In recent interviews with CNN Business, Curley claims that his former Google superiors believed that HBCU computer science graduates lacked the technical skills necessary for successful Google technology careers and that they regularly resisted his attempts to hire more technology graduates from the black college, although she says that’s what the company hired her for.
Friday’s meeting was hosted by Thurgood Marshall College Fund President and CEO Harry Williams, whose non-profit organization supports publicly funded HBCUs and other predominantly black institutions. Williams said the presidents of Howard University, Florida A&M University, North Carolina A&T University, Prairie View A&M University and Morgan State University attended a 60-minute virtual session on Friday night with Pichai and seven members of the senior leadership team from Google on how to work together forward.
“We are all excited about the future partnership,” said the leaders of Google and HBCU in a joint statement emailed to CNN late on Friday. “The meeting paved the way for a more substantive partnership in several areas, from increasing hiring to capacity building efforts that will increase the flow of talent in HBCU technology.”
Williams said Gebru and Curley’s claims about Google were not discussed during the meeting.
“This is a personal matter,” he said. “The presidents made it very clear with regard to students, if they sent students (to Google), they would have to feel good about the situation.”
Prior to the meeting, Morgan State University President David Wilson organized a focus group with Google MSU technology exchange students and alumni currently working at Google to get feedback on how the company treats students and graduates from Black HBCU.
Wilson said he told Google at Friday’s meeting that what he heard from Morgan State students was largely positive.
“One of our black students informed me that she was the first black woman on her immediate Google team and one of only two black women on the larger team,” Wilson told CNN Business. “But she was never made. To feel that she doesn’t belong … They are having good experiences.”
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“We have a large team of recruiters who work very hard to increase the hiring of Black + and other underrepresented talents on Google, including a dedicated team that partners and strengthens our relationships with HBCUs,” said the company.
“Google said, ‘Our case studies of interview feedback and curriculum analysis demonstrate that current HBCU (computer science) departments are not forming strong technical talent,'” Curley wrote, citing the report, in a series of tweets on Thursday nights. Computer science students struggle with the most basic coding, algorithms and data structures. ‘”
“We have been very clear about the goals of this program and how it is partnering with HBCUs,” said a Google spokesman by email. “We have no comment on previous proposals.”
“We have expanded our recruiting efforts to more than 800 schools,” said the company.
Interviewed on Friday night, Curley said the successes of recruiting at Black colleges that Google is publicizing are products of the work she and others on her team have done over six years. She was not surprised that Morgan State students had positive things to say about their experiences at Google.
“These kids were my kids that I brought to the company,” said Curley. “(Google is) able to take credit for it because I launched the base, me and two other black women.”