Source: Fox News
Summary
Rick Jackson, a Republican billionaire running for Georgia governor, founded a nonprofit that promoted a 2021 workplace initiative urging Georgia CEOs to invest in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and measure progress. However, Jackson’s campaign platform says he would prohibit DEI programs in state government, public universities, and classrooms. His campaign messaging has vowed to “ban DEI insanity” and “criminalize reverse discrimination.” The nonprofit’s past efforts on DEI could complicate one of his central campaign pitches.
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As expected, the matter has reached another stage.
Jackson’s nonprofit, goBeyondProfit, launched a DEI initiative in 2021, which included a video series for CEOs to learn the “do’s and don’ts” of DEI. The initiative featured experts who argued “doing nothing” on DEI was “cringe worthy” and framed workplace race issues through slavery and Jim Crow. One of the experts, Matthew Harrison, touted how the share of “people of color” hired into new roles at Jackson Healthcare rose from 9% to 25% after the company implemented the diversity measures discussed in the initiative’s instructional videos. The initiative also promoted critical race theorist Ibram X. Kendi’s book “How To Be An Anti-Racist.” Jackson’s campaign platform now vows to prohibit DEI programs in state government, public universities, and classrooms.
