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  • Black woman-led VC fund’s grant program is temporary blocked 🙄, what makes an inclusive leader (hint: stuff we’ve been saying for years 😮‍💨), new data on countries’ ability to attract & retain migrants

Black woman-led VC fund’s grant program is temporary blocked 🙄, what makes an inclusive leader (hint: stuff we’ve been saying for years 😮‍💨), new data on countries’ ability to attract & retain migrants

DEI in 5: Biweekly DEI News

Just a week ago I found myself cheering for Atlanta-based Black woman-led VC fund, Fearless Fund, as a federal judge ruled in their favor, allowing them to continue to hand out grants to Black women entrepreneurs after being hit with a lawsuit from anti-affirmative action activist, Edward Blum.

ICYMI, Blum’s nonprofit, the American Alliance for Equal Rights, filed a lawsuit against Fearless Fund back in August of this year, claiming that the fund’s grant program dedicated to Black women entrepreneurs was discriminatory 🫠. Fast forward to last week, a federal judge refused to block their grant program. Seemingly, a win! And yet, here 👏🏾 we 👏🏾 are 👏🏾 with a not-so-great update…

This past Saturday, September 30th, last week’s ruling was reversed by a panel of federal appellate judges, and the Fearless Fund’s grant program for Black woman entrepreneurs has been temporarily blocked.

According to The Washington Post: “A separate 11th Circuit panel will now decide whether the Fearless Fund will be blocked from awarding money under its Fearless Strivers Grant Contest while the case is litigated in district court. Saturday’s order merely halts the grant process until that separate panel issues a ruling. It’s unclear when that determination will be made.”

Deep. Sighs.

Read more here.

The Latest DEI News 👇🏾

Inclusive Leadership

  • What Makes an Inclusive Leader? [HBR]: “Leaders play a critical role in fostering inclusivity within their organizations. They account for a difference of up to 70 percentage points in employees’ experience of belongingness and psychological safety, and inclusive leaders see a 17% increase in team performance, a 20% increase in decision-making quality, and a 29% increase in team collaboration. Inclusive leaders also cut down employee attrition risk. If inclusive leaders are so influential, then inclusive traits like humility, curiosity, and empathy should be treated as critical leadership capabilities rather than simply desirable.”

  • Indonesia promotes female leadership for workplace inclusivity [HRM Asia]: “A focus on women’s unique qualities should be promoted in leadership to boost productivity and economic inclusiveness, says the Manpower Minister.”

  • 7 Ideas Allies Can Use To Explain DEI Simply [Forbes]: “As Dr. Nika White, author of Inclusion Uncomplicated: A Transformative Guide to Simplify DEI says, “Allyship is about being willing to be uncomfortable. Acknowledge the discomfort that comes for someone who’s on this journey, and know it will get hard at times if you’re truly committed to systemic change.”

  • Harvard inaugurates Claudine Gay, the university's first Black president [USA Today]: “Harvard University inaugurated Claudine Gay as its 30th president − the first person of color and second woman to lead the Ivy League institution.”

Workplace, Professional Development, & Employee Wellbeing

  • Does Your Hybrid Strategy Need to Change? [HBR]: “Companies continue to struggle to design and implement a post-Covid return-to-office strategy that works for employees. To find the most workable alternative, they should focus on four factors: the needs of the work, the needs of the people, how work gets done, and the new managerial muscle required to manage a hybrid workforce.”

  • The growing battle over corporate diversity practices, explained [The Washington Post]: “When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions in June, the effects ricocheted far beyond academia. In recent months, a flurry of litigation has aimed to translate the court’s race-blind stance on education to corporate diversity and inclusion policies.”

  • Diversity Through Global Hiring: Tips And Considerations For Companies [Forbes]: “One great way of promoting DEI is through the increasingly popular choice of hiring international employees…The more diverse your team is, the more ways you will have to view both challenges and opportunities for your business. While something may be new in your world, it may well be old hat to people from a different background.”

  • Learning And Development Are Key To Workplace Culture [Forbes]: “…how does leadership actually go about retaining key employees once they’re on board? We’re increasingly seeing that a key component is supporting training and development—financially and otherwise—to allow employees to acquire new knowledge and skills or improve their existing skill sets.”

Art, Music, & Entertainment

  • Paul Harding and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah among National Book Award finalists [The Guardian]: “The finalists, announced by the New York Times on Tuesday morning, include 25 writers and translators across the categories of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature and young people’s literature.”

  • Starting New Conversations About Arab Art [NYT]: “As Qatar has established a flashy vision of a global arts center — with several enormous museum projects planned over the next decade — Mathaf has positioned itself as a vital player in that scene, all from a nondescript former school building in the shadow of one of the stadiums built for the World Cup.”

Research

  • New Research Reveals That About 25% of Teens With Autism Go Undiagnosed [SciTechDaily]: “A recent study found that about a quarter of 16-year-olds with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) remain undiagnosed, with the research indicating that ASD is more prevalent among males, whites, and high-income adolescents. The study emphasizes the need for better ASD detection in schools and highlights the coexistence of ASD with other neuropsychiatric disorders, notably ADHD.”

  • OECD Indicators of Talent Attractiveness 2023 [OECD]: “The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s Indicators of Talent Attractiveness (ITA) is the first comprehensive tool to capture the strengths and weaknesses of OECD countries regarding their capacity to attract and retain different types of talented migrants. The 2023 edition of ITA now includes 4 categories of talented migrants: highly educated workers, foreign entrepreneurs, university students and start-up founders, as well as an expanded range of dimensions for assessing a country’s attractiveness.”

Politics & Law

Life, Society, & Environmental

  • Trump Tower in Chicago sued for failed compliance with environmental laws [Wisconsin Law Journal]: “According to the amended complaint obtained by The Wisconsin Law Journal, the downtown Chicago property known as “Trump Tower” has allegedly continued to break environmental laws through what authorities say is a “significant underreporting” of the average daily volume of water it discharges into the Chicago River, in violation of environmental laws and Trump Tower’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit.”

  • DC considers tossing social work exam over concerns it fails too many people of color [NBC]: “The move comes as the nation grapples with a shortage of social workers, but also as scores of social workers decry licensure exams for which data show people of color fail at higher rates than white counterparts.”

Until later this week,

This newsletter is co-curated by Nico Escobar. Need virtual coordination? Social media management? Content creation? Reach out to her!

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