Good morning!

Today, we're taking a look at alleged race-based hiring at Starbucks. Also in this issue:

💼 DEI decline sparks concern among Black professionals
🌐 Journalists of color raise concerns over media layoffs
🌱 Bachelor's degree best path to good job, report finds

Here's a look at what we're seeing, what it means, what we're anticipating, what's resonating and what you think about today’s workplace. Let's get SMART!

Starbucks faces a lawsuit from Florida's attorney general, who alleges the company has imposed race-based quotas for hiring and promotion as part of its diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Starbucks "set numerical racial targets for their workforce and they tied executive bonuses to those targets," Attorney General James Uthmeier says. Starbucks says its hiring practices are inclusive, fair and competitive.

The decline of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives has led to concerns among Black professionals about job security and workplace culture. "Every time there's been an advance, a call for a reckoning, a sense in which more fundamental transformative possibilities are on the table, there has come after that a backlash," says legal scholar Kimberle Crenshaw.

Recent layoffs at major media companies have occurred as political pressure mounts against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Journalists of color who lost their jobs suggest that the reduction in force is tied to a broader backlash against DEI, raising concerns that support for these programs is waning within the industry.

A report from the Illinois Workforce and Education Research Collaborative and the UChicago Consortium on School Research finds that a bachelor's degree is the most reliable pathway to a good job in Illinois. Alternative pathways, such as construction and agriculture, are more inequitable and favor white and Latino men.

As always, let me know if there's a subject area or topic you want to see covered more.

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