But are AI systems fair? The answer to this question, in short—not completely. Further complicating the matter is the fact that today’s AI systems are far from transparent.  

Think about it: The uncomfortable truth is that generative AI tools like ChatGPT—based on sophisticated architectures such as deep learning or large language models—are fed vast amounts of training data which then interact in unpredictable ways. And while the principles of how these methods operate are well-understood (at least by those who created them), ChatGPT’s decisions are likened to an airplane’s black box: They are not easy to penetrate.

So, how can we determine if “black box AI” is fair? Some dedicated data scientists are working around the clock to tackle this big issue.

One of those data scientists is Gareth James, who also serves as the Dean of Goizueta Business School as his day job. In a recent paper titled “A Burden Shared is a Burden Halved: A Fairness-Adjusted Approach to Classification” Dean James—along with coauthors Bradley Rava, Wenguang Sun, and Xin Tong—have proposed a new framework to help ensure AI decision-making is as fair as possible in high-stakes decisions where certain individuals—for example, racial minority groups and other protected groups—may be more prone to AI bias, even without our realizing it. 

In other words, their new approach to fairness makes adjustments that work out better when some are getting the short shrift of AI. 

Unpacking Bias in High-Stakes Scenarios

Dean James and his coauthors set their sights on high-stakes decisions in their work. What counts as high stakes? Examples include hospitals’ medical diagnoses, banks’ credit-worthiness assessments, and state justice systems’ bail and sentencing decisions. On the one hand, these areas are ripe for AI-interventions, with ample data available. On the other hand, biased decision-making here has the potential to negatively impact a person’s life in a significant way. 

In the case of justice systems, in the United States, there’s a data-driven, decision-support tool known as COMPAS (which stands for Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions) in active use. The idea behind COMPAS is to crunch available data (including age, sex, and criminal history) to help determine a criminal-court defendant’s likelihood of committing a crime as they await trial. Supporters of COMPAS note that statistical predictions are helping courts make better decisions about bail than humans did on their own. At the same time, detractors have argued that COMPAS is better at predicting recidivism for some racial groups than for others. And since we can’t control which group we belong to, that bias needs to be corrected. It’s high time for guardrails.

A Step Toward Fairer AI Decisions

Enter Dean James and colleagues’ algorithm. Designed to make the outputs of AI decisions fairer, even without having to know the AI model’s inner workings, they call it “fairness-adjusted selective inference” (FASI). It works to flag specific decisions that would be better handled by a human being in order to avoid systemic bias. That is to say, if the AI cannot yield an acceptably clear (1/0 or binary) answer, a human review is recommended. 

To test the results for their “fairness-adjusted selective inference,” the researchers turn to both simulated and real data. For the real data, the COMPAS dataset enabled a look at predicted and actual recidivism rates for two minority groups, as seen in the chart below. 

In the figures above, the researchers set an “acceptable level of mistakes” – seen as the dotted line – at 0.25 (25%). They then compared “minority group 1” and “minority group 2” results before and after applying their FASI framework. Especially if you were born into “minority group 2,” which graph seems fairer to you?

Professional ethicists will note there is a slight dip to overall accuracy, as seen in the green “all groups” category. And yet the treatment between the two groups is fairer. That is why the researchers titled their paper “a burden shared is a burdened halved.” 

Practical Applications for the Greater Social Good

“To be honest, I was surprised by how well our framework worked without sacrificing much overall accuracy,” Dean James notes. By selecting cases where human beings should review a criminal history – or credit history or medical charts – AI discrimination that would have significant quality-of-life consequences can be reduced. 

Reducing protected groups’ burden of bias is also a matter of following the laws. For example, in the financial industry, the United States’ Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) makes it “illegal for a company to use a biased algorithm that results in credit discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, age, or because a person receives public assistance,” as the Federal Trade Commission explains on its website. If AI-powered programs fail to correct for AI bias, the company utilizing it can run into trouble with the law. In these cases, human reviews are well worth the extra effort for all stakeholders.

