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Apple dedicates entire homepage to Martin Luther King, though employees don’t get the day off

Apple has responded to some criticism of its failure to give its employees paid leave for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, by dedicating its entire homepage to the famous activist and removing all products.

The birth of Martin Luther King, Jr. has been marked as a federal holiday since it was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1983, and government agencies officially close for the day.

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While Apple is roughly on par with other U.S. tech firms in terms of employee diversity, some of those other companies voluntarily observe the holiday; Twitter, Google, and Facebook all give staff time off. If nothing else, it’s an easy win and something they can loosely point to as a sign of their attitudes toward diversity in the workplace.

Apple has used the iconic civil rights leader to help sell Macs before, so it perhaps is more notable that it doesn’t recognize the day as an official holiday. However, it does now encourage employees to do volunteer work, with the Cupertino company contributing $50 for every hour worked as part of its Matching Gifts program.

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