Tell TED: Stop platforming people who harm Black communities

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    Tell TED: Stop platforming people who harm Black communities

    Demand the TED organization remove Bill Ackman as a speaker during the TED2024 conference.

    For this year's annual conference, the TED organization has selected billionaire Bill Ackman as a featured speaker on the Main Stage. Ackman uses his money and influence to subvert attempts toward racial reconciliation and more just and equitable outcomes. He funds anti-diversity campaigns while simultaneously attacking Black people in positions of leadership. Ackman’s behavior, particularly in helping to oust Harvard University President Dr. Claudine Gay, is a thinly veiled attempt at subverting Black achievement in traditionally white spaces.

    TED prizes itself on promoting diversity and inclusion in its conferences as well as uplifting ideas, but Mr. Ackman’s attacks on DEI and racial justice infrastructure run counter to that mission. Ackman has a history of using social media to elevate neo-segregationists such as Chris Rufo, the far-right activist who launched the “critical race theory” backlash that has driven anti-Black book bans across the country and calls for striking down the federal Civil Rights Act.

    The pushback against giving Ackman a platform at TED2024 has been intense. Four TED Fellows have resigned and 30 others signed an open letter calling for Ackman to be removed as a speaker.

    Mr. Ackman is a billionaire. He has unfathomable reach to spread his message against racial justice. The TED organization does not owe him an additional platform to further expand or elevate his odious and discriminatory beliefs.

     

    Here is the Petition:

    Given the TED organization’s values and Bill Ackman’s impact on the ability of Black people' and other communities to receive fair and equal opportunities, we call for Ackman’s position as a featured speaker at the TED2024 conference to be revoked. Ackman is using his money and influence to subvert attempts toward racial reconciliation and more just and equitable outcomes. He funds anti-diversity campaigns while simultaneously attacking Black people in positions of leadership.

    Those who participate in TED conferences, many of whom come from marginalized backgrounds and have faced similar challenges, do not deserve to be associated with people who explicitly denounce efforts to allow for fair and equitable opportunity. The TED organization prides itself on promoting diversity and inclusion at its conferences. However, Mr. Ackman’s efforts to undermine practices meant to address discrimination and inequality, and his associations with figures who would see our most vital civil rights laws overturned, fly in the face of the TED organization’s values. If the TED organization does not publicly address Ackman’s harmful activities, it risks providing him with a platform to spread them further.