The board of directors of Black Girls Code, which teaches young women of color how to gain access and opportunities in STEM-related fields, has removed founder Kimberly Bryant from the organization’s leadership.
According to an email statement sent to Insider by Black Girls Code’s board, Bryant remains on the company’s staff while “serious allegations of workplace impropriety are being investigated.” The statement indicated that the nonprofit had appointed an interim executive director to manage it.
Bryant tweeted, “Press release: so it’s 3 days before Christmas and you wake up to discover the organization YOU created and built from the ground up has been taken away by a rogue board with no notification.” An insider disclosed Bryant did not respond to a request from it for a comment. She had tweeted earlier that she was preparing a formal statement.
The upheaval comes as Black Girls Code has received support from tech titans such as Facebook and Google. It also has a number of other high-profile partners. They include AT&T, Capital One, Lyft Macy’s, Deloitte, Mastercard, and Comcast NBC Universal to name a few, according to the firm’s website. Its board members include which the nonprofit first announced in 2018, consisted of esteemed Black American leaders in technology and entrepreneurship, Insider reported.
Bryant, an engineer who previously worked in pharmaceuticals and biotech, founded Black Girls Code in 2011. The nonprofit reports it is committed to providing girls from underrepresented communities access to technology and the 21st-century skills needed to become tech leaders. Bryant was named one of the year’s most powerful female engineers by Insider in 2016. She too was on the cover of the January/February 2018 issue of BLACK ENTERPRISE with MeToo founder Tarana Burke.
To name a few, the Black Girls Code offers services in artificial intelligence, robotics, blockchain, virtual reality, mobile, and app design. According to Insider, the Oakland, California-based organization has chapters in 16 cities and over 30,000 participants in its programming.
Bryant gained support and compassion from her tweets from those in the tech space stunned with her removal.
“This is an unfathomable mess handled in the most unjust way humanly possible to a woman who was a huge part of building this movement,” wrote Karla Monterroso, the former CEO of Code2040, a nonprofit centered on racial equity in the tech industry.
