Apple follows up on its racial equity pledge

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January 13, 2021

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Rep. Liz Cheney backs impeachment, a college athlete is among the first to earn money from her likeness, and an Apple VP shares more info about the firm’s racial equity pledge . Have a peaceful Wednesday.

– Apple follows up. Remember last summer, when corporations went to great lengths to assert their racial diversity and social justice credentials as protests gripped the country after the killing of George Floyd? Even the most well-meaning companies faced demands to go beyond press releases. Their vows to do better were met with a common refrain: put your money where your mouth is.

As my colleague Michal Lev-Ram reports, Apple promised to do just that, pledging in June to earmark $100 million for a new Racial Equity and Justice initiative. And now the tech giant, which earned $275 billion in revenue last fiscal year, is disclosing exactly where its funding will go.

Apple will invest $25 million in a learning hub for Historically Black Colleges and Universities—both online and brick-and-mortar—in Atlanta. It will fund an Apple Developer Academy to teach coding skills in Detroit, and funnel $10 million to entrepreneurs of color through Harlem Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm in New York, over 20 years.

Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of environment, policy, and social initiatives, told Michal that the commitments are intended to show that Apple’s racial equity and justice push “wasn’t just talk.”

As Michal writes: “Long-term commitments are key to actually making a dent in long-standing racial inequities. So is accountability.”

Disclosing exactly where the money is going is a decent start.

Claire Zillman
claire.zillman@fortune.com
@clairezillman

Today’s Broadsheet was curated by Emma Hinchliffe.

ALSO IN THE HEADLINES

- Reps.' reactions. Rep. Liz Cheney became the highest-ranking Republican to say she would vote to impeach President Trump. The GOP conference chair said that Trump "lit the flame of this attack." Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Tuesday night shared a personal and emotional response to the attack on the Capitol over Instagram Live; Ocasio-Cortez told viewers that the experience was "traumatizing" and she "thought [she] was going to die."

- Partner in politics. The death of billionaire GOP donor Sheldon Adelson doesn't necessarily mean the end of the family's influence on American politics. His wife, Miriam Adelson, has been a strong voice in the couple's political donation strategy; in a statement, she called Adelson her "partner in romance, philanthropy, political activism, and enterprise." Bloomberg

- Financial win. Chloe V. Mitchell is one of the first college athletes to make money from her likeness. The freshman volleyball player at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan grew an audience of 2.7 million on TikTok last year, and an October decision by the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics permitting student-athletes to be paid for use of their name and image allowed her to stay active as an influencer despite playing college sports. CNBC

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Margaret Keane, No. 24 on Fortune's Most Powerful Women list, will step down as CEO of Synchrony on April 1; she'll become executive chair of the board of directors. Google VP of global partnerships Bonita Stewart joins PagerDuty's board of directors. Former Focus Brands COO Kat Cole joins the board of pizza delivery app Slice. Sheila Hooda joins the board of ScION Tech Growth. Trish Donnelly will leave her role as CEO of the Urban Outfitters Group; her successor is CEO of the Free People Group Sheila Harrington. The company also promoted chief merchandising officer for the Urban Outfitters brand Gabrielle Conforti to president, UO North America. UJET's Darcey Harrison joined Avaya as VP of North America cloud sales. Boingo's Kristen Steiner joins Transit Wireless as head of strategic partnerships and sales. Sharon Fox joins the board of Aden & Anais. Private equity firm M/C Partners promoted VP Julia Senior to partner.

CONTENT FROM PWC

What’s keeping companies from doing better?

Sixty-eight percent of leaders believe their business serves the greater good, but only 15% of the wider public agrees. We need to act to help close the gap. We recently surveyed US business leaders, employees and the public to understand what fosters and inhibits trust. These findings shaped actionable steps to help companies fight for social justice and take action, Now.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

- Thanks for the advice? A website by the Seoul city government offered advice to pregnant South Korean women: prepare ready-made meals for your husband before you give birth since he "is not good at cooking" and keep a “small-size” dress around after to motivate you to lose weight. The recently-discovered website prompted backlash, including a 21,000-signature petition demanding a public apology and consequences for the officials who wrote the guidelines. New York Times

- Mother says. Pat McGrath changed runway makeup in the 1990s and became the first makeup artist to receive a damehood in 2020. For Allure's business of beauty issue, the magazine dives into what makes McGrath so successful—including midnight Zoom meetings with Sephora execs and a healthy disregard for deadlines. Allure

- SCOTUS steps in. Lisa Montgomery, the only woman on federal death row, died by lethal injection overnight after the Supreme Court vacated lower court rulings that had held up her execution. Montgomery was convicted of a violent murder, but suffers from severe mental illness following childhood abuse. She was the first female prisoner to be put to death in the U.S. since 1953. NPR

- NYC AG. New York Attorney General Letitia James in this wide-ranging Q&A talks about taking on the Trump Organization in New York—she says "no one is above the law"—and her future political ambitions. James also drops this tidbit: to relax, she hangs out with a group of girlfriends, most of whom are elected officials. Marie Claire

ON MY RADAR

Why a Vogue cover created an uproar over Kamala Harris New York Times

On Stacey Abrams and the persistent problem of leaning too heavily on Black women Vogue

How to keep women running for office when Trump is gone Gen

PARTING WORDS

"It was my first time just being like, 'Okay, who am I without this?'"

-Actor Zendaya on a slowdown in the entertainment industry due to the pandemic—and figuring out her identity apart from work