[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
INCLUSION IN TECH: HOW DIVERSITY BENEFITS ALL AMERICANS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONSUMER PROTECTION AND COMMERCE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 6, 2019
__________
Serial No. 116-13
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
govinfo.gov/committee/house-energy
energycommerce.house.gov
_________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
37-565 PDF WASHINGTON : 2020
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
Chairman
BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois GREG WALDEN, Oregon
ANNA G. ESHOO, California Ranking Member
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York FRED UPTON, Michigan
DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois
MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana
G. K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
DORIS O. MATSUI, California CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington
KATHY CASTOR, Florida BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland PETE OLSON, Texas
JERRY McNERNEY, California DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia
PETER WELCH, Vermont ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia
PAUL TONKO, New York GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida
YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York, Vice BILL JOHNSON, Ohio
Chair BILLY LONG, Missouri
DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana
KURT SCHRADER, Oregon BILL FLORES, Texas
JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III, SUSAN W. BROOKS, Indiana
Massachusetts MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma
TONY CARDENAS, California RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina
RAUL RUIZ, California TIM WALBERG, Michigan
SCOTT H. PETERS, California EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia
DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
MARC A. VEASEY, Texas GREG GIANFORTE, Montana
ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire
ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
NANETTE DIAZ BARRAGAN, California
A. DONALD McEACHIN, Virginia
LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER, Delaware
DARREN SOTO, Florida
TOM O'HALLERAN, Arizona
------
Professional Staff
JEFFREY C. CARROLL, Staff Director
TIFFANY GUARASCIO, Deputy Staff Director
MIKE BLOOMQUIST, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce
JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
Chairwoman
KATHY CASTOR, Florida CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington
MARC A. VEASEY, Texas Ranking Member
ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois FRED UPTON, Michigan
TOM O'HALLERAN, Arizona MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
TONY CARDENAS, California, Vice BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
Chair LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana
LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER, Delaware RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina
DARREN SOTO, Florida EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia
BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois GREG GIANFORTE, Montana
DORIS O. MATSUI, California GREG WALDEN, Oregon (ex officio)
JERRY McNERNEY, California
DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan
FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey (ex
officio)
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hon. Jan Schakowsky, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Illinois, opening statement................................. 1
Prepared statement........................................... 2
Hon. Tony Cardenas, a Representative in Congress from the State
of California, prepared statement.............................. 3
Hon. Robin L. Kelly, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Illinois, prepared statement................................ 4
Hon. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Washington, opening statement..................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 6
Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the
State of New Jersey, opening statement......................... 7
Prepared statement........................................... 8
Hon. Bobby L. Rush, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Illinois, prepared statement................................ 10
Hon. Richard Hudson, a Representative in Congress from the State
of North Carolina, opening statement........................... 10
Witnesses
Mark S. Luckie, Digital Media Strategist and Former Manager,
Twitter and Facebook........................................... 12
Prepared statement........................................... 15
Answers to submitted questions............................... 150
Joan Ferrini-Mundy, Ph.D., President, University of Maine........ 23
Prepared statement........................................... 25
Answers to submitted questions............................... 152
Jiny Kim, Vice President, Policy and Programs, Asian Americans
Advancing Justice.............................................. 34
Prepared statement \1\....................................... 36
Nicol Turner Lee, Ph.D., Fellow, Center for Technology
Innovation, Governance Studies, Brookings Institution.......... 43
Prepared statement........................................... 45
Answers to submitted questions............................... 154
Natalie Oliverio, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Military
Talent Partners................................................ 63
Prepared statement........................................... 64
Answers to submitted questions \2\........................... 156
Jill Houghton, President and Chief Executive Officer,
Disability:IN.................................................. 68
Prepared statement \3\....................................... 70
Answers to submitted questions............................... 159
----------
\1\ A February 2017 report entitled ``Breaking the Mold:
Investing in Racial Diversity in Tech'' has been retained in
committee files and also is available as part of Ms. Kim's
written testimony at https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF17/
20190306/108901/HHRG-116-IF17-Wstate-KimJ-20190306.pdf.
\2\ Ms. Oliverio did not answer submitted questions for the
record by the time of publication.
