Dozens of black employees at Planned Parenthood reported encountering racism in the workplace, according to a recent investigation.
The Anti-Oppression Resource and Training Alliance conducted an internal audit of the national organization, which was based on interviews with 64 current and 12 former black employees.
Almost every one said they were subject to racist comments or actions while working for Planned Parenthood, according to Buzzfeed News.
Many of these employees reported the encounters, but the company’s Human Resources department delivered “no meaningful consequence or accountability for racial harm,” the audit states.
“I imagine that little of it will be surprising to you that the collective experience of black staff at Planned Parenthood is as heavy as it is,” Autumn Brown, an AORTA staff member who presented the findings, said. “What we were looking for was to understand … what is the collective experience of being black at Planned Parenthood? Because regardless of the individual facts of the individual incidences, if we have enough incidences that look like X, we know that that means Y.”
A Buzzfeed News investigation earlier this summer found similar results.
Many black employees said they were belittled by their bosses, and that they were unable to climb the corporate ladder, unlike their colleagues.
Planned Parenthood has been plagued with ties to racism since its founding.
Earlier this summer, one of the organization’s New York affiliates removed Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger’s name from its building due to her ties to eugenics and overt racism.
“The removal of Margaret Sanger’s name from our building is both a necessary and overdue step to reckon with our legacy and acknowledge Planned Parenthood’s contributions to historical reproductive harm within communities of color,” Karen Seltzer, the chairwoman of the New York affiliate’s board, said in a statement at the time.
Sanger founded Planned Parenthood in 1916 and was a noted supporter of eugenics.
In 1919, she published an article titled “Birth Control and Racial Betterment,” in which she argued African American women should be encouraged to go on birth control to limit fertility.
