The North Face is offering customers a 20% discount if they complete and pass a Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) course.
The company launched a course titled, “Allyship in the Outdoors,” which teaches customers about racial disparities in outdoor activities. The course focuses on race and racism in Europe. Europeans who undergo the hour-long course on becoming a “better ally” and pass a series of multiple-choice questions on “privilege” get a discount code.
North Americans are ineligible to obtain a discount for taking the course.
“At The North Face, we believe in the power of exploration,” the course description reads. “As individuals, professionals and companies who share a love for the outdoors and exploration, we also have a responsibility to support spaces where everyone feels like they belong.”
The course is designed to “foster a deeper understanding of the unique challenges that people of colour face when accessing the outdoors,” the course description continues.
A section of the course teaches North Face customers how to handle accusations of being “too woke.” The training tells social media users to flag people who disagree with their opinions on race and racism and to “respond to the comment with calm authority, in line with your [organization’s] policy and guidelines on hate speech and racism.”
The course also discusses “privilege” and its role in racial diversity in outdoor activities. The course argues that “white privilege” means a white person’s skin color gives them access to the outdoors “when others can be excluded because of historic, enduring racism and biases.”
“There is no explicit policy that excludes people from the outdoors yet there are few people of color,” a section of the course reads. “While there is no intent to exclude, the system in itself creates those barriers to participation.”
