Last week, the Washington Free Beacon’s Aaron Sibarium exposed Google’s blatantly racist criteria for their PhD fellowship program.
SCOOP: Google is setting hard caps on how many white and Asian students universities can nominate for a prestigious fellowship, a policy that likely violates civil rights law and could threaten the federal funding of nearly every elite university in the US.https://t.co/QYvr5VSedj
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) August 23, 2022
Well, apparently racist quotas are becoming quite the rage among huge corporations. Because Pfizer’s got a similar setup going for their “Breakthrough Fellowship”:
NEW: Pfizer offers a prestigious fellowship that bars whites and Asians from applying. The fellowship—trumpeted as a "Bold Move” on the company’s website—is a flagrant violation of multiple civil rights laws. 🧵https://t.co/rpSTtHvwCf
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) August 30, 2022
Open and unapologetic racial discrimination is definitely a Bold Move, we’ll give Pfizer that much.
"This Pfizer program is so flagrantly illegal I seriously wonder how it passed internal review by its general counsel," said Adam Mortara, one of the country’s top civil rights attorneys.
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) August 30, 2022
Pfizer’s "Breakthrough Fellowship" offers college students multiple internships, a fully funded master's degree, and several years of employment at the pharmaceutical giant. It also restricts applications to "Black/African American, Latino/Hispanic and Native American" students.
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) August 30, 2022
In other words, Pfizer evidently doesn’t think white or Asian students should have a chance to break through.
In a Frequently Asked Questions brochure about the nine-year program, Pfizer asserts that it is an "equal opportunity employer."
Gail Heriot, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, described the fellowship as a "clear case of liability" under federal law.
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) August 30, 2022
The fellowship violates the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which bans racial discrimination in contracting, and Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bans racial discrimination in employment.
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) August 30, 2022
"Major corporations seem to have forgotten that there’s such a thing as law," said Heriot, who is also a law professor at the University of San Diego. "They seem to think that as long as they’re woke, they’re bulletproof."
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) August 30, 2022
As a legal matter, that view is questionable. Some companies have scrapped race-conscious programs in the wake of discrimination lawsuits, which—when they involve overt racial quotas—typically succeed.
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) August 30, 2022
Every lawyer contacted by the Washington Free Beacon said the case against Pfizer was open-and-shut. David Bernstein, an expert on civil rights law at George Mason University School of Law, said the Breakthrough Fellowship was "obviously illegal.
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) August 30, 2022
Dan Morenoff, the executive director of the American Civil Rights Project, called it a "very facial violation" of Title VII. Jonathan Berry, a partner at Boyden Gray & Associates, said it was "hard to see any way" the program was legal.
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) August 30, 2022
The pharmaceutical giant is not alone in flouting anti-discrimination law. From Uber to NASDAQ to JPMorgan Chase, a kind of casual lawlessness has descended across corporate America, with C-suites using—and publicizing—illegal racial quotas to achieve their diversity goals.
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) August 30, 2022
That trend is especially acute in Silicon Valley: Google, for example, restricts the number of white and Asian men that universities can nominate for a prestigious Ph.D. fellowship, a policy that effectively encourages schools to violate civil rights statutes.
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) August 30, 2022
The Breakthrough Fellowship is part of a larger push within Pfizer to "embed DEI into our DNA," per the company’s 2021 ESG report. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla in 2020 made "equity" one of Pfizer’s four "core values" alongside excellence, courage, and joy. https://t.co/q8BpekSfZx
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) August 30, 2022
Embedding racism into your DNA seems like a bad ideal
We don’t just talk about the importance of equity," Bourla said at the time. "We put our words into action."
Central to those actions has been the use of diversity targets—concrete, legible benchmarks the company can measure.
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) August 30, 2022
Concrete, legible … and entirely illegal.
"By having a clear overarching DEI vision," Pfizer’s 2021 annual review reads, "we’re able to outline distinct DEI roles and accountabilities, align our therapeutic areas and divisions with our vision, and assess our progress against measurable outcomes." https://t.co/uA9g3lTHwG
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) August 30, 2022
While not a formal quota system, this metrics-based approach has produced dramatic—and disproportionate—results. In 2021, per the ESG report, "72% of summer interns…identified as representing an underrepresented group or disadvantaged background, far exceeding our goal of 50%."
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) August 30, 2022
For comparison, non-whites make up less than 40 percent of the U.S. population.
The Breakthrough Fellowship appears to be contributing to that skew.
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) August 30, 2022
The program’s first cohort was "55 percent female and 45 percent male," per the annual review, "with a diversity breakdown of 40 percent Black/African American, 40 percent Latinx/Hispanic and 20 percent two or more races." Pfizer plans to have 100 Breakthrough fellows by 2025.
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) August 30, 2022
Asked about the company’s claim to be an equal-opportunity employer, Berry, the Boyden Gray attorney, used the term "doublespeak."
"If you close off certain employment opportunities to the ‘wrong race,’ you’re not an equal opportunity anything," Berry said. "You’re a bigot."
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) August 30, 2022
“You’re a bigot.” Jonathan Berry nailed it. Pfizer is championing bigotry and patting themselves on the back for it. Gross.
Pfizer offers fellowship that prohibits white people & Asians from applying. Pfizer is racist. This is also grossly illegal. https://t.co/oOyNN3H9RY
— Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) August 30, 2022
Why would anyone of any race want to apply for a fellowship that is built upon racial discrimination?
So discrimination is acceptable now?
— Baccdafuccup (@biggs974) August 30, 2022
Straight from Kendi's playbook. "The only remedy for past discrimination is present discrimination"
— Steve Offiler (@s_offiler) August 30, 2022
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