In 2019, while attending grad school at the University of Texas at Austin, Kara Elyse Henderson was modeling on the side for extra income.
Hired to be the face of well-known and well-loved local brands, Henderson, who is Black, began to realize a disconnect: The decision-makers on these projects weren’t reflective of the diversity she saw every day on campus. Instead, they were almost always white, and mostly men.
“Most of the people who were behind the camera, who’d been selected for these opportunities, did not look like me,” Henderson said.
