When they do own homes, Black families buy them at least eight years later, delaying their ability to accumulate wealth. 

Black Homeownership and the Racial Wealth Gap 

A home is the biggest asset many will own in their lifetime. Black people being locked out of homeownership has eroded their wealth across generations. 

The median white family had $184,000 in wealth in 2019 compared to $23,000 for the median Black family. 

“Credit is seen as a prerequisite to homeownership,” says Megan Haberle, Senior Director of Policy at the NCRC. “Because of the lack of intergenerational wealth and other kinds of persisting economic injustice, there’s a very skewed challenge facing many Black households in building strong credit and credit scores within our existing credit system.”

Black applicants are more likely than white borrowers to be denied a mortgage, with credit history cited as the most common reason. Black individuals are more likely to have thin credit histories or be credit invisible. Black people with a credit profile have an average credit score over 40 points lower than white applicants. 

“About one-third of Black adults do not have a FICO score and another one-third of Black households have FICO scores under 620,” says Jung Hyun Choi, Senior Research Associate at the Urban Institute. “It makes it difficult for Black households to access a mortgage. If they access it and become homeowners, they still have to pay higher mortgage costs.”

Learn More with Fair360 Enterprise: Can Labor Unions Shrink the Racial Wealth Gap?

Special Credit Purpose Programs 

Slavery and segregation, racism and redlining — these exclusionary policies and practices were implemented for decades, creating significant disadvantages for Black families. 

Special Purpose Credit Programs (SPCPs) are one way of responding to those inequities. SPCPs are lending products designed to meet the credit needs of underserved groups subjected to discrimination. 

In 2022, Wells Fargo (No. 29 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 companies for Diversity list) announced an SPCP to help minority homeowners whose mortgages are currently serviced by Wells Fargo refinance their mortgages. The company recently broadened its initial $150 million investment to include purchase loans. 

“Systemic inequities in the United States have prevented too many minority families from achieving their homeownership and wealth-building goals for too long,” says Kristy Fercho, Head of Home Lending and head of Diverse Segments, Representation and Inclusion at Wells Fargo. 

Also in 2022, TD Bank (No. 13 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 companies for Diversity list) introduced TD Home Access Mortgage, a new mortgage loan product designed to improve homeownership opportunities in Black and Hispanic communities. 

“Our program was designed to provide a $5,000 lender credit, more flexible debt-to-income ratios and credit score requirements,” says Michael Innis-Thompson, Senior Vice President, Head of Community Lending & Development & Fair Lending Center of Excellence at TD Bank. “We’ll go as low as 620 FICO scores. It addresses the issue that Blacks and Hispanics are more likely to have credit scores below 660.”

Improving Access to Homeownership 

Experts say enforcing fair housing laws is essential to improving Black homeownership and the racial wealth gap. 

“Even when prospective homebuyers have qualifying credit scores, they may be excluded from homeownership based on the neighborhood that they live in. That is illegal in the face of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act,” says Haberle. “This enforcement is important to complement policy reforms that target the credit score models themselves.”

Implementation of alternative credit data  — payment history for everyday bills like utilities or cell phones — has been cited as one way to help Black people enter the credit system and shrink the Black homeownership gap. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have begun allowing lenders to consider up to 12 months of rent payment history for loan applicants. 

“Rental payment is underreported in the credit bureau system,” says Choi. “It will take time for that to make an impact, but those are the things happening to help households of color without good credit scores or with low credit scores have a better opportunity in accessing homeownership.” 

Community Development Financial Institutions or CDFIs can also be crucial in expanding mortgage credit in Black communities. CDFIs are financial institutions that provide financial services to under-resourced and low-income communities that need access to financing. 

“Part of their mission focus, which is critical, is the relationship banking method they often employ to expand access to credit,” says Neal. “It’s not just we’re gonna look at your credit score, your debt to income, some of the traditional measures associated with mortgage lending. They’re going to work to build a relationship and develop a product that fits the needs of their clients a little better.”

Neal says that shrinking the Black homeownership gap would represent great philosophical and economic progress.

“There’s something philosophical about what it means to be an American. In my mind, that’s tied closely with homeownership,” he says. “In the economic sense, the hope is that we have been able to extend the promise of homeownership to everyone who wants it. The flip side of that is — even if you own a home — if the benefits that homeownership promises do not accrue to you, then we can’t raise the flag of victory.”

READ: Addressing the Wealth Gap: Study Shows the Movement Toward Equity Has a Long Way to Go

The nature of law enforcement work quickly caught up to Marshall as his naivety and optimism were soon replaced with a cynicism he describes as “unhealthy.”

“As much as I tried to fight it, the reality was that my job was extremely negative,” Marshall said. “Seeing the fights, abuse, accidents, deaths, (the effect of) drugs, alcohol and people regularly lying to avoid getting into trouble. I began to look for a way out.”

