Airbnb, the Silicon Valley home-sharing platform valued at up to $30 billion, has a discrimination problem. Now the company is bringing in some political heavyweights to try to solve it.
Airbnb has hired former US Attorney General Eric Holder to help the company “craft a world-class anti-discrimination policy,” CEO Brian Chesky said in a blog post today. Holder will work with civil rights attorney John Relman to formulate the new rules. “While we have a policy that prohibits discrimination, we want this policy to be stronger,” Chesky said. “And we will require everyone who uses our platform to read and certify that they will follow this policy.”
The high-profile hire comes in the midst of much public criticism of Airbnb over discrimination on the site. The company has long sought to portray itself as a wholesome ally of the middle class, helping families make ends meet while forging stronger community bonds by giving people a way to open their homes to others. But not all users are finding Airbnb a welcoming place. Last month, an Airbnb host in North Carolina reportedly canceled a guest’s booking because she was black—and subsequently harassed her with racist and sexist messages. (Chesky eventually took to Twitter to announce Airbnb had permanently banned the host.)
But this wasn’t an isolated incident. Research has shown guests with stereotypically “black-sounding” names have a harder time making reservations on Airbnb. Meanwhile, the hashtag #AirbnbWhileBlack has trended worldwide in past months as would-be guests shared their experiences of discrimination on the site.
To address its discrimination problem (and its image problem), Airbnb has made some highly public moves. It hired David King III, a former State Department official, as its first head of “diversity and belonging” earlier in the year. In June, at the company’s annual Open conference, Airbnb pledged to make tackling bias a priority, enlisting the help of former ACLU staffer Laura Murphy to conduct an internal review. Today’s hiring of a former Obama administration official is just the latest in Airbnb’s string of moves meant to visibly address its discrimination issues. Still, a prominent hire by the company to solve its problems is one thing. Actually solving them is another.
