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DEI

The headquarters of the U.S. Department of Education, March 12, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
Mar 14, 2025

More than 50 universities face federal investigations as part of Trump’s anti-DEI campaign

WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 50 universities are being investigated for alleged racial discrimination as part of President Donald Trump’s campaign to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs that his officials say exclude white and Asian American students. The Education Department announced the new investigations Friday, one month after issuing a memo warning America’s schools and col[...]

During a Jan. 30, 2025 White House news conference, U.S. President Donald Trump blamed federal diversity and inclusion promotion efforts for the mid-air crash between American Airlines and a military helicopter over the Potomac River. (Photo by Chen Mengtong/China News Service/VCG via AP )
Jan 30, 2025

Trump-led DEI crackdown may leave glass ceilings intact

In the “Mad Men” era of the 1960s and 1970s, when my mother was climbing the corporate ladder at C&P Telephone, she was frequently the only woman at out-of-state national technical trainings for managers. And from her recollection, if the men in the classes weren’t hitting on her, many were resentful or threatened by her […]

Jan 30, 2024

Left behind?

In June 2022, Booz Allen Hamilton was without a chief diversity officer. The McLean-based Fortune 500 management consulting contractor’s chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer, Jon G. Muñoz, stepped down after a year in the role. A year and a half later, Booz Allen hasn’t hired anyone new for the position — but that’s by […]

Samia Byrd. Photo courtesy Arlington County.
Dec 1, 2023

Arlington taps community planning, housing leader

Samia Byrd has been named to lead Arlington County’s Department of Community Planning, Housing and Development beginning Jan. 3, 2024, the county announced Wednesday. Byrd’s responsibilities will include leading the next generation of land use regulations, plans, development policies and practices, housing, and community and neighborhood planning programs. She succeeds Claude Williamso[...]

Oct 30, 2023

On the basis of race

Logan Barry began working as a reporter for The Progress-Index newspaper in Petersburg in 2018, less than a year before a merger placed his paper under the ownership of Tysons-based media conglomerate Gannett. In August, he joined a federal class action lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia alleging […]

“If you haven’t been ... in a room where you’re the only one that looks like yourself, it can be a challenge,” says Thomas Ransom, Virginia regional president for Truist Financial Corp. Photo by Shandell Taylor
Jul 30, 2023

Building equity

When BB&T recruited Thomas Ransom, a Black economics student at Hampden-Sydney College, to join its management development program in the late 1990s, he quickly had to pick up the world of banking and its culture.  The Urbanna native says he’d never met a banker before starting at BB&T and certainly didn’t know what moves to […]

Jan 30, 2023

CATHY T. WILLIAMS

In her two decades at the U.S. subsidiary of British heating and cooling supply distributor Ferguson plc, Williams has made the economic inclusion of women and minorities her mission. “I’m most proud of knowing I had a hand in their success,” she says of those that she has brought into the Ferguson fold of about […]

Jan 30, 2023

After the crisis

During summer 2020, racial inequities took center stage in the United States as protesters took to the streets after the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, by a Minneapolis police officer was captured on video and widely disseminated via social media and news outlets. Corporate America also responded, primarily through public statements vowing […]

Pharrell Williams and Ryan Shadrick Wilson, founder and CEO of Boardwalk Collective, speak during the Mighty Dream forum. Photo by Mark Rhodes
Nov 29, 2022

Pharrell brings Mighty Dream to Norfolk

In November, Grammy-winning music superstar Pharrell Williams hosted the three-day Mighty Dream forum in Norfolk and broke some news about his Something in the Water music festival and the status of his team’s proposal to redevelop Norfolk’s Military Circle Mall site. Mighty Dream, a sequel to his 2021 Elephant in the Room business conference at […]

Nov 3, 2022

Innovation was at center of Mighty Dream Day 3

On the third and final day of Pharrell Williams’ Mighty Dream Forum in Norfolk, the theme was innovation. The first day‘s focus was diversity and equity, while Wednesday was largely dedicated to inspiring entrepreneurs to find and create opportunities. Panelists throughout the day Thursday encouraged attendees to innovate, seek out resources and do their homework […]

Pharrell Williams and Felecia Hatcher, CEO of Black Ambition speak onstage Nov. 2, 2022, during the second day of Williams' Mighty Dream Forum in Norfolk. Photo by Mark Rhodes.
Nov 2, 2022

Mighty Dream Day 2: Finding and seizing opportunities

The second day of Pharrell Williams‘ Mighty Dream Forum in Norfolk included poetry, news about Williams’ Something in the Water music festival and advice for entrepreneurs. Just as Mighty Dream’s first day was focused around a central theme of diversity and equity, the second day was largely dedicated to inspiring entrepreneurs to find and create […]

Nov 1, 2022

Mighty Dream Day 1 focuses on diversity, equity

Grammy winning music superstar Pharrell Williams put on his business hat Tuesday in Norfolk, welcoming attendees to his Mighty Dream forum, which he likened to an event like the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, “but for marginalized communities.” The three-day forum kicked off with spoken-word poetry and a mighty boom of drums and crash […]

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