Happy Friday. Let’s talk about endings and beginnings.
I’m referring to the likely end of affirmative action, which I first covered in a January raceAhead and again this week, with an in-depth look at what affirmative action accomplished—and didn’t—and what may come next. The Supreme Court will rule later this month on two cases: Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. University of North Carolina, and most observers expect the court to end or curtail the consideration of race in university admissions.
The headwinds facing affirmative action in schools and workplaces are not new. I asked Cedric Merlin Powell, a law professor at the University of Louisville who holds the Broady Endowed Chair as a visiting professor of law at Howard University, for context.
From my piece:
“In his book, Post-Racial Constitutionalism and the Roberts Court, Powell explains that the support for a race-neutral way of operating is as American as apple pie.
‘To understand the arguments that are happening today, we have to go back to the Reconstruction Amendments,’ he tells Fortune. These were the post-Civil War government’s attempts to establish a fair post-slavery world. Known individually as the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution and adopted between 1865 and 1870, they side-stepped the true work of reconciliation, Powell argues. ‘They establish a working definition of discrimination so narrow that its existence is effectively a myth.’
The attitude was: End of slavery? End of problem. And that notion is such a part of the background music of American life that even subsequent remedies—Johnson’s legislative call for justice, or any of the detailed research that demonstrates the existence of systemic racism—hasn’t made a dent.”
But you know what has? You. And that part is very new.
For the past seven years, I’ve faithfully documented the world of race and leadership as it unfolded in real time. I often joke in keynotes and panel discussions that I had low expectations for the race beat when I launched it and that I’d be left to cover weak tea diversity reports and remind people not to be racist on Halloween—a column I had to write every year, by the way. Inspiration quickly replaced my cynicism. As hate speech rose, you did too. As the pandemic took hold, so did a renewed focus on disparities, health, and the rights of frontline workers. And the murder of George Floyd turned out to be the shock that compelled senior leaders across the corporate world to find the words and the funds to redesign the systems necessary to create equitable workplaces.
Wherever you are in the process of doing the work, none of the good stuff would have happened without you.
There is so much more to do. And many of you are exhausted; I know. And yet, every day, conversations are happening, data is getting collected, and the case is being made in increasingly effective ways that business is better when everyone has a seat at the table.
With that, it’s time for me to conclude my time writing this column—but not my quest. While I’ll work on different editorial projects in new forms, my focus on race, equity, and leadership will not waver. Longtime readers of this column have given me a gift few journalists receive these days. You’ve made me necessary. I plan to repay you by continuing the reporting we all need to redesign a better world.
I’m enormously grateful to Fortune, our CEO Alan Murray, and former editor-in-chief Clifton Leaf who helped me launch raceAhead. There are a long line of editors who have made this column shine—thank you, Ruth Umoh!—and many sponsors who have underwritten this work over the years. I’d also like to extend a huge thank you to Fortune’s newsletter production editor, Jack Long. Mostly, I’m grateful for you readers.
For now, I’m going to take a much-needed rest. But keep your eye on my byline and the prize. (And my LinkedIn, too.)
Only good news below.
Ellen McGirt
@ellmcgirt
Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com
This edition of raceAhead was edited by Ruth Umoh.
On Point
SCOTUS rules Alabama discriminated against Black voters
The 5-4 decision is a victory for the Voting Rights Act and a shot across the bow to districts engaging in extreme gerrymandering. And it came as a surprise. “The decision is a crucial win against the continued onslaught of attacks on voting rights,” says an attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. You can read (and enjoy) the decision here.
Guardian
Cracker Barrel has fallen
So declared the Texas Family Project on Twitter, to the horror of some and the delight of many more. Evidently, the family restaurant has “brought the front porch to Pride,” in a bold celebration of LGBTQ+ inclusion. Now would be a good time to remind you that Cracker Barrel used to fire employees for being gay or failing to “demonstrate normal heterosexual values.” Progress happens.
Georgia Voice
A breakthrough year for the Fortune 500
There are now eight Black CEOs and 52 women. It’s a record. Please clap.
Fortune
Let’s talk about racism in gaming
Kishonna Gray, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has dedicated her work to explaining how disparities and bias in the real world are perpetuated in gaming spaces. She’s making a difference. (Her Pokémon Go story will get you thinking.)
Kotaku
The new Hollywood is inclusive and powerful
The 50 Voices for Change list includes the people in front of the camera and behind the scenes working for a more diverse industry. There are names you know—Riz Ahmed, Viola Davis, Quinta Brunson—and names you'll want to know.
Hollywood Reporter
Maybe this democracy thing will work out after all
A new analysis from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace finds some hopeful, if mixed, signs. “Certainly there is some good news for democracy here and there in the world. The global democratic retreat is neither an unrelieved nor an unshakeable condition,” they write. But we all have work to do.
Carnegie Endowment
Parting Words
"If we—and I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of others—do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world."
