Apple’s Female Diversity Chief Resigning Following Outrage Over ‘Blue-Eyed, Blond Men’ Comment

Last week, news broke out that the female diversity chief of Apple, Denise Young Smith was resigning after the backlash she received following certain unfortunate remarks she made in October. This is a surprising turn of events, largely because Smith has only held the position for a little over six months. She will be vacating her post at the end of the year.

One of the first to break the news last week was TechCrunch, which learned that Young Smith would be gone from Apple at the end of 2017. She was appointed as the company’s head of diversity only last May. Before that, she was head of Apple’s global HR for three years.

Replacing Young Smith is Christie Smith. In a statement by an Apple representative to the publication, it would seem that the company has expressed a lot of confidence in the new head of diversity.

“We deeply believe that diversity drives innovation,” the representative said. “We’re thrilled to welcome an accomplished leader like Christie Smith to help us continue the progress we’ve made toward a more diverse workplace.”

This development follows the recent announcement that Young Smith will be going to Cornell Tech as a residence starting January of next year. She will reportedly be working with young students to build their repertoire and prepare them for the real world.

The eventual departure of Young Smith also follows a disastrous event last month, when she made the critical error of saying that a group of “12 white blue-eyed blonde men” could also be considered diverse. The backlash she received from this statement was staggering, which publications like Gizmodo are calling “all so insipid.”

While it seems that there have been plans for Young Smith to leave Apple at some point, the timing casts a shadow over these developments.