A few weeks ago, an international student clicked over to Airbnb to look for a temporary place to stay in Charlotte–only to have to endure an ugly racist tirade from a prospective host. Fortunately, that knuckledragger has been banned from ever using Airbnb again.
“Jane Doe” is a graduate student at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management who is originally from Nigeria. She had recently gotten a job at an investment bank in Charlotte, and was looking for a place to stay until she found a permanent home. She thought she had gotten a good deal from Todd Warner. However, she was in for an ugly surprise. Out of nowhere, the host bombarded her with racist messages on Airbnb’s instant messenger.
Jane showed the exchange to a close friend and fellow Kellogg graduate student, Alicia Luchetti. Here are some samples.
“Jane” told Luchetti that when Warner found out that she was black, he canceled her reservation. He then added insult to injury by bombarding her with racially-charged insults and threats, even when “Jane” told him to stop. She didn’t think that she would ever “in her wild dreams” have to endure something like this. Indeed, she initially thought it was some kind of sick joke. However, when it was apparent that Warner wasn’t kidding, she was scared that he intended to do her physical harm.
Jane’s ordeal was profiled on Friday’s edition of “CBS This Morning.” Watch here.
When Airbnb learned of this appalling and unacceptable behavior by its host, it struck fast and hard. Airbnb global policy head Chris Lehane was “absolutely appalled” at Warner’s “outrageous” actions. He said that Airbnb has “a zero tolerance policy” for this kind of behavior, and has banned Walker from ever using the site again. According to Luchetti, Airbnb also fully refunded Jane’s money, and Warner’s real estate company plans to sever ties with him.
Airbnb cofounder and CEO Brian Chesky personally added his voice to the condemnation of Warner’s behavior.
The incident in NC was disturbing and unacceptable. Racism and discrimination have no place on Airbnb. We have permanently banned this host.
— Brian Chesky (@bchesky) June 1, 2016
When Charlotte city councilman James “Smuggie” Mitchell learned about Jane’s ordeal, he called for city staff to investigate Airbnb’s rental practices. He wants to believe this is a one-off incident, but feels “a proactive step” is necessary to send the message that “we cannot tolerate that in Charlotte.” Longtime Charlotte civil rights attorney John Gresham thinks that both Warner and Airbnb could be sued, since this is “the reason the Civil Rights Acts were passed in the 60s.” He believes Airbnb must put its hosts on notice that they must comply with local public accommodations laws and ordinances.
It’s not the first time that Airbnb has come under fire for discrimination by its hosts. When Quirtina Crittenden, a black woman from Chicago, found it hard to get rooms on the site, she suspected racism was the reason. She changed her profile picture to the Chicago skyline, and shortened her profile name to “Tina.” After that, she said, she never had any problems. A recent study by the Harvard Business School found that Airbnb customers with African-American sounding names were 16 percent less likely to get a room than people with white names.
It looks like Airbnb is taking steps to fix this. In addition to quickly giving the bum’s rush to Warner, it asked former ACLU official Laura Murphy to conduct a full review of its rental practices. It has also offered diversity and bias training to its employees and hosts. The review should be complete in September.
I would hope, though, that Charlotte and other cities take a look at Airbnb’s practices. For every Jane who was willing to speak out, there are probably dozens more who were too scared to speak out. Mitchell said it better than anyone could–we cannot tolerate this in Charlotte, or any other city. Period.