The paper grew from Dean James’ ongoing work as a data scientist when time allows. “Many of us data scientists are worried about bias in AI and we’re trying to improve the output,” he notes. And as new versions of ChatGPT continue to roll out, “new guardrails are being added – some better than others.” 

“I’m optimistic about AI,” Dean James says. “And one thing that makes me optimistic is the fact that AI will learn and learn – there’s no going back. In education, we think a lot about formal training and lifelong learning. But then that learning journey has to end,” Dean James notes. “With AI, it never ends.”

Goizueta faculty apply their expertise and knowledge to solving problems that society—and the world—face. Learn more about faculty research at Goizueta. 

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Vintage consumption—that is, buying previously owned items from an earlier era—acts as a means to connect the past, present, and future. That connection across time can be reassuring, most especially in times of uncertainty. When you really want to buy a leather jacket that’s older than you are, it may be enlightening to consider the circumstances.

This vintage insight reveals itself in research by Ryan Hamilton, associate professor of marketing at Goizueta Business School. In an award-winning article titled “Stitching time: Vintage consumption connects the past, present, and future,” Hamilton—along with coauthors Gulen Sarial-Abi, Kathleen Vohs, and Aulona Ulqinaku—uncovered why we may want to turn to something old when we perceive threats to our worldviews. Notably, multiple studies have shown thoughts of death to increase the appeal of items that have already stood the test of time.

The Psychological Appeal of Thrifting

In psychology, “meaning frameworks” are how we, as human beings, interpret and understand our lives as meaningful and valuable. Threats to our meaning frameworks—i.e., the pillars propping up our worldviews—can include thoughts of death, unsettling economic upheavals, and other existential challenges.

In order to explore the effects of meaning threats on our preference for vintage, Hamilton and coauthors designed several studies. Their pilot test measured the physical health of nursing home residents. It then measured their preferences for vintage items, controlling for other variables. The results held up the researchers’ hypothesis: Vintage items—be they books, watches, bicycles, or luggage—were more strongly preferred over their modern versions by elderly participants in poorer health, presumably those most likely to have mortality on their minds.

Six subsequent studies used different variables to see if the main hypothesis continued to hold up. It did, while at the same time revealing more information about the mechanisms at work.

Death or Dental Pain

In one study, for example, researchers prompted participants with death reminders. They had to contemplate and write about their own deaths to make sure mortality was top of mind. Researchers prompted a control group with reminders of dental pain. Both groups then answered a 12-question survey about their desire for structure (e.g., set routines and practices) at that particular moment. But there was another element in this study: contemplating wearing a watch from the 1950s. As predicted by the main hypothesis, death cues were associated with participants reporting that they desired more structure. The only exceptions was for those who imagined an old watch ticking on their wrists. Vintage consumption seemed to act as a buffer against unsettling thoughts of death for them.

What is going on here? As noted above, the researchers theorize and show that vintage objects tend to connect our thoughts of the past, present, and future. These mental, intertemporal connections tend to be reassuring—“a hidden factor” in our preferences and choices, as Hamilton notes.

More than Nostalgia

One might think nostalgia—a sentimental longing for the past—could also be at work. Feeling nostalgic for one’s own past and social connections can buffer against meaning threats, as previous research has shown. But this paper was designed to tease out nostalgia. It focused on vintage’s connections across time regardless of one’s personal experiences.

“This study allowed us to clearly show that people respond differently to something they believe to be old,” as Hamilton explains. “It’s not just something that has a retro look, which was one of my favorite aspects of this project.” Hamilton and his coauthors achieved this by having participants evaluate identical items thought to be genuinely vintage or replicas. And the results were robust. Retro replicas, which can prompt nostalgia, did not have the same psychological impact as items believed to be genuinely old. For instance, 20-year-olds who find a watch from the 1950s reassuring can’t feel nostalgic about the design personally. They can, however, feel a connection across time—and that came through in the study.

