Defying Republicans, big companies keep the focus on voting rights
By David Gelles New York Times,Updated April 12, 2021, 5:34 p.m.
Email to a Friend
Ken Frazier, the Merck chief executive. Frazier has called on corporate executives to publicly state their support for broader ballot access.MIKE COHEN/NYT
As corporate America continues to push back against a wave of restrictive voting laws under discussion across the United States, Big Law is joining the fight.
A coalition of 60 major law firms has come together âto challenge voter suppression legislation and to support national legislation to protect voting rights and increase voter participation,â said Brad Karp, chairman of the law firm Paul Weiss and organizer of the group, which has not been formally announced.
Corporate leaders discuss their next move in the debate over restrictive voting laws.
Ken Frazier, the Merck chief executive, has called on corporate executives to publicly state their support for broader ballot access.Credit.Mike Cohen for The New York Times
April 12, 2021, 8:37 a.m. ET
More than 100 corporate leaders attended a Zoom meeting on Saturday afternoon to discuss what they should do, if anything, to shape the debate around restrictive voting laws under discussion across the United States.
On the call, which was organized by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a Yale professor who regularly gathers executives to discuss politics, several senior business leaders spoke forcefully about the need for companies to use their clout to oppose new state legislation that would make it harder to vote.
Dean Nitin Nohria welcomed more than 2,500 participants to the June 11 event led by Senior Lecturers Andy Zelleke and Tony Mayo. Following the Dean’s introduction, HBS alumni, staff, and students Mia Mends (MBA 2003), George Ellis (MBA 1984), HBS CIO Ron Chandler, Chichi Anyoku (MPP/MBA 2021), Ronnie Wimberley (MBA 2021), Priyanka Chaurasia (MBA 2021), and Mike Klain (JD/MBA 2022) shared their lived experiences in reaction to and in reflection of the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, and those before them.
Walking into Harvard Business School as friends, roommates, and colleagues in 2017, Henri Pierre-Jacques (MBA 2019) and Jarrid Tingle (MBA 2019) already knew each other well. What they didn’t know yet was how their angel syndicate, Harlem Capital, would grow, evolve, and change the face of entrepreneurship over the next two years and beyond.