\3\ A report entitled ``The 2018 Disability Equality Index: A
Record Year for Corporate Disability Inclusion and Leadership''
has been retained in committee files and also is available as
part of Ms. Houghton's written testimony at https://
docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF17/20190306/108901/HHRG-116-IF17-
Wstate-HoughtonJ-20190306.pdf.
David Lopez, Co-Dean, Rutgers Law School-Newark.................. 74
Prepared statement........................................... 76
Answers to submitted questions............................... 162
Submitted Material
Article of July 26, 2018, ``Amazon's Facial Recognition Wrongly
Identifies 28 Lawmakers, A.C.L.U. Says,'' by Natasha Singer,
The New York Times, submitted by Mr. Rush...................... 124
Letter of March 6, 2019, from Marc H. Morial, President and Chief
Executive Officer, National Urban League, to Ms. Schakowsky and
Mrs. Rodgers, submitted by Ms. Schakowsky...................... 128
Letter of March 5, 2019, from Marc Rotenberg, President, and
Caitriona Fitzgerald, Policy Director, Electronic Privacy
Information Center, to Ms. Schakowsky and Mrs. Rodgers,
submitted by Ms. Schakowsky.................................... 130
Letter of March 5, 2019, from Sean Perryman, Director of
Diversity and Inclusion Policy & Counsel, Internet Association,
to Ms. Schakowsky and Mrs. Rodgers, submitted by Ms. Schakowsky 134
Statement of Jennifer Huddleston, Research Fellow, Mercatus
Center at George Mason University, March 6, 2019, submitted by
Ms. Schakowsky................................................. 136
Letter of March 5, 2019, from Maxine Williams, Chief Diversity
Officer, Facebook, Inc., to Mr. Pallone, et al., submitted by
Ms. Schakowsky................................................. 140
Letter, undated, from Hon. Maxine Waters, a Representative in
Congress from the State of California, to Mr. Pallone,
submitted by Ms. Schakowsky.................................... 146
Blog post of February 27, 2018, ``Expanding Apprenticeship
Program Across the Country to Hire more Veterans,'' by Paul
Marchand, Executive Vice President, Human Resources, Charter
Communications, submitted by Ms. Schakowsky.................... 148
INCLUSION IN TECH: HOW DIVERSITY BENEFITS ALL AMERICANS
----------
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2019
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce,
Committee on Energy and Commerce,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:33 a.m., in
the John D. Dingell Room 2123, Rayburn House Office Building,
Hon. Jan Schakowsky (chairwoman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Members present: Representatives Schakowsky, Castor,
Veasey, Kelly, O'Halleran, Lujan, Cardenas, Blunt Rochester,
Soto, Rush, Matsui, McNerney, Dingell, Pallone (ex officio),
Rodgers (subcommittee ranking member), Latta, Guthrie, Bucshon,
Hudson, Carter, and Gianforte.
Also present: Representatives Butterfield and Clarke.
Staff present: Jeffrey C. Carroll, Staff Director; Evan
Gilbert, Press Assistant; Lisa Goldman, Counsel; Waverly
Gordon, Deputy Chief Counsel; Alex Hoehn-Saric, Chief Counsel,
Communications and Technology; Meghan Mullon, Staff Assistant;
Joe Orlando, Staff Assistant; Tim Robinson, Chief Counsel;
Chloe Rodriguez, Policy Analyst; Melissa Froelich, Minority
Chief Counsel, Consumer Protection and Commerce; Peter Kielty,
Minority General Counsel; Bijan Koohmaraie, Minority Counsel,
Consumer Protection and Commerce; Brannon Rains, Minority Staff
Assistant; and Nate Wilkins, Minority Fellow.
Ms. Schakowsky. The Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and
Commerce will now come to order.
I am going to say good morning, and thank you all for
joining us today.
And I will recognize myself first for 5 minutes with an
opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JAN SCHAKOWSKY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS
Once again, good morning to everybody. Thank you to our
witnesses.
Today, we are meeting to discuss an important issue, the
lack of diversity in the tech workforce. As the presence of
technology continues to play a larger and larger role in all of
our lives, industry's workforce has remained largely
homogeneous. People of color, women, and older Americans have
all been notably absent from the tech workforce, and the
corresponding problem that that creates has been that the
technology itself reflects that lack of diversity. And I want
to hear about that today.