Retail Therapy on the Rise?

Hamilton’s research here follows his broader interest in consumer psychology, branding, and decision-making. “When we’re buying things, we may think it’s based on strict utility maximization. However, it also might be making us feel better in some way,” says Hamilton. Shopping can serve as an emotional management strategy—for better or for worse.

Although it was outside the scope of this particular investigation (and all participants were over age 18), the insights gleaned here may help explain why 21st-century teenagers seem to be particularly avid “thrifters” these days. “I don’t want to overstate our findings. But it’s at least possible that the appeal of vintage for teenagers is boltstered by a sense of permanence and endurance that helps them during times of upheaval,” Hamilton says.

It turns out a 30-year-old leather jacket might help its new owner feel better on many levels. So is it any wonder that vintage shopping is surging in uncertain times? Fashion magazines, such as Vogue and GQ, are following the vintage craze closely in 2024. Concern for climate change and the Earth’s finite resources may present two intertwined reasons to buy old things: those two things are environmental and psychological. If tumultuous times continue amid contentious elections, wars, and other threats, it seems safe to bet on vintage.

Read More

“Stitching time: Vintage consumption connects the past, present, and future” was awarded the Journal of Consumer Psychology Best Paper Award in 2020.

In his most recently published research (2024), Hamilton looked at how consumers evaluate prices—mainly from memory, similar products nearby, and impressions left by a store. Building on previous research, Hamilton provides a framework for predicting the factors likely to influence consumers’ use of each price-evaluation strategy.

Goizueta faculty apply their expertise and knowledge to solving problems that society—and the world—face. Learn more about faculty research at Goizueta. 

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Artificial intelligence is making art. That is to say, compelling artistic creations based on thousands of years of art production may now be just a few text prompts away. And it’s all thanks to generative AI trained on internet images. You don’t need Picasso’s skillset to create something in his style. You just need an AI-powered image generator like DALL-E 3 (created by OpenAI), Midjourney, or Stable Diffusion.

If you haven’t tried one of these programs yet, you really should (free or beta versions make this a low-risk proposal). For example, you might use your phone to snap a photo of your child’s latest masterpiece from school. Then, you might ask DALL-E to render it in the swirling style of Vincent Van Gogh. A color printout of that might jazz up your refrigerator door for the better.

Intellectual Property in the Age of AI

Now, what if you wanted to sell your AI-generated art on a t-shirt or poster? Or what if you wanted to create a surefire logo for your business? What are the intellectual property (IP) implications at work?

Take the case of a 35-year-old Polish artist named Greg Rutkowski. Rutkowski has reportedly been included in more AI-image prompts than Pablo Picasso, Leonardo da Vinci, or Van Gogh. As a professional digital artist, Rutkowski makes his living creating striking images of dragons and battles in his signature fantasy style. That is, unless they are generated by AI, in which case he doesn’t.

“They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But what about the case of a working artist? What if someone is potentially not receiving payment because people can easily copy his style with generative AI?” That’s the question David Schweidel, Rebecca Cheney McGreevy Endowed Chair and professor of marketing at Goizueta Business School is asking. Flattery won’t pay the bills. “We realized early on that IP is a huge issue when it comes to all forms of generative AI,” Schweidel says. “We have to resolve such issues to unlock AI’s potential.”

Schweidel’s latest working paper is titled “Generative AI and Artists: Consumer Preferences for Style and Fair Compensation.” It is coauthored with professors Jason Bell, Jeff Dotson, and Wen Wang (of University of Oxford, Brigham Young University, and University of Maryland, respectively). In this paper, the four researchers analyze a series of experiments with consumers’ prompts and preferences using Midjourney and Stable Diffusion. The results lead to some practical advice and insights that could benefit artists and AI’s business users alike.

