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An interview with John Newsome explores his experiences as a canvasser to illustrate how open communication and face-to-face interactions can foster understanding and bridge divides. John's willingness to be vulnerable and engage in genuine, face-to-face interactions allows him to connect with individuals holding a wide range of viewpoints.
Read the full interview with John here.
Financial Times “Corporate diversity in the crosshairs after US Supreme Court ruling” June 29, 2023.
The Supreme Court’s ruling creates hardships for organizations
[Per PEG Legal Team] the Supreme Court’s legal reasoning in the college cases could be applied in other cases aiming to end companies’ ability to use race as a factor in training, leadership and mentorship programmes designed to correct historic underrepresentation
Listen to Dr. Aisha Nyandoro’s important testimony on how Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) can be reimagined by "putting families at the center."
https://c-span.org/video/?529257-1/state-officials-testify-welfare-waste-abuse#
Hewlett Foundation shares resources to prepare for and respond to the Supreme Court’s affirmative action decisions, including from Public Equity Group, ACLU, Munger, Tolles, and Olson and others
Explore Public Equity Group’s memo on how the Supreme Court’s Affirmative Action ruling can impact the workplace and how organizations can protect diversity programs.
The legal implications of the SCOTUS affirmative action decisions are still being determined (and re-litigated) by courts and regulatory bodies. While we’ll do our best to update these resources accordingly, we encourage you to consult legal counsel for the latest developments
Explore the Financial Times article, “Corporate diversity in the crosshairs after US Supreme Court ruling” (June 29, 2023), which outlines how the Supreme Court’s ruling creates hardships for organizations:
“[Per PEG Legal Team] the Supreme Court’s legal reasoning in the college cases could be applied in other cases aiming to end companies’ ability to use race as a factor in training, leadership and mentorship programmes designed to correct historic underrepresentation”
Affirmative action is under attack. This June, the US Supreme Court likely will issue decisions in two cases backed by conservative activist groups challenging race-based affirmative action in higher education as unlawful discrimination. The Court has signaled that its decision is likely to end affirmative action. As well, conservative activist groups are closely watching these decisions to further their use of the courts to challenge diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”) programs in workplaces. Organizations should act now to proactively modify their DEI programs and policies – to protect and even deepen them – while mitigating the risk of successful “reverse discrimination” and other lawsuits.
About the authors:
Linda Goldman is an HR consultant for PEG. Elsewhere Linda also works as an employment lawyer and workplace investigator, and previously was a Title IX officer for UCLA, an employment law professor at Loyola Law School, and a federal law clerk.
John Newsome is the founder of Public Equity Group and a long-time consultant with experience across government, philanthropy, and non-profit organizations.
Kelly Tieu is a social sector attorney and former associate at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher.
To learn more history about affirmative action, the context surrounding the Students for Fair Admissions cases and the oral arguments for the cases, and to learn what experts in higher education and employment law have predicted, read the Newsweek article “Ending Affirmative Action Will Be an ‘Earthquake’ for Colleges, Companies.” https://www.newsweek.com/2022/11/25/ending-affirmative-action-will-earthquake-colleges-companies-1759783.html
To learn more about the effect of the Supreme Court cases on diversity pipelines, predictions regarding challenges to the use of race and gender as factors in employment decisions, and current law governing employment discrimination, read the HR Policy Association article “Five Things CHROs Should Know About the Supreme Court’s Harvard and UNC cases.” https://www.hrpolicy.org/insight-and-research/resources/2022/hr-workforce/public/10/five-things-chros-should-know-about-the-supreme-co/
To learn more about general best practices companies can follow to create compliant DEI programs, practices, and policies, read the Harvard Business Review article “To Drive Diversity Efforts, Don’t Tiptoe Around Your Legal Risk.” https://hbr.org/2022/07/to-drive-diversity-efforts-dont-tiptoe-around-your-legal-risk?registration=success
To learn more about potential consequences of the SCOTUS decision for charitable foundations and nonprofits, read a comprehensive brief commissioned by the Hewlett Foundation. https://www.mto.com/news/headlines/2023/-mto-prepares-memorandum-for-charitable-foundations-and-nonprofits-addressing-the-potential-consequences-of-the-supreme-court-s-upcoming-decisions-on-considering-race-in-college-admissions
The Education Law Center has announced the appointment of Robert Kim as the organization’s new Executive Director. Founded in 1973, the Education Law Center serves as the leading voice for New Jersey’s public school children and has become one of the most effective advocates for equal educational opportunity and education justice in the United States.
Mr. Kim has engaged in civil and education rights law and policy for more than 25 years, including as staff counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, senior policy analyst at the National Education Association, and Senior Counsel and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Strategic Operations and Outreach in the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Education during the Obama Administration. In 2020, he reviewed education and civil rights issues for the Biden-Harris Presidential Transition Team.
Learn more here.
Yarimar Bonilla, the director of Centro (the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College), argues that the devastation wrought by Hurricane Ian is a failure of infrastructure as much as a natural calamity. The failure of privatized utilities to meet basic needs should not fall on the resilience of the population. “We need our government infrastructure to be as resilient as we are forced to be.”
Read more in the New York Times opinion essay.
Student leaders from Energy Convertors, founded by Charles Cole III, launched the “Dump the D” campaign to raise awareness about a crucial grade rule that prevents many youth of color from entering four-year colleges.
University of California and Cal State University, two of the largest university systems in the nation, require that high schoolers achieve a passing grade on each of their core academic courses. Since the mid-1990s, UC and CSU have designated a passing grade to be a C or above.
However, many districts, including Oakland Unified School District, continue to count a D as passing. That means a student can get what the school tells them and what they think are passing grades in core courses across four years of high school, only to find out they are disqualified from getting into UC or CSU.
Just 35% of Black students and 47% of Latinx students in Oakland completed the requirements needed for admission to the state’s four-year public universities, according to publicly available data. Meanwhile, 80% of white students meet the standard in Oakland.
With so much talk about building bridges to college and careers, this inconsistency means that many students are unwittingly walking the plank as they exit high school.
Read the full op-ed in the SF Chronicle or via Apple News.
Puerto Rico declared bankruptcy four years ago. Officials and creditors have reached a deal, and a federal bankruptcy judge is considering whether to approve it. But what are possible repercussions for the people of Puerto Rico?
Daniel Santamaria Ots is an economist with Espacios Abiertos, a pro-transparency group in San Juan. He thinks the oversight board could have negotiated more aggressively with the banks and hedge funds that own most of Puerto Rico's bonds. They bought up those bonds for a fraction of their full value after Puerto Rico defaulted and after Hurricane Maria.
Read more and listen to the full story on NPR.
An article by John Newsome, Igor Rubinov and Aneesha Capur in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR), lays out the “efficacy before scale” framework. To invest in and grow promising organizations and programs in a way that promotes efficacy prior to significant scaling and expansion, there are three pathways to follow: piloting, testing, and iterating. The article lays out valuable case examples from Mission Asset Fund, Working America and Nurse Family Partnerships showing notable impact after following one of pathways to scaling with efficacy.
The key to this “efficacy before scale” approach is a three-step process:
Build the prototype to demonstrate (early) results: Experiment, test, and refine programmatic approaches based on evidence, feedback, and clear metrics
Refine and “prove” the case: Codify the model to determine which elements can and must be replicated, guided by data and metrics, and develop “proof points” to show significant impact with chosen populations or target areas
Plan to scale: With clarity on effectiveness and replication, develop plans for expansion, replication, and/or dissemination, built on strengths of the refined model
Read the full article here.
Learn more about other PEG Publications.