This has real impact on Americans. We have seen algorithms
biased against sentencing guidelines, resulting in harsher
sentences for minorities. We have seen that automatic soap
dispensers sometimes fail to recognize the hands of African
Americans and Latinos--imagine that--who are seeking to use the
product to wash their hands. These may seem like two opposite
sides of the spectrum as far as harm, but they both clearly
demonstrate that something is amiss.
Simply put, diverse voices are lacking in the tech
workforce. Moreover, diverse startups are facing difficulty
competing with the large multinational technology companies. It
strikes me that unfair business practices and extreme market
concentration in tech may, in fact, perpetuate the bias and the
old boys' club, or actually the young boys' club, that we are
examining today. This lack of diversity in the workforce has
real-life impact on consumers, and I thank our panel for coming
here to discuss this very important issue.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Schakowsky follows:]
Prepared statement of Hon. Jan Schakowsky
Good morning and thank you all for joining us today. Today,
we are meeting to discuss an important issue, diversity in the
tech workforce. As the presence of technology continues to play
a larger and larger role in Americans' lives, the industry's
workforce has remained largely homogenous. People of color,
women, and older Americans have all been notably absent from
the tech workforce.
This has real impacts on Americans--we have seen
algorithmic bias impact sentencing guidelines, resulting in
harsher sentences for minorities. We have seen soap dispensers
fail to recognize the hands of African Americans and Latinos
seeking to use the product to wash their hands. These may seem
like two opposite sides of the spectrum, as far as harm, but
they both clearly demonstrate that something is amiss.
Simply put, diverse voices are lacking in the tech
workforce. It strikes me that unfair business practices and
extreme market concentration in tech may in fact perpetuate the
boys club that we are examining today. As previously stated,
this lack of diversity in the workforce has real life impacts
on consumers. I thank our panel for coming here to discuss this
important issue.
With that, I yield to my vice chair from California, Mr.
Cardenas, for 1 minute.
Ms. Schakowsky. With that, I want to yield 1 minute to the
vice chair of this subcommittee, from California, Mr. Cardenas,
for 1 minute.
Mr. Cardenas. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman.
It is no secret that the tech industry has a diversity
problem, and every day we are seeing more and more unintended
consequences when companies lack a diverse body of employees.
We are seeing fitness trackers, for example, that have problems
with dark skin. They just don't operate properly. Virtual
assistants like Alexa having a hard time recognizing accents.
Something that is no secret is that we still have something
that is news to some people: Diversity is actually good for
business. The Hispanic community in America has a buying power
annually of upwards of $1.5 trillion. Hispanics make the
fastest-growing number over number of growing Americans in this
country. Also, it is a younger population, and Hispanics happen
to have a high brand loyalty. So, it is good for business to
have diversity, especially when it comes to Hispanics.
Reports show that companies with more diversity amongst
senior executives were 33 percent more likely to see an
increase in their bottom line. When you have diverse
backgrounds and experiences among your employees, you spur
innovation; you avoid creating bias into your products; you
avoid turning your back on a whole group of Americans.
So, how do we solve this problem? I will say this: for
example, a sharp Princeton-educated computer engineer recently
told me she heard her coworker say that women and people of
color dilute the talent pool for tech companies. I take that
very personal. I am an electrical engineer myself.
We have a problem in our culture in the tech industry that
diversity is not only not prioritized, it's seen as a
hindrance, of which nothing could be further from the truth.
I would like to say much more, but, again, thank you, Madam
Chairwoman, and I yield back the balance of my time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cardenas follows:]
Prepared statement of Hon. Tony Cardenas
Thank you, Chairwoman Schakowsky. It's no secret that the
tech industry has a diversity problem. Every day we're seeing
more and more unintended consequences when companies lack a
diverse body of employees. We're seeing fitness trackers for
example that have problems with dark skin. Virtual assistants
like Alex having a hard time recognizing accents.
Something else that's no secret--but might still be news to
some people--diversity is good for business.
