Starbucks will close its 8,000 company-owned locations the afternoon of May 29 to provide racial bias training to 175,000 workers, according to CNN Money.
The training comes in the wake of an incident at a Philadelphia Starbucks April 11 when two black men were arrested for trespassing after the store's manager called the police and complained that the men had not bought anything while they waited for a friend.
The training will be developed with guidance from former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, and Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. This same panel will also review the effectiveness of the training.
"I've spent the last few days in Philadelphia with my leadership team listening to the community, learning what we did wrong and the steps we need to take to fix it," said Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson, according to CNN Money. "While this is not limited to Starbucks, we're committed to being a part of the solution."