This Minnesota Agency Gave Employees a Mandatory College-Level Seminar on Race

Most companies' DEI training efforts are lackluster at best, assuming they even exist. Usually, so-called training amounts to employees viewing short online videos centered on identifying workplace harassment. Agencies are no different, and in general don't walk the walk when it comes to DEI. In fact, fewer than half of the agencies that pledged in 2020 to hire more Black leaders remained committed to that promise a year later. One small Minneapolis-based agency—Media Bridge Advertising—is taking a commitment to DEI seriously by investing in a college-level education for its employees. The agency launched a curated course developed and led by Dr. John Wright, a renowned activist, former University of Minnesota professor and the founder of its African American Studies Department. Media Bridge aims to position racial and social justice as the backbone of its diversity and inclusion efforts, and to move beyond one-off DEI workshops or cursory online trainings. It goes so far as to coin its series "Beyond DEI" to underscore how diluted traditional DEI efforts are largely unhelpful. Media Bridge Advertising is one of the Minnesota's best-known shops. It offers its clients media services and is building out its creative offering. It recently made a series of new hires to strengthen its leadership team, including naming former Best Buy creative leader Mark Andersen its executive creative director. Tracy Call—a former Olympic bobsledder—founded the shop in 2010 and remains its CEO. The agency's clients include Inspire Medical Systems, Allina Health, Be the Match, Kona Brewing and Jersey Mike’s. "This conversation is so much bigger than recruitment. We're making impacts on our employees that will have a micro ripple effect not only here in the office, but in their lives as they move through life. As they move on from Media Bridge," said Call. Dropping cursory DEI efforts Call and Media Bridge CFO Rory Wade approached Wright with their idea of creating a program that had "more academic substance than most DEI training and workshops do," Wright remembers Wade, who is one of his former students, saying. Once they met, it seemed to Wright, who had recently retired from a 35-year role as a faculty member at the University of Minnesota, that a seminar series built around "a collection of contemporary issues and debates" in the public arena and linked to concerns of people in the media would be an ideal solution. Wright proposed the seminar series during a time when the media frequently covered critical race theory debates. He wanted to create a seminar with a collegiate design for Media Bridge that eschewed grades and writing assignments. Instead, employees would participate in discussions and meet together to discuss media shown during class and selected readings. "This is not a DE&I checkbox," said Call, noting that she intentionally brought in an authority on anti-racism education. Call hopes that agency employees can take lessons learned in class out of the workplace and apply them in their daily lives. Call recently hired Jessica Westberg as Media Bridge's manager of DEI and culture. The two are now determining how they'll measure the seminar's effectiveness and are focused on hiring a more diverse team. "It's really important for media and advertising agencies to really thoroughly understand the history behind the role that media has played in furthering and advancing white supremacy," Westberg told Adweek. Then, employees must understand that language and the images that their clients put into the world are important, and that each campaign deserves serious contemplation. A full curriculum Wright kicked off the series by assessing the Media Bridge staff's prior DEI training and discussing the conventional ways companies address DEI. The new curriculum hinged on documentary film viewings, assigned readings and group discussions. While the course centered indigenous people, colonized and immigrant groups, intersectionality and the LGBTQ+ communities, it emphasized African American and African Studies. This experience ultimately included a deep emphasis on race relations in modern America and beyond. Some class themes included the role human slavery played in the rise of global civilizations, how American primetime family viewing censors African Americans and diversity within African American communities that challenges and conflicts with the notion of a collective Black identity. "Dr. Wright’s doctoral training in multidisciplinary American Studies and the History of African Peoples has made him acutely aware of the fissures and failures of DEI agendas that are too culturally diffuse or insufficiently historicized," according to the course syllabus distributed to agency employees. During his time in higher education, Wright worked with the institution in a variety of context both on and off campus and noticed that even in a university context, DEI initiatives are limited in what they're able to accomplish. "In most literature, 75 to 80% of DEI enterprises have absolutely no ultimate impact on the organizations that try to put them in operation," said Wright. "So it's an enterprise that needs some reorientation, some redirection, some redefinition–if in fact it's going to be useful." If company leaders want to make a real impact, educational resources must be sustained. Developing competence and historical awareness can't be accomplished in the short term. According to Call, several of the company's employees of color have voiced that the sessions were the best part of their week. "They are going very deep on discussing and disclosing how important this is to them and are feeling very seen and heard on a whole different level," said Call. Other companies that roll out similar programs can tie the experience back to whatever their outputs are, said Call. Because an agency environment is centered around media and entertainment, leaders can use class content to then craft an action plan around how help their clients execute informed campaigns. "Corporations just need to pay for it," said Call. "And they need to pay the rate." Progress Is Too Often a Decoy. Diversity Needs a Do-Over