Tim Cook has sent a company-wide email to Apple employees after an employee at a Melbourne Apple Store kicked three black teenagers out of the store, saying that he was worried the group "might steal something."
A video surfaced showing the event, causing nothing short of a PR nightmare for Apple, which has spoken out against racist symbols in the American south in the past.
"We believe in equality for everyone, regardless of race, age, gender, gender identity, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation. That applies throughout our company, around the world with no exceptions," said Apple's statement. "We will continue to do everything in our power to ensure all our customers are treated the way they should be."
Of course, the event isn't indicative of Apple's stance on racism as a company, but rather more indicative of that particular employee's views. Apple officially invited the three students to revisit the store they were kicked out of and issued a number of statements about the incident, highlighting that the company has no tolerance for racial profiling.
Apple as a company has done a number of things to try and push workplace diversity, which has become something of a project of CEO Tim Cook. In fact, Apple has some of the best diversity figures of any company in the tech industry; however its workforce still skews heavily towards white and Asian men. In its last diversity report, it was shown that its global workforce consists of 31 percent women. The report also showed, however, that 8 percent of Apple employees are African-American and 11 percent Hispanic.
Denise Young Smith, who is an African-American that has been a part of Apple since 1997, is the vice president of worldwide human resources, and has spoken very passionately in the past about overcoming the challenges that the company faces in becoming more diverse.
