Big Tech’s pivot away from diversity efforts
Over the last couple of years, the tech industry has slashed hundreds of thousands of jobs, many of them in recruiting and other departments that work to improve diversity. Companies like Meta and Google, which earlier set ambitious hiring and investment goals, have pulled resources from those efforts.
As a result, many nonprofit groups set up to train and recruit underrepresented workers are struggling to stay afloat. One prominent person in the field is Lisa Mae Brunson, founder of the nonprofit Wonder Women Tech. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino asked her how things have changed. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.
Lisa Mae Brunson: We saw the writing on the wall where it seemed like companies were performative, despite the fact that, statistically, companies will perform better when they have diverse teams. Their bottom line will actually increase, they will make more profits. But that wasn’t really what they were looking at. I mean, I think they were looking at the fact that they were going to have to change culture. And you started to see the political climate change too. And I think when that shifted, the focus on increasing representation also shifted.
Meghan McCarty Carino: And we’ve certainly seen a shift in terms of financial investment. Of course, over the last couple years, a lot of tech companies have been shedding jobs. Many of those jobs have been concentrated in [human resources], recruiting, diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Have you felt the effect of that in the work you do?
Brunson: Oh, 1,000%. I mean, we had a pretty significant surge for a hot moment when George Floyd was murdered, and you saw all of these companies get together and focus on Black Lives Matter. But then once that momentum shifted and that political climate shifted, it was almost like night and day, just a complete reversal of all of the progress made over, over time. And then on a federal level, you see affirmative action being impacted, and it’s really harrowing to kind of bear witness to all of the possibilities that this work can do and create impact to seeing where people are just intentionally devaluing it.
McCarty Carino: Right. You mentioned the end of affirmative action in college admissions, which was overturned by the Supreme Court last summer. How do you think that has affected kind of the corporate approach to these efforts and the legal approach, I guess?
Brunson: Well, access to education, the assumption that everybody has access to the same opportunities, is just simply not true. And so when we have these programs in place that allow for people from different backgrounds — and this isn’t just about race, this is economic, these are people that wouldn’t ordinarily have the the same opportunities as their counterparts that do have opportunities and have the support systems and the financial systems and educational systems and mentors in place to get them to where they need to be inside of these universities. By being at the university, they then would be able to level up their education and contribute meaningfully to tech or any other industry.
So, the idea that well, we need to strike down affirmative action because it’s unfairly targeting a certain demographic and not giving access to everyone else — when everybody else is already there — you know, this is a small group of people making a huge impact for these demographics that ordinarily wouldn’t have access. So we’re going to see tech and innovation significantly impacted if we don’t see students being trained and having the opportunity to learn new skills and get into tech and to thrive in tech. So I think it’s devastating, to be honest. And then, the idea that they want to replace it with merit, that you should be able to get into these schools based on merit, it’s just simply just not true. You’re assuming that we’re all on a level playing field, and by our merit and value alone, we’re going to have the same access to tools and resources and education, and history has repeatedly shown that, that just simply isn’t true, especially in a systemically marginalized institution.
McCarty Carino: Do you have a sense of how the pullback of these efforts at institutional levels is affecting demographics in tech, in [science, technology, engineering and math]? I mean, many of these companies, as you noted, were very happy to put out reports touting all of the gains they were making when they were investing in it. Is that still the case?
Brunson: Well, this year alone, we saw some major organizations close shop. Notably, two of the largest women in tech organizations, Girls in Tech [and] Women Who Code, both organizations that I modeled a lot of my work after. I mean, I looked up to them. And so these are organizations that collectively impact about half a million women in tech globally and nationally. And so when you see that these organizations are shut down, what do you think happens? These are the organizations that women in tech look to to support their professional development choices in an otherwise male-dominated world. It’s true, like, these things exist.
It’s hard to be a woman in tech. Every single day, I have to remind myself to put on my cowgirl boots and be confident and, and just keep going because it is really hard to make gains when the system isn’t set up for you to be successful. So we’re already seeing the impact of organizations that cannot sustain and weather the storm. And maybe we’re not going to see it today, but if this continues, we’re definitely going to see even less population of women and people of color in tech, and that will be a very, very sad day for innovation and science at large.
McCarty Carino: What gets left behind when these efforts are not made to increase diversity in an industry where innovation is of paramount importance?
Brunson: Well, if you don’t have innovative, diverse minds at the table to solve for X and be able to look at a product or service or a tech holistically, you’re gonna find that this tech will intentionally and unintentionally harm people. Case in point: So if we are telling AI, this is what the world looks like, these are the stereotypes, these are the archetypes, this is how the world exists, AI will mirror that back to us. So who gets left behind are millions and millions and millions of people.
As we noted, this landscape has been tough for a lot of organizations working in this space. The Washington Post reported last month on the closure of several groups like Girls in Tech and Women Who Code. The share of women in science, technology, math and engineering jobs increased by just 1 percentage point over more than 20 years, from 25% in 2000 to 26% in 2022, according to data from the Labor Department.
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