Newest Industries Use Oldest Excuses
John William Templeton SF Chronicle Thursday, April 1, 1999


WHEN THE CHRONICLE first identified last May a legally questionable
disparity between the proportion of African Americans and Latinos
working in high-technology firms and the proportion working in other
industries, the response from high-tech executives was silence.

The groundbreaking series confirmed a trend that minority workers had
sensed for some time. However, this disparity wasn't always the case.
In the late 1980s, Silicon Valley led the nation in employing African
Americans as top executives.

By the '90s, the story had changed. Last year, a group of African
American professional organizations in the Bay Area formed the
Coalition for Fair Employment in Silicon Valley and began following up
on The Chronicle's findings. By law, most employers must keep records
on fair employment practices and many must report to the Equal
Employment Opportunities Commission. The coalition determined that
only 175 out of 1,454 Northern California high-technology firms
required to file had actually done so.

Silicon Valley executives explained the disparities in hiring and
inattention to fil ing as: 1) blacks aren't trained for high
technology; 2) there is lots of ``diversity'' in Silicon Valley, and
3) the whole furor is being instigated by ``outsiders.''

These arguments are patently disingenuous. There are more than 130,000
African American scientists and engineers in the country, but only 2
percent work at the companies we surveyed. Based on the number of
black engineers residing here, the number should have been 4 percent.

The term ``diversity'' has no legal meaning when it comes to fair
employment law.

Most outrageous has been the red herring that the issue came from
``outsiders.'' That implies that highly-trained, accomplished
individuals have no ability to think for themselves.

The issue is not so much a body count, but whether practices provide
fair employment opportunities. The coalition identified 35 practices
which constitute unfair employment practices, e.g., companies that
recruit at a spring break event in Arizona but not at a spring break
event for African American students in Atlanta.

When the National Council of Black Scientists and Engineers met in
Oakland last year, not one Silicon Valley firm showed up. Only two
Silicon Valley firms support scholarships by the National Ac tion
Council for Minorities in Engineering, which has more than 600 alumni
in the Bay Area and supports a third of the underrepresented minority
students in the field. Similar rhetoric has been present at every
significant milestone in the long struggle for human rights. However,
the economic impact of allowing trends such as a 15 percent gap in
access to computers between schools with a majority student body of
African American students and those primarily attended by white
students will cost blacks and Latinos more than $3 trillion over the
next 20 years. That's a dozen times worse than the impact of
residential segregation over the past 50 years. With such a massive
shadow looming, we have no choice but to insist on complete and
resolute law enforcement to root out insidious practices that produce
discrimination and to work with executives of good will to take
advantage of the benefits of having a workforce that reflects
America's best.

John William Templeton is co-convenor of the Coalition for Fair
Employment in Silicon Valley. He can be reached at
askiatek@blackmoney.com