By Tynesia Boyea-Robinson, Farhana Khera April 17, 2023
Civil rights audits — sometimes called racial equity audits — became a buzzword in the months following the murder of George Floyd and the resulting protests. Many corporations committed to conducting independent reviews on the potential discriminatory impact of their policies, practices, products and services as current and former employees of color spoke out about their experiences in corporate America.
Fast forward two years and almost 20 civil rights audits have been released or are underway by companies like Airbnb, Meta and Starbucks, with additional reports expected from Amazon, BlackRock and Dow Chemical in the coming months. Each includes recommendations on how to improve the experiences of staff, users and customers of color while removing barriers to their safety and inclusion.
Yet, the recent civil rights audits from JPMorgan Chase and Google were not as comprehensive and transparent, respectively, compared to the audits completed by Airbnb, Meta and Starbucks. This emerging landscape of a range in scope and rigor of audits is reinforcing growing concerns around the lack of standards for audits, as well as auditors.
A credible audit process should involve a rigorous and transparent review, involving key stakeholders, and ultimately result in specific, measurable, and achievable recommendations for improving practices, supporting employees, and helping companies build trust with key stakeholders.
As white papers like Laura Murphy’s “The Rationale for and Key Elements of a Civil Rights Audit” have shown, this ensures that companies are held accountable for their commitments and accurately signal their values to employees and customers. Further, the only way to guarantee civil rights audits are truly effective is to ensure that C-suite executives and board members are part of the process and ultimately feel ownership of the audit and its recommendations.
Balance Progress over Perfection
Civil rights audits need to set a high bar to deliver comprehensive and meaningful recommendations. For them to be a tool that companies actually use, the audits also need to balance progress over perfection.
Companies, particularly those with a global footprint, will face tradeoffs when determining the scope of the audit. Should the audit focus on the company’s impact on individuals based on race and ethnicity alone, as with a racial equity audit? Or should it be more characteristic of a broader civil rights audit and include protected classes such as religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age and disability? How does a civil rights audit integrate with human rights impact assessments, which have a separate set of international stakeholders and standards? Companies also need to balance the need for transparency and accountability with the threat of legal risk from exposing flaws in their policies or practices.
Because there has been a surge of interest recently for these audits, the supply of high-quality and effective civil rights audit firms has not kept pace with the rapid increase in demand. Without greater investment in the capacity of these firms, we risk having “equity washing” become the norm, undermining the ability of these tools to be used for effective change within a company.
Build a More Successful Civil Rights Ecosystem
Civil rights auditing is still a nascent industry. However, there are essential components to support an ecosystem for civil rights audits and bring them to the next level:
1. Develop standards: One of the biggest challenges to successful civil rights audits is the lack of standardization of what makes a “good” audit. A set of standards can help balance flexibility with rigor and accountability, create industry-specific expectations and help increase transparency while mitigating any legal or other business risks.
2. Gain leadership buy-in and support: A successful audit should have buy-in and support of the company’s CEO and board of directors. At a minimum, the board should be apprised of the scope of the audit and its findings and recommendations. If the board and CEO support the audit process, the company is more likely to fulfill the auditor’s recommendations. Also, if there is backlash to the audit, the CEO and board will need to be unified around the recommendations.
3. Recruit teams, not singular entities: A company looking to undertake a civil rights audit should look for organizations that bring a broad set of skills to the process. Not only do they need civil rights legal expertise and knowledge of key stakeholders, but they also need softer skills like active listening and the ability to build trust, or may need hard skills like an understanding of artificial intelligence/machine learning and data analysis. Ideally, civil rights auditors would be a team with multidisciplinary expertise — not a singular entity.
4. Create certifying bodies:To ensure that all civil rights audits meet the same standards, stakeholders should invest in an independent body to assess audit quality from a multidisciplinary perspective. This independent organization can certify firms and invest in the development of multidisciplinary teams to support high-quality audits.
Many of the companies that have released audits or are currently undertaking audits are pioneers who are willing to undergo this process in good faith. We must now build upon their commitment and willingness to be transparent in how a corporation can advance equity and nondiscrimination by focusing on progress over perfection and creating a better civil rights ecosystem.
Published at: https://www.agendaweek.com/c/4018764/520084/greater_standardization_civil_rights_audits_needed