At first, Marshall, a member of the Sault Ste Tribe of Chippewa Indians, was hesitant to make any drastic changes as he lived in his hometown, close to family and friends, so he began investigating online MBA programs that could help him start a new chapter in a different profession. After meeting his now wife, Brittany, things started to change for Marshall and when she left to attend Western Kentucky University. In the end, the desire to be with her was too great, so Marshall decided to resign from law enforcement and join her at the university.

Despite leaving law enforcement, Marshall took some important lessons away from his time as an officer.

“The biggest lessons from my time in law enforcement relate to emotional and social intelligence, which are key elements of leadership,” Marshall said. “Officers’ emotions often set the tone for their social interactions. To keep an interaction moving in a positive direction, without escalating, I had to learn to keep my emotions under control. However, sometimes being too calm would actually be aggravating to the person to whom I was speaking. That’s where social intelligence came into play. My default was to remain calm, but I had to constantly observe the other person (or people) to see the effect that my words, tone, posture and actions were having on others and adjust accordingly. It was a constant game of chess.”

Through the MBA program at Western Kentucky, Marshall was able to have some life-changing experiences.

One opportunity he reflects on was the chance to join members of WKU’s EdD program on a trip to Lyon, France for an international business symposium, in which professors from around the world would teach three-day seminars on their particular areas of expertise.

“Not only was this my first time out of the country, it also provided a chance for me to get to know Dr. Randy Capps, who led the trip for WKU students,” Marshall said. “After the trip, Dr. Capps invited me to work with his consulting firm, Leadership Strategies Group, as an independent contractor. At first, I conducted 360-degree assessments and surveys in the manufacturing and healthcare industries. Then I began doing leadership training and leadership coaching for clients in manufacturing, healthcare, government and education. After a few years, I decided to start my own consulting business and that’s when things really began to take off.

His business, known as Amoeba Leader, has allowed Marshall to let his personality shine through, something that has helped him land bigger and longer contracts with clients than a more formal or traditional business approach.

Why Pursue a PhD?

For Marshall, the success of his own business was satisfying, but while he enjoyed coaching, speaking and training leaders, he found himself emerging from the experience with more questions about leadership than he could answer on his own.

“The more questions that emerged, the more complicated they got, eventually surpassing my ability to answer them,” Marshall said. “Getting a Ph.D. was the logical next step to develop the necessary skills to answer my leadership questions.”

But beyond seeking an answer to his own questions, Marshall credits The PhD Project with planting the seed in his mind to pursue a doctoral degree.

“They planted the initial seed with their persistent yellow postcards and, ultimately, I attended the annual conference in Chicago,” Marshall said. “Prior to that, I had never considered a Ph.D. My impression was that PhD research consisted of working really hard to throw a little crumb into a pie dish, but nobody seemed concerned with making a pie. In other words, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to spend years of my life researching something hyper-specific if nobody was going to use it to affect actual change.”

Despite his preconceived notions, Marshall pressed forward, confident that attaining a doctorate would help answer his leadership questions. He earned a Ph.D. in Leadership and Organizational Science from Binghamton University, something he now views as the natural progression of the goals he had when he started his career in law enforcement.

“I started my career wanting to make the world a better place and that hasn’t changed,” Marshall said. “I was drawn to this because leadership and organizational science can be applied in nearly any domain because the topics are relevant in so many areas. Understanding leadership and organizational science make it possible to have a profound impact throughout society.”

These days, Marshall shares his expertise as an educator, working in Creighton University’s Heider College of Business as an Assistant Professor of Management. Working with young people has been a positive experience as he gets to tap into their enthusiasm and passion while simultaneously helping them overcome their greatest weakness, a lack of experience.

The PhD Project’s Annual Conference

Marshall cites the annual conference as a key moment in his career and it’s something he’s proud to have taken part in as a speaker over the years. This year, the conference is set to take place on March 24 and 25.

“The PhD Project changed my life,” he says. “The annual Chicago conference brings together students and faculty from various business disciplines to share their experiences with prospective Ph.D. students. The conference gives those students a sneak preview of the entire Ph.D. lifecycle including tips on how to prepare for the GMAT or GRE, 1-on-1 feedback sessions on Ph.D. application packets, insights into the different disciplines, first-year papers, comprehensive exams, dissertations, the job market and alternative pathways post-PhD.”

Additionally, dozens of highly rated business schools participate in a recruitment fair so prospective students can meet with university representatives to learn more about their particular programs.

Just as important, the conference introduces prospective students to The PhD Project family, a support network from the time someone is a prospective student all the way until they retire. There are student associations for each discipline to help students through each step of the doctoral journey.

One caveat, the conference is invitation only. To be considered, those interested in attending must hold a minimum of an undergraduate degree or be entering their senior year of college by the time they attend the conference. The PhD Project is a diversity initiative for Black/African American, Latinx/Hispanic American and Native Americans. The deadline for application is Feb.12.

For more information, email Cristina Pazos at cpazos@kpmg.com