TOXIC PROPERTIES

THOSE WHO'VE EXPERIENCED RACISM AND MISOGYNY AT SAVILLS, THE 167-YEAR-OLD UK REAL ESTATE COMPANY, SAY ITS CULTURE ENABLES BAD BEHAVIOR. MANAGEMENT SAYS IT'S MAKING "GOOD PROGRESS"

- OLIVIA KONOTEY-AHULU

AS A RAINY SUMMER EVENING FELL OVER A NATION battered by Covid-19 and Brexit in July 2021, more than 30 million people across the UK watched the final football match of the European Championship. The men’s team was the first to reach the finals of a major international tournament in more than five decades. With the score tied in the last minutes, five England players took penalty kicks. The first two made their shots. The next three, who were Black, didn’t. England lost the game.

By the next morning, a stream of abuse, including monkey emojis, had been directed at the three Black players’ social media accounts. More than a thousand racist tweets were posted; among those that went viral was a particularly ugly one that appeared to come from an account that Twitter users quickly connected to a LinkedIn profile, and then to an employer. It was Savills Plc, one of the most prestigious real estate companies in the country, founded in the 1800s in part to help aristocrats and other landowners manage their estates.

Savills immediately said that it was appalled by the tweets, abhorred racism and racial discrimination, and had started an investigation. It also said that the employee had been suspended, the case had been referred to the Greater Manchester Police, and that the individual claimed his account had been hacked. But by then, the company had been swept up in the online furor as images of Savills UK’s largely White and male management racked up retweets. That same day, Savills emailed its staff about how to deal with “concerned clients and contacts.”