Starbucks ant-bias training: Here's what to expect as the coffee chain closes 8000 stores

Chris Woodyard USA TODAY

Published 10:30 p.m. UTC May 29, 2018

Starbucks will attempt a dramatic move toward racial reconciliation Tuesday as it closes 8,000 stores across the nation for an afternoon of anti-bias training.

Up to 180,000 employees at Starbucks stores and at its headquarters will receive training from a "tool kit" that will "focus on understanding prejudice and the history of public accommodations in the United States." Starbucks also said future training will address "all aspects of bias and experience."

Stores will be closed for three hours starting at 1 p.m. or 2 p.m., across the U.S.

The training follows an incident at a Starbucks store in Philadelphia in April in which a manager called police on two African-American men who were quietly waiting for a friend. Her complaint: They hadn't bought anything. Staffers also denied to let one use a restroom. Police arrested the pair for trespassing, but they were later let go without charges and Starbucks and police apologized.

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With demonstrators marching on the Philadelphia store chanting "A whole lot of racism, a whole lot of crap, Starbucks coffee is anti-black" after the incident came to light, CEO Kevin Johnson ordered the anti-racial bias training session.

The sessions are scheduled to begin after the lunch rush, but the training is going to be costly, with some experts estimating the undertaking will cost more than $12 million in lost profit alone.

The trainings are closed to media. Starbucks is giving a media preview of the session in New York and a chance to talk to a few employees that it has selected. The company's plan to shield the sessions from outsiders, including members of the media, isn't unusual and may actually help the company achieve its goals.

"An important part of discussing sensitive topics like race, class, gender and sexuality is creating safe spaces for open dialogue. You cannot accomplish that goal with people external to the exercise disrupting these safe spaces," said Dr. Nsenga K. Burton an expert on the intersection of race, class, gender and sexuality and media and chair of Mass Media at Clark Atlanta University. "Having people present who are external to the diversity training process like members of the media changes the group dynamics and may make some members less likely to be share or receive needed information thereby undermining the purpose of the training."

This isn't the first time the cafe chain has tried to deal with the topic of race. Three years ago, then-CEO, now executive chairman, Howard Schultz held sessions around the country to discuss race and invited USA TODAY to attend.

"Whether we want to admit it or not, we all have unconscious biases," Schultz said at the 2015 session held at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles.

He mounted the campaign in response to racial strife in Ferguson, Mo., and said he felt "we had to do something." That there would be "no ignoring it or being a bystander." The sessions included frank talk by employees about their own encounters involving race and prejudice.

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