Real Compensation for AI Work?

In their research, to see if compensating artists for AI creations was a viable option, the coauthors wanted to see if three basic conditions were met:

• – Are artists’ names frequently used in generative AI prompts?
• – Do consumers prefer the results of prompts that cite artists’ names?
• – Are consumers willing to pay more for an AI-generated product that was created citing some artists’ names?

Crunching the data, they found the same answer to all three questions: yes.

More specifically, the coauthors turned to a dataset that contains millions of “text-to-image” prompts from Stable Diffusion. In this large dataset, the researchers found that living and deceased artists were frequently mentioned by name. (For the curious, the top three mentioned in this database were: Rutkowski, artgerm [another contemporary artist, born in Hong Kong, residing in Singapore] and Alphonse Mucha [a popular Czech Art Nouveau artist who died in 1939].)

Given that AI users are likely to use artists’ names in their text prompts, the team also conducted experiments to gauge how the results were perceived. Using deep learning models, they found that including an artist’s name in a prompt systematically improves the output’s aesthetic quality and likeability.

The Impact of Artist Compensation on Perceived Worth

Next, the researchers studied consumers’ willingness to pay in various circumstances. The researchers used Midjourney with the following dynamic prompt:

“Create a picture of ⟨subject⟩ in the style of ⟨artist⟩”.

The subjects chosen were the advertising creation known as the Most Interesting Man in the World, the fictional candy tycoon Willy Wonka, and the deceased TV painting instructor Bob Ross (Why not?). The artists cited were Ansel Adams, Frida Kahlo, Alphonse Mucha and Sinichiro Wantabe. The team repeated the experiment with and without artists in various configurations of subjects and styles to find statistically significant patterns. In some, consumers were asked to consider buying t-shirts or wall art. In short, the series of experiments revealed that consumers saw more value in an image when they understood that the artist associated with it would be compensated.

“I was honestly a bit surprised that people were willing to pay more for a product if they knew the artist would get compensated,” Schweidel explains. “In short, the pay-per-use model really resonates with consumers.” In fact, consumers preferred pay-per-use over a model in which artists received a flat fee in return for being included in AI training data. That is to say, royalties seem like a fairer way to reward the most popular artists in AI. Of course, there’s still much more work to be done to figure out the right amount to pay in each possible case.

What Can We Draw From This?

We’re still in the early days of generative AI, and IP issues abound. Notably, the New York Times announced in December that it is suing OpenAI (the creator of ChatGPT) and Microsoft for copyright infringement. Millions of New York Times articles have been used to train generative AI to inform and improve it.

“The lawsuit by the New York Times could feasibly result in a ruling that these models were built on tainted data. Where would that leave us?” asks Schweidel.

One thing is clear: we must work to resolve compensation and IP issues. Our research shows that consumers respond positively to fair compensation models. That’s a path for companies to legally leverage these technologies while benefiting creators.

David Schweidel

To adopt generative AI responsibly in the future, businesses should consider three things. First, they should communicate to consumers when artists’ styles are used. Second, they should compensate contributing artists. And third, they should convey these practices to consumers. “And our research indicates that consumers will feel better about that: it’s ethical.”

Goizueta faculty apply their expertise and knowledge to solving problems that society—and the world—face. Learn more about faculty research at Goizueta.

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Say you worked at a non-profit organization that aimed to help children with disabilities. If you discovered that your boss was cooking the books, or manipulating financial statements, to make the numbers look better than they really were, would you report it?

Enter the research of Tonya Smalls, assistant professor in the practice of accounting at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. Smalls brings a combined 25 years’ worth of experience in both for- and nonprofit organizations to inform her academic work. “Being in academia, and coming from industry, it’s important to me to research topics that are relevant for practice,” she says. At Goizueta, Smalls contributes to a growing body of work on the prevention and detection of accounting fraud, ethical decision-making, and whistleblowing, especially as it relates to nonprofit organizations.

