Elections

Email Leak: Clinton Campaign Had A Strict Diversity Quota

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Blake Neff Reporter
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Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign apparently had a diversity quota for top positions and made its hires accordingly, newly-leaked emails reveal.

The email chain was released Monday by the online hacktivist group Wikileaks as part of a dump of over 2,000 emails from the inbox of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. In the chain, Clinton aide Cheryl Mills emails Podesta in February, 2015, to highlight the current diversity on Clinton’s campaign team and discuss how the team could ensure it reaches certain diversity thresholds with its remaining hires.

Mills focuses on 12 top campaign positions, such as Podesta’s role as chairman and Karen Finney’s role as national spokeswoman. At the time of her email, 10 of the positions were filled, and Mills bluntly states that the remaining posts of political director and chief operations officer should be filled by a “Hispanic woman” and any woman, respectively, to ensure a proper amount of diversity. (RELATED: Bill And Chelsea Clinton Drove Top Foundation Staffer Into Suicidal State)

“12 positions: 4 POC (2 Black; 1 Asian; 1 Hispanic), 4 Women (assuming COO is a white woman), 6 White Men,” Mills says, laying out the diversity math if the campaign hires as she suggests. “33% diverse, 33% women, 50% white men.”

It’s not clear how Podesta reacted to Mills’ email. Instead of responding in the email chain, he asked Mills to give him a phone call.

Whatever his response, though, Mills’s forecast came to pass. In April, 2015, Amanda Renteria, a Hispanic woman, officially joined the campaign as political director, while Beth Jones, a white woman, became the campaign’s COO.

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