In August 2020, Rose Ritch, a Jewish USC student, stepped down from her role as student body Vice President amid an online campaign launched by fellow students calling for her resignation due to her vocal support for the State of Israel and Zionism. In November of that year, a Title VI complaint was submitted on Ms. Rich’s behalf by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights, alleging that the University had enabled a hostile environment of anti-Semitism on campus. In July 2022, the U.S. Department of Education announced it had opened an investigation into this complaint. The investigation is ongoing.

A company’s core values should reflect its beliefs and the guiding principles that inform its conduct. In today’s world, with consumer skepticism of major corporations at an all-time high, it’s critical that those core values inform all significant corporate decisions and, importantly, all communications related to those decisions. Any perceived discrepancy between a company’s stated values and its actions can severely undermine its credibility with consumers. Again, communications are key to ensuring that consumers and other stakeholders, who are increasingly expecting companies to be responsible stewards and corporate citizens, can feel confident that a company is making good on its promises.

Since the Supreme Court’s 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger, federal law has permitted academic institutions to consider race as one of multiple factors in evaluating an individual’s candidacy so long as that consideration helps further the goal of cultivating a diverse student body. This term, the Court will hear oral arguments in a pair of cases challenging the constitutionality of affirmative action and whether an applicant’s race can be considered in the college admissions process.

A company’s core values should reflect its beliefs and the guiding principles that inform its conduct. In today’s world, with consumer skepticism of major corporations at an all-time high, it’s critical that those core values inform all significant corporate decisions and, importantly, all communications related to those decisions. Any perceived discrepancy between a company’s stated values and its actions can severely undermine its credibility with consumers. Again, communications are key to ensuring that consumers and other stakeholders, who are increasingly expecting companies to be responsible stewards and corporate citizens, can feel confident that a company is making good on its promises.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, I have often reflected on what matters most in my life – family, autonomy, empowering others, and flexibility increasingly became top-of-mind. In late 2021, a small group of strategic communications professionals and I – who would soon make up the founding team at August – were united by these core values, and set out to build a business around them that catered to the modern employee.

Steve Ginsburg, Head of August’s Diversity, Bias, and Discrimination Practice, recently shared a post that was featured by LinkedIn News in “Companies pressured to speak on Roe.”