Stung by complaints of discrimination and racism among some of its hosts, Airbnb has hired former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to help it craft an anti-discrimination policy.
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Airbnb has already enlisted former American Civil Liberties Union head Laura Murphy to lead its discrimination-fighting efforts.
“While we have a policy that prohibits discrimination, we want this policy to be stronger”, Airbnb Chief Executive Brian Chesky said in a blog post announcing the hiring of Holder.
Holder, the nation’s first black attorney general, has spoken openly about racism he experienced – including being racially profiled by police while serving as a federal prosecutor.
“Joe, Nate, and I started Airbnb with the best of intentions, but we weren’t fully conscious of this issue when we designed the platform”, Chesky wrote in today’s blog post.
Meanwhile, Airbnb’s staff-like that of many tech companies-also lacks diversity.
“It’s not enough to just offer our sympathies”, Chesky said.
The home rental company announced last month that it would review all aspects of its platform with an eye to fighting bias and discrimination. When the new policy is in place, Chesky said, hosts will be required to “read and certify” that they will comply.
In late May, Airbnb was sued by Gregory Selden, a 25-year-old black man, for racial discrimination. Last year, he returned to the Washington law firm Covington and Burling, where he was a partner from 2001 to 2009.
Airbnb has said that discrimination occurring on its platform is the biggest challenge facing the company. “Airbnb is committed to building a community where everyone can belong, no matter who they are or what they look like”.
Last week, three USA senators, including Elizabeth Warren of Massachussetts, wrote a letter urging the government to investigate Airbnb and other short-term rental sites for creating housing shortages and driving up rental costs.
I’m looking forward to working with Airbnb to develop and implement a world-class anti-discrimination policy.
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A Harvard Business School paper published in January found “requests from guests with distinctively African-American names are roughly 16% less likely to be accepted than identical guests with distinctively white names”.