In the hypothetical scenario above, Smalls maintains you should make the report. Maintaining trust is key. Reporting wrongdoing, including financial fraud, is in the public interest, for the greater good. Whistleblowers, typically insiders who become aware of wrongdoing and report it, have a crucial role to play rooting out corruption.

In fact, the single most effective way to detect fraud is via whistleblowers. Whistleblowers are responsible for catching nearly half of all organizations’ reported wrongdoing, making them more effective than external audits and other fraud-fighting methods.

And yet, whistleblowing in nonprofits is still relatively uncommon, especially when compared with its frequency in for-profit organizations. Why is that? Fear of retaliation? Indifference or lack of knowledge about its importance?

Whistleblowing Matters

Back when she was serving as chief financial officer for a large regional division of the American Cancer Society, Smalls saw firsthand, from the inside, how the running of nonprofits differed from their for-profit counterparts—even as they faced many of the same pressures. One notable difference was in the presence of regulations requiring strong internal controls—i.e., accounting and auditing processes. Put simply, there are more rigorous requirements for for-profits. At the same time, “internal controls are just as important in non-profit entities,” she explains.

A few years ago, Smalls and her coauthors—Andrea M. Scheetz of Georgia Southern University, Joseph Wall of Marquette University, and Aaron B. Wilson of Ohio University—set out to explore how internal controls—or, more accurately, how perceptions of internal controls—differ between nonprofit and for-profits and how that helps explain whistleblowing. The results were published in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly as “Perception of Internal Control Helps Explain Whistleblowing.”

In a nutshell: If an employee perceives that an organization’s internal controls—including its policies and procedures that define its approval and authorizations, as well as the monitoring of such controls—are strong, that employee is more likely to step up to blow the whistle on fraud if it is witnessed.

This finding leads to a very practical piece of advice: Nonprofits should make sure they have strong internal controls (that are perceived as such by employees) in order to better fight fraud. “This is relevant for practice. It’s advancing the research on whistleblowing, and it is also relevant for practice,” emphasizes Smalls.

The Nuts and Bolts of the Study

In the study, to analyze the strength of organizations’ internal controls and how that strength impacted whistleblowing, the researchers developed survey questions based on the control framework put forward by COSO (so named for the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations in accounting and finance which developed guidance on internal control).  

The final survey was completed by 272 full-time workers who assessed their organizations’ control environment, control activities and monitoring activities (as defined by COSO). Employees were also asked to assess how likely they would be to step up as whistleblowers and report financial fraud to an anonymous hotline or to a superior’s supervisor. They also filled in demographic information.

In the analysis, demographic variables—i.e., participants’ age, gender, education, work experience, and years at current employer—were not deemed significant for predicting the willingness to whistleblow in any significant way. In contrast, the perceived strength of internal controls at each organization was deemed to be very relevant.

More specifically, they found that for-profits and nonprofits with stronger internal controls were more likely to be staffed with potential whistleblowers willing to step up. This is especially relevant in the nonprofit realm because the same group of researchers (that is, Scheetz, Smalls, Wall, and Wilson) demonstrated in previous research that whistleblowing is less likely to occur in nonprofits. Given these findings, they show that the perception of internal controls helps explain why.

Practical Takeaways

In sum, the study data suggest that increasing the focus on control and monitoring activities should benefit organizations, particularly nonprofits, to encourage a culture of whistleblowing.

In practice, many organizations today use anonymous tip lines, so employees won’t fear retaliation if they report wrongdoing at work. Phone lines are one tool, and websites are increasingly popular.

As another takeaway, the researchers noted that nonprofit employees may not yet be as comfortable reporting through a website as their for-profit counterparts are. Knowing this, nonprofit management can take steps to improve internal controls and encourage whistleblowing.

Because even venerable non-profit organizations like the Red Cross can fall prey to deception and fraudulent schemes, these tools to prevent and detect fraud are crucial. 

