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Company Culture
Wells Fargo (3.3 stars) will no longer require employees who file sexual harassment complains to undergo forced arbitration—making it the first large U.S. bank to end the practice. Some tech companies like Microsoft (3.4 stars) , Google (3.8 stars) , and Facebook (3.9 stars) have already ended their mandatory arbitration clauses, but the banking and finance world has been slower to end the system, which tends to favor employers over employees, result in lower damage payouts, and obscure repeat offenders. Bloomberg
Speaking of Google, the company’s head of human resources, Eileen Naughton, is stepping down. In recent years, Google has shifted from a company with a reputation of being radically transparent and open to one that now seeks to shut down employee dissent and limit worker input. These changes saw Naughton dealing with an unprecedented level of internal company turmoil, which is likely to continue despite her stepping down. Vox
Altra Running, a Utah-based footwear company, will sponsor not one, but two pregnant runners, Alysia Montaño and Tina Muir. In an op-ed for last May, Montaño, along with fellow athlete Kara Goucher, drew national attention to the pressures pregnant runners face from their sponsors. Montaño and Muir’s contract with Altra is uniquely noncontingent on the frequency of their races or wins, and will provide them with financial compensation and shoes. Outside
Quick Hits
This article has been making the rounds on social media, but in case you missed it, the consensus is in—younger men want to have their cake and eat it, too. According to a new Gallup poll, although men ages 18 to 34 generally are more open-minded than older men when it comes to traditional gender roles, they are still no more likely than older men to divide household chores equitably with their partner. In other words, they’re happy someone is helping contribute to paying the bills, but that doesn’t mean they’re willing to help around the house. As a result, more women in heterosexual relationships are working but come home to a similar amount of housework as non-working women. NY Times
In a significant win for Native Americans voting rights, North Dakota officials have reached a settlement with two Native American tribes regarding the state’s restrictive voter identification law. Many Native Americans in North Dakota have a state-issued or tribal ID that lists a post office box, which did not count as proper voter identification before the settlement, and some lived in rural areas with no street signage or obvious address. Under the new agreement, Native American voters without a residential address will still be able to vote by marking where they live on a map, which the state will then have the responsibility of verifying. NBC
Members of the House voted largely along party lines last week to extend the deadline for the ratification of the Equal RIghts Amendment, which expired in 1982. Although the vote was mostly symbolic, recent years have seen an increase in efforts to revive the ERA. However, it is unlikely the Senate will take up the issue, and some feminists such as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg have expressed that they’d prefer Congress create new legislation regarding women’s rights rather than reintroduce a decades-old measure. NY Times
Remembering Black History
Last week, statues of Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglas, arguably Maryland’s most famous abolitionists, were unveiled at the State House in Annapolis. The bronze statues created by StudioEIS depict Tubman and Douglas as they would have appeared in 1864 when the state of Maryland officially approved emancipation. Their installation is the result of a nearly four year-long push to commemorate Tubman and Douglas in the State House building, which still features statues and artwork honoring the racist lawmakers of Maryland’s past. Notably, the installation of the statues coincides with last year’s election of Adrienne A. Jones as Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates, where she is the first African-American and the first woman to hold the position. Baltimore Sun
Some slave narratives of the South, like Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup, remain in the American consciousness. Others that tell of racial horrors of the North, like that of abolitionist Harriet E. Wilson, which called out racism among white abolitionists, are not as well remembered by history, but are no less arresting.This NPR article about the life, writings, and legacy of Wilson in her Milford, New Hampshire, community is a must-read. NPR
Food is one of the most sacred expressions of culture, with chefs often acting as keepers and communicators of tradition. This article from HuffPost celebrates the lives of six such Black chefs who helped create a rich Black culinary tradition like Duchess‘Charity’ Quamino better known as Pastry Queen of Rhode Island and Cleora Butler, who was one of Tulsa, Oklahoma’s most renowned cooks and caterers. HuffPost
Former Xerox (2.4 stars) CEO Ursula Burns, who was the first Black woman to serve as CEO of a Fortune 500 company, donated $1 million to The HistoryMakers, the largest video oral history archive of African American narratives in the country. Her donation will help The HistoryMakers conduct 180 interviews of African-American women in a variety of careers and disciplines, from STEM, to entertainment, medicine, politics, and more. Black Entertainment
Around the World
UK: U.K. regulators are stepping up their efforts to hold financial firms accountable for #MeToo claims. The government’s mediation service, ACAS, issued a statement warning employers not to rely on nondisclosure agreements to silence workers from reporting sexual harassment. Bloomberg
Colombia: In Cartagena, there exists a self-sufficient community complete with stores, restaurants, and a school and community center called the City of Women. Constructed in 2003 by the League of Displaced Women, an organization of women who had to flee their homes under threat of violence from Colombia’s guerilla and paramilitary groups, the City is made up of 100 houses the women built by hand and is a place of healing for the women and their families. BBC
