Racial Diversity with Pamela Newkirk

Professor Pamela Newkirk discusses her book, Diversity Inc.: The Failed Promise of a Billion-Dollar Business. She exposes the decades-old practices and attitudes that have made diversity a lucrative business while they fail to realize diversity. We discussed the history of exclusion, the role of Presidents Johnson and Reagan, and why higher education is such a battleground for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

Pamela Newkirk, PhD, is a journalist, New York University professor, author and multi-disciplinary scholar whose work examines contemporary and historical depictions of African Americans in popular culture. Her latest book, Diversity Inc.: The Failed Promise of a Billion-Dollar Business, exposes the decades-old practices and attitudes that have made diversity a lucrative business while they fail to realize diversity. The book was widely reviewed and included on TIME magazine’s “Must-Read” books of 2019. Her previous book, Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga, was awarded the 2016 NAACP Image Award and was selected as a New York Times Editor’s Choice and named a Best Book of 2015 by NPR, The Boston Globe, and The San Francisco Chronicle. Her work on Spectacle was supported with residency fellowships at the Leon Levy Biography Center, the MacDowell Colony and the Brown Foundation at Maison Dora Maar. Newkirk has compiled and edited two collections of African American letters and is also the author of Within the Veil: Black Journalists, White Media which won the National Press Club Award for Media Criticism.