Google CEO Sundar Pichai seems to be ready to put out some fires.
According to CNN, the Alphabet Company’s top boss is meeting with leaders from Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) in the wake of the company’s recent racism allegations.
Florida A&M University President Larry Robinson is set to be one of the HBCU leaders that Pichai will be meeting with. Presidents from Howard University, North Carolina A&T, Prairie View A&M, and Baltimore’s Morgan State are also set to attend.
This move will be the first time that the Google CEO seems to be addressing the situation that, clearly, has gotten away from him.
Back in December 2020, Google’s diversity recruiter April Curley and researcher Timnit Gebru alleged that they were fired by the company after they, on separate occasions, raised concerns about the lack of Black employees at the company.
While the Google CEO declined to directly comment about the allegations, the company maintained that Curley voluntarily resigned from the company.
Curley then took to Twitter to reiterate her initial claims.
The reason Google never hired an HBCU student straight out of undergrad into one of their key engineering roles is because they didn’t believe talent existed at these institutions- until I showed up.
— Real Abril🌈 (@RealAbril) December 21, 2020
In many instances, Google engineers who were interviewing HBCU candidates would leave demeaning and absolutely insulting feedback about students which would ultimately result in a rejection at the hiring committee stage.
— Real Abril🌈 (@RealAbril) December 21, 2020
For what are perhaps obvious reasons, HBCU presidents have expressed concerns about these allegations — especially since many HBCUs (including Howard) have career development and scholarship programs with Google.
“We obviously have a relationship with Google that we want to make sure is the right kind of relationship and the right environment,” said Howard University President Wayne A.I. Frederick.
However, the bigger question on everyone’s mind is: is this just the Google CEO doing some performative activism, or is he serious about addressing the claims?
In the wake of the George Floyd murder — and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement — many companies, including Google, reiterated their commitment to hiring Black talent. As 2021 opens up, many people are noticing that while some brands were sincere in their diversity & inclusion efforts, others were merely engaging in window-dressing.
I guess we will see which category Google falls into.
