What a relief it would be if every unpaid internship were an auction—if instead of a vague line about how the intern must “cover their own costs,” the organization would tally up those costs and see who is able to pay them. The rest of us could watch, from the sidelines, as bias long denied plays out in public, as wealth morphs into merit before our eyes. Let them do their bidding in the open, and show us what it costs to succeed.
