Bitter bias at Starbucks

In crumpling like a coffee cup to anti-Semitic demands to sideline a venerable civil rights group it had enlisted to help develop sensitivity training, Starbucks has shamed itself and set an awful corporate precedent. Last month, in the thick of a public relations crisis prompted by a Philadelphia manager calling the cops on two black men waiting for a friend, Starbucks’ corporate leadership reacted responsibly.

They apologized. Called the store’s actions “reprehensible.” And announced that all U.S. company-owned stores. would be closed on the afternoon of May 29 for anti-bias education.

Developing curriculum for sensitivity training should be less complicated than making a grande half-caff soy latte: You tap respected experts and get out of the way.

Starbucks brought in Eric Holder, along with leaders from the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Equal Justice Initiative, the think tank Demos — and the Anti-Defamation League, which for 105 years has worked “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.”

Then the Jew-haters crawled out from under their rocks, attacking the ADL for calling out hatemonger Louis Farrakhan, and for staunchly supporting Israel.

“The ADL is CONSTANTLY attacking black and brown people,” lied Women’s March co-organizer and Farrakhan acolyte Tamika Mallory.

So Starbucks caved, ejecting the Jewish group from the expert panel designing the lesson plan to teach people how to treat people fairly and equally. Ironic, huh?

It’s enough to make Brooklynite Howard Schultz, the Canarsie-raised Jewish founder and board chairman, do a spit-take with his coffee. Is he paying attention?