NAACP to top ad agencies: Stop discriminatory practices

WASHINGTON – Following a recent study exposing racial bias in America’s advertising industry, the NAACP and Washington, D.C. law firm Mehri & Skalet has launched a national campaign to reverse widespread discrimination against African-American

WASHINGTON – Following a recent study exposing racial bias in America’s advertising industry, the NAACP and Washington, D.C. law firm Mehri & Skalet has launched a national campaign to reverse widespread discrimination against African-American professionals employed in that field.

In letters dated March 23, the civil rights organization called on the nation’s top 25 largest-spending advertisers to hold their advertising agencies accountable.

For more than 40 years, government agencies have charged the advertising industry with discriminatory employment practices that resulted in a deficiency of African-American hires and promotions.

According to Research Perspectives on Race and Employment in the Advertising Industry, a study conducted by leading research firm Bendick and Egan Economic Consultants, Black advertising employees are under-hired, under-paid and under-utilized.

The study found that about 16 percent of large advertising firms employ no Black managers or professionals, a rate 60 percent higher than in the overall labor market. Also, Black college graduates working in advertising earn $.80 for every dollar earned by their equally qualified white counterparts, according to the study.

After receiving complaints of discrimination from African-American advertising professionals, Mehri & Skalet started a preliminary investigation.

In January, the firm launched the Madison Avenue Project in partnership with the NAACP, aimed at redressing historical discrimination and changing the culture, policies and practices of advertising agencies to promote diversity and equality.

“African-Americans have worked in advertising since the modern American advertising industry emerged more than 100 years ago. Yet, as employment discrimination has sharply diminished across the American labor market over recent decades, systemic barriers to equal opportunity in this $31 billion a year industry have remained largely intact,” NAACP Interim General Counsel Angela Ciccolo wrote in a letter to A.G. Lafley, chairman and CEO of Procter & Gamble Co., one of the companies targeted by the effort.

______

To read the rest of this article, subscribe to our digital or paper edition. For previous editions, contact us for details.

Copyright 2009 NNPA from the Afro-American Newspapers. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

About Post Author

Comments

From the Web

Skip to content