Stop Antisemitism released a report giving the biggest corporations in the United States failing grades over their handling of antisemitism.
In 2020, the U.S. experienced an overdue racial reckoning, catalyzed by the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, at the hands of the police. In response, corporations have sought to be partners in effectuating positive social change by promoting anti-racism positions and adopting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) practices to make the corporate workplace a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive space.
Despite these positive intentions, the corporate workplace has become increasingly hostile to American Jews, in a broader environment of rising antisemitism. The latest conflict between Israel and Hamas in May 2021 produced stunning and unprecedented scenes of Jews in New York, Los Angeles, and other American cities being assaulted by mobs of anti-Israel extremists, accompanied by a torrent of anti-Jewish hate in the form of harassment, vandalism and online abuse.
This report documents the state of antisemitism in corporate America. The report employs the U.S. Department of State adopted International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism and aims to create a framework to protect Jews in the workplace by using three specific baseline measures – Corporate Platform, Allyship, and Internal DEI Practices.
The DEI approach has failed to combat bigotry against Jews. For example:
- In June the Chief Equity Inclusion Officer of the Society of Childrenʼs Books Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), April Powers, who is a Black Jewish woman, was pushed to resign by antisemitic activists who launched a vicious campaign against her for putting out a statement on behalf of SCBWI condemning recent antisemitism, deeming it anti-Palestinian despite Powers never mentioning Israel.
- In June Google did not fire Kamau Bobb, the Google Global Lead for Diversity, Strategy and Research, who, in an act of vile antisemitism, wrote Jews have an “insatiable apptite for war and killing”. Instead he was simply moved off the diversity team and put in another position.
- Jewish mental health professionals at Stanford Universityʼs on-campus counseling clinic filed federal complaints of workplace discrimination for alleged “severe and persistent” anti-Jewish harassment by colleagues.
This report is necessary to respond to the deteriorating state of antisemitism in the American workplace, a mere 80 years since the onset of the Holocaust. The report issues a “report card” with specific grades for leading corporations on how well or poorly they are responding to antisemitism based on our baseline measures.
Source: stop Antisemitism
