Last week the Level Playing Field Institute issued a report which found that in the IT sector of  our economy there exists bias which adversely affects women and under-represented minorities (Specifically Native Americans, Blacks, and Latinos) . The report goes on in some statistical detail to describe outcomes  manifest by this bias, its costs in both economic and social terms, and finally what can and should be done going forward.

My initial response was “Well duh, I could have told you that!!!!, surely this is  obvious to more than just a handful of us, right ?” 

Of course, that’s when the “aha moment” arrives.

The truth of the matter is that today, in a lot of sectors, bias and its effects are more subtle, and therefore less obvious to those not affected by it directly

The report describes and documents how within an organization different stakeholders have differing levels of satisfaction with how diversity and inclusion issues are meaningfully addressed.

Specifically, it explores how white males seem more satisfied than their female, native american,black or Latino colleagues. In a retro-homage to that now out-of-vogue term multiculturalism, the case is made for why this is detrimental to us in the global marketplace and effects our competitiveness due employee turnover and other inefficiencies which might result from these biases.

Hmmmm, I do have to wonder about the absolute effect on corporations , as my own personal experience is that there has never been a significant number of blacks, native americans and Latinos in IT and there has only recently been (say in the last 7 to 10 years), been any significant influx of women.

All this should not be a surprise, as the IT industry like any other, accurately reflects the cultural biases and practices present across all sectors of our country both socially and economically .

And in case all of that wasn’t enough to give one pause, there is also the contention that even if the educational system were such that improvements had a greater yield of STEM facile students, they would still have to run the gauntlet of a potentially unfriendly workplace by virtue of the biases and other impediments described in the report.

So, was this report a revelation, well not exactly, at least not to me, but the fact that someone has again taken on the task of documenting what is really going on in IT is important, and hopefully not the last time someone does so; at least until this particular set of problems is solved.

We here in Oakland might be well served as we look into our schools (like most other communities are doing) and improve how they prepare our students, to also look at our IT business ecosystem such as it is and insure that it is as fair and equitable a business ecosystem as we are told it is “already”.

Read the report and related documents:

Tilted Playing Field LPFI 9-29-11