What next? Smalls’ current research includes a study of leadership style, age, and intention to whistleblow. It’s still too soon to report on results, but the quest to learn more—and pass that knowledge on in scholarship and in practice—continues.

Goizueta faculty apply their expertise and knowledge to solving problems that society—and the world—face. Learn more about faculty research at Goizueta. 

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In time for Pride Month, new research, led by Goizueta faculty, working with the LGBTQ Institute, highlights the evolving challenges and progress for LGBTQ+ Southerners. One of the many takeaways: even though most respondents have, at some point, felt stigmatized, most also view their LGBTQ+ identity as a positive in their lives. Pride in the Goizueta community brings this point home.

Amid a recent wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, especially concentrated in the South, Pride Month matters for the LGBTQ+ community and its allies. At Emory, taking Pride to heart can be seen in recent research that aims to better understand the needs of LGBTQ+ Southerners, as well as in support for campus activities, groups, and the fostering of a sense of belonging for all.

First, the research.  

The Survey

Emory University’s Goizueta Business School and the LGBTQ Institute at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights are partners in the second survey of LGBTQ+ Southerners, released in April 2023. Following up on the 2017-18 inaugural survey, which was conducted by the Institute and George State University, this newly released study aims to help fill a critical research gap, looking at an understudied group with a larger data set.

A total of 1,326 LGBTQ+ adults living in the American South answered questions about their education, employment, healthcare, social and political involvement, and some of their experiences of discrimination.

Here are a few of the notable takeaways from this survey:

• Positivity: The vast majority—78%—of survey respondents view their LGBTQ identity as something positive in their lives.
• Stigma: At the same time, more than 83% reported having been subject to slurs or jokes because of that identity at least a few times in their lives. (On top of those, other instances of harassment and discrimination were tallied.)
• Early awareness: Nearly 23% of the survey respondents reported that they first felt that were LGBTQ+ before age 10. Another 36% identified between the ages of 10 and 14. By age 19, about 84% of the survey sample felt aware of their LGBTQ+ identity.
• Speaking out as teens: Meanwhile, 55% said they had told someone else that they were or might be LGBTQ+ before age 20. Others came out later in life.
• Active and engaged politically: A resounding 70% of respondents have donated to political campaigns at some point, with 71% saying they donated to candidates who supported LGBTQ+ rights. What’s more, 96% said they were registered to vote, with 92% reporting that they did vote in the 2020 presidential election.
• With allies at work: On the job, 80% of the respondents said they can rely on at least one ally (that is, someone they consider supportive regarding matters concerning their sexual orientation and/or gender identity), with 71% reporting the reassurance of multiple allies.

The survey was conducted between June 2021 and March 2022, amid a wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation that continues to this day. It covers responses from the current residents of 14 U.S. states: namely, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia.

“The 2022 Southern Survey provides valuable data for advocates, policymakers, and community members working to advance LGBTQ+ rights in the South,” says Tim’m T. West, the current executive director of the LGBTQ Institute.

More LGBTQ+ people live in the South than any other U.S. region although they have been underrepresented in previous national surveys.

Tim’m T. West, Executive Director, LGBTQ Institute

More on the overall study design and methodology is available in the published report.

The View From Goizueta

From Goizueta Business School faculty, Giacomo Negro, professor of organization and management, was the principal investigator and co-director of the study. He worked closely with Melissa Williams, associate professor in the same department. These two were joined by Gabrielle Lopiano, who earned her PhD at Goizueta in 2021 (and now is assistant professor of management at Vanderbilt), as well as LGBTQ Institute Scholar Ashlei R. Petion and the Institute’s former director Ryan M. Roemerman, who was also co-director of the study.

“It’s important to remember that this is not a monolithic community we’re studying,” says Negro. “There’s a lot of complexity here.”

