Starbucks announced Tuesday that all of its company owned stores in the U.S. will be closed on May 29 for employees to attend an education program on racial-bias.
Kevin Johnson, the CEO of Starbucks made this statement, “I’ve spent the last few days in Philadelphia with my leadership team listening to the community, learning what we did wrong and the steps we need to take to fix it. While this is not limited to Starbucks, we’re committed to being a part of the solution. Closing our stores for racial bias training is just one step in a journey that requires dedication from every level of our company and partnerships in our local communities.”
The company has around 8,000 stores here in the U.S. with almost 175,000 employees. The training will be for all employees to address bias, promote inclusion, and ways to help prevent discrimination. After the stores under the company receive the training, they will make it available to their licensed partners.
Starbucks has went the extra mile to include political influencers for the program. The likes of those they will be working with will include the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, Bryan Stevenson, the president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Sherrilyn Ifill, the president of Demos, Heather McGhee, the former U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, and the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt.
