l*****7
发帖数: 8463 | 1 硅谷有没有严重的就业歧视？
黑人和拉丁裔就业明显著少
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_25379455/at-hp-jesse-jac
At HP, Jesse Jackson targets Silicon Valley's lack of diversity
By MARTHA MENDOZA and JESSE WASHINGTON
Associated Press
Posted: 03/20/2014 06:14:06 AM PDT22 Comments | Updated: about 13 hours
ago
The Rev. Jesse Jackson is bringing a strategy borrowed from the traditional
civil rights era playbook to the age of social media and a booming tech
industry known for its disruptive innovation.
Jackson led a delegation to Hewlett-Packard's annual shareholders meeting
Wednesday to bring attention to Silicon Valley's poor record of including
blacks and Latinos in hiring, board appointments and startup funding.
In a nearly 10-minute exchange with HP CEO Meg Whitman, Jackson urged her
and the company to ensure blacks and Latinos have prominent leadership roles
in the booming technology industry.
"Silicon Valley and tech industry have demonstrated that it can solve the
most challenging and complex problems in the whole world," Jackson said
during the meeting, which was held in Santa Clara. "We need you to assume a
different level of leadership. Today, too few have too much, too many have
too little, and the middle class is sinking."
Whitman defended HP's track record, pointing out that the company has been
fighting for racial diversity among its suppliers for more than 40 years.
She also boasted that HP may be the only major company that employs women in
the positions of CEO and chief financial officer, a reference to Catherine
Lesjak.
Jackson congratulated her, but then chided Whitman for the absence of blacks
and Latinos on HP's board. "We are not perfect by any means," Whitman
conceded and assured Jackson she hoped to continue to discuss ways to
promote more racial diversity in Silicon Valley.
In a letter Monday, Jackson raised similar issues with a list of other
technology companies that included Apple, Twitter, Facebook and Google.
Earl "Butch" Graves Jr., president and CEO of Black Enterprise magazine,
said Jackson is shining a light on the fact that technology companies don't
come close to hiring or spending what is commensurate with the demographics
of their customers.
"Hopefully, what Rev. Jackson is doing will bring attention to the 800-pound
gorilla in the room that nobody wants to talk about. It's high time that
gets addressed," Graves said.
It's widely recognized that the tech industry lacks diversity: About 1 in 14
tech workers is black or Latino, both in Silicon Valley and nationally.
Blacks and Hispanics make up 13.1 and 16.9 percent of the U.S. population,
respectively, according to the most recent census data.
"We agree with you there is much work to be done in the United States and
much work to be done in Silicon Valley," Whitman told Jackson during the
meeting.
Yet as recently as 2011, Allstate, in alliance with Jackson's RainbowPUSH
organization, recognized HP for its commitment to diversity.
In an emailed statement to The Associated Press, HP Executive Vice President
Henry Gomez said HP spent nearly $1 billion with almost 500 minority
business enterprises in the U.S. and an additional $500 million with
businesses owned by women during 2013.
Apple and Google declined to comment on Jackson's grievances. Facebook and
Twitter didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
Of course, the technology industry isn't without a handful of high-profile
black executives. Microsoft named John Thompson, an African-American, as
chairman of its board last month after he led a search that culminated in
the appointment of Satya Nadella as the software maker's new CEO. Thompson,
the former CEO of security software maker Symantec, joined Microsoft's board
in 2012.
Another African-American, Denise Young-Smith, runs Apple's human resources
department, which oversees the personnel policies governing the iPhone maker
's nearly 85,000 employees and contractors. She reports directly to Apple
CEO Tim Cook.
And Google's chief legal officer, David Drummond, is an African-American who
has been one of the company's top executives for the past 12 years.
During a recent speech at Stanford University, Jackson cited the dearth of
black and Latino leaders in the tech sector. This got sophomore computer
science major Rotimi Opeke, a leader at the school's Society of Black
Scientists and Engineers, wondering about his own opportunities.
"I've been thinking that if I can code well and produce good products, I can
be successful, but to rise up through the ranks is going to be a challenge,
" he said. "There's just not a lot of people of color in high levels of tech
leadership, which is where, eventually, I'd like to be. I'm hopeful that it
's not impossible to get there, but I do feel it would take an extraordinary
level of leadership skills to navigate."
Freada Kapor Klein started the Level Playing Field Institute 13 years ago to
teach and mentor black and Latino students in science and math. Along with
her husband, Mitch Kapor, she also invests in startups with founders who are
women and people of color from an underrepresented background through Kapor
Capital, a venture capital firm.
The Kapors recently wooed former NAACP President Ben Jealous to Kapor
Capital to help boost its social impact investing.
Kapor Klein said she and her husband share Jackson's goals and vision of
what Silicon Valley should look like, but they choose to employ different
tactics to get there.
"Jesse Jackson wouldn't be heading to Hewlett-Packard or any of the other
big tech companies if they had done their job and accomplished diversity,"
she says. "He's shining a spotlight on one aspect of the growing inequality
of this country."
Villanova University management professor Quinetta Roberson said the lack of
diversity, particularly in Silicon Valley, is a problem given the value of
diversity in organizations.
Roberson cites research showing that "diversity of thought generates
creativity and innovation, and facilitates better problem-solving, both in
terms of quantity and quality of solutions."
"Given that such outcomes are what drives performance in tech companies in
the valley, it is imperative to have such divergent perspectives represented
within the body that is doing visioning and strategic directioning for
organizations," Roberson said.
Brooklyn-based technology marketing strategist Rachel Weingarten said she's
frustrated by the lack of diversity in business leadership.
"America pays a lot of lip service to full diversity, and in many ways we're
constantly making great strides, but for women like myself, forming our own
companies and entrepreneurship is the only true way to level any playing
field -- by creating our own," she said.
In the past, Jackson's critics have accused him of profiting from similar
protest actions. These critics say that after Jackson targeted companies
over diversity issues in the financial sector and other industries, some
have ended up donating large sums to Jackson's organizations. In other cases
, the targeted companies gave contracts to minority-owned firms that paid
Jackson for referrals.
Graves, of Black Enterprise, dismisses such concerns.
"If in the fight to create opportunity, some of the money that these
companies would contribute to United Way or the American Heart Association
happens to go to (Jackson's) Rainbow Coalition, I'm more than OK with that,"
he said.
"That's just the fear factor coming from when they see him," Graves said, "
because they know he's not going to go away." |
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