That complexity includes the respondents’ gender identities, racial identities, sexual orientations, education and class, age groups, as well as other demographic factors in the South’s rural and urban settings. And with this complexity in mind, the survey broaches a broad range of topics, including experiences of discrimination.

Understanding this complexity is important, because “LGBTQ rights are, fundamentally, human rights,” Negro emphasizes. And the study can be a means for community leaders and policymakers to better understand the barriers to thriving that are faced by the more vulnerable members of the LGBTQ+ community. For example, they ask: who may struggle in school or experience harassment seeking medical care? Which groups and sub-groups are most at risk?

Take the high school experiences, which can be a crucial time in identity formation and shape later socioeconomic outcomes. Where is support found, or not? Have certain people skipped class or even dropped out of school to avoid harassment or negative treatment? Knowing this can help target resources to help, Negro explains.

Agreeing with Negro, Williams also adds that their analyses so far—there is still more work to be done—reveals good news in growing awareness, growing support, along with areas of concern, where stigmas persist. For example, “we see people coming out at a younger age, which shows that awareness growing. And yet, there is still a gap between the age when most know and when most tell others about their LGBTQ+ identity,” she notes.

Fostering Belonging for All on Campus

“Belonging is such an important concept,” says Allison Gilmore, director of admissions and student services for Goizueta’s PhD program and a member of Goizueta’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Council. Gilmore has worked at being an active ally—she herself has family members who identify as LGBTQ+—to make sure students can bring their authentic selves to their studies and pursuits. “It’s about upholding Goizueta’s core values,” she says, serving its mission to prepare principled leaders to have a positive influence on business and society. “That makes me proud of where I work.”

Fellow staff and DEI Council member Jamie Anne Harrell wholeheartedly agrees. Harrell, who is Goizueta’s business intelligence and data analytics lead, was the school’s first openly transgender MBA graduate.

I started transitioning in December 2015 and in the Spring of 2016, ahead of my graduation in May, I was reintroduced to my class with my chosen name ‘Jamie,’ to a huge round of applause. I was not just accepted or tolerated, but actively welcomed.

Jamie Anne Harrell, Goizueta Business Intelligence & Analytics Lead & DEI Council Member

Upon graduation, she started working at Goizueta and has observed more progress since. For instance, Harrell points to medical coverage that now includes more expenses that are relevant to her wellbeing, such as vocal feminization training. “I don’t want to have to worry for my safety if I speak up in a bathroom in Florida. It’s about being accepted, and it matters.”

Back at work, “it’s about bringing your whole self in, which is important for engagement and outcomes,” the analytics expert notes. “You know, Pride Month means showing the world who we are.”

Out and Networking for What Comes Next

That sentiment is echoed by Tyler Dinucci, who identifies as a gay man and expects to receive his MBA degree from Goizueta in 2024. “Pride Month is a chance for LGBTQ+ people to declare we are here and our identities are valid,” he explains.

“For so long, many LGBTQ+ people were treated as deviants or degenerates because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.” But now is a time “for people across the LGBTQ+ spectrum to celebrate themselves as complete members of society.”

Tyler Dinucci

As a student, Dinucci appreciates resources such as Goizueta’s Pride Alliance, serving as a support space and a way to network with alumni. He also appreciates access to the annual ROMBA (“Reaching out MBA”) conference, which gathers LGBTQ+ business students and alumni at a national level. (Last October it was in Washington, DC, and this October in Chicago.)

Here, it’s clear: “LGBTQ identities are not just something to be tolerated, they are to be celebrated,” as Negro puts it. Happy Pride Month to all.

Want to get involved? The Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Life seeks to engage the university community in the creation of an affirming and just campus environment while supporting the development of students of all gender and sexual identities. Check out resources including legal services, navigating campus, health, and professional development.

Have specific questions or need assistance? Reach out to your Goizueta Business School Safe Space Allies who have been trained to help and support members of the LGBTQ+ community at Emory.

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