• Adweek, Friday, January 9, 2009 9:30 AM

African Americans in the advertising industry are significantly underrepresented and underpaid due to "embedded racial bias that creates systematic barriers to inclusion," says a new study by civil rights law firm Mehri & Skalet. It cites employment and salary statistics and compares them to similar industries.

Among the findings: About 16% of large ad agencies employ no black managers or professionals, a rate that is 60% percent higher than in the overall labor market.

Mehri & Skalet's founding partner, Cyrus Mehri, has achieved landmark racial discrimination settlements from Coca-Cola and Texaco. He is partnering with the NAACP to launch the Madison Avenue Project to address what they perceive to be widespread racial discrimination in advertising.

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