The Hispanic community in America has a buying power
annually of upwards of $1.5 trillion. Hispanics have high brand
loyalty. It's good for business to have diversity, especially
when it comes to Hispanics.
Reports show that companies with more diversity among
senior executives were 33 percent more likely to see an
increase in their bottom line.
When you have diverse backgrounds and experiences among
your employees, you spur innovation. You avoid accidentally
embedding bias into your products. You avoid turning your back
on a whole group of Americans.
So how do we solve this problem?
I'll say this--a sharp, Princeton-educated computer
engineer recently told me she heard her coworker say that women
and people of color dilute the talent pool for tech companies.
Not only is that false--it's highly offensive. I myself am an
engineer by training. We have a problematic culture in the tech
industry when diversity is not only NOT prioritized--it's seen
as a hinderance. And nothing can be further from the truth.
Let's make technology work for all Americans and also help
businesses succeed.
I yield back my time to the chairwoman.
Ms. Schakowsky. And I yield now the balance of my time to
Congresswoman Kelly.
Ms. Kelly. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Chairwoman Schakowsky and Ranking Member
Rodgers, for holding this hearing today.
As a founder of the Tech Accountability Caucus and founder
of the Diversifying Tech Caucus with my colleague on the other
side of the aisle, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, I am glad that this
subcommittee is committed to addressing the issue of diversity
in tech.
Report after report from technology companies continue to
show a lack of diversity in their workforces. According to the
National Urban League, less than 5 percent of the digital
workforce is African-American today. It is not just the large
tech companies in Silicon Valley. Organizations like Mentoring
Youth Through Technology, or MYTT, in my district help get
minority students interested in STEM careers, but I continue to
hear from startups in Chicago that they struggle to recruit
diverse workforces. This is a fundamental problem, getting
women and minorities into the technology jobs, and it must be
corrected.
A lack of diversity creates real-world problems of
producing programs that can harm underserved communities.
Poorly trained artificial intelligence tools can lead to
implicit racial, gender, or ideological biases and can
perpetuate existing biases. As AI use becomes more common and
decisions are made by machines, we may not understand it is
vital that these considerations are taken into account.
I am hopeful that companies are going to see the benefits
of having a diverse workforce that brings new ideas and
perspectives. While there is no one solution to this problem, I
hope that the witnesses today--and I am happy to see a former
colleague, Dr. Turner Lee--will share their experiences and
make recommendations, so we can continue to make tech a more
diverse and inclusive community.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Kelly follows:]
Prepared statement of Hon. Robin L. Kelly
Thank you, Chairwoman Schakowsky and Ranking Member Rodgers
for holding this hearing today. As a founder of the Tech
Accountability Caucus and founder of the Diversifying Tech
Caucus with my friend on the other side of the aisle, Cathy
McMorris Rodgers, I am glad that this subcommittee is committed
to addressing the issue of diversity in tech.
Report after report from technology companies continue to
show a lack of diversity in their workforces. According to the
National Urban League, less than 5 percent of the digital
workforce is African-American today. It is not just the large
tech companies in Silicon Valley. Organizations like Mentoring
Youth Through Technology or MYTT in my District, help get
minority students interested in STEM careers. But I continue to
hear from start-ups in Chicago that they struggle to recruit
diverse workforces. There is a fundamental problem getting
women and minorities into the technology jobs and it must be
corrected.
A lack of diversity creates real world problems of
producing programs that can harm underserved communities.
Poorly trained artificial intelligence tools can lead to
implicit racial, gender, or ideological biases and can
perpetuate existing biases. As AI use becomes more common and
decisions are made by machines we may not understand, it is
vital that these considerations are taken into account.
I am hopeful that companies are going to see the benefits
of having a diverse workforce that brings new ideas and
perspectives. While there is no one solution to this problem, I
hope that the witnesses today will share their experiences and
make recommendations so we can continue to make tech a more
diverse and inclusive community.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you. Thank you.
And now, it is my pleasure to recognize for 5 minutes our
ranking member, Ms. McMorris Rodgers.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, A
REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON
Mrs. Rodgers. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I
appreciate you organizing this panel today, and appreciate the
additional voices at the table.
As my colleague Congresswoman Kelly just said, we organized
the Diversifying Tech Caucus in 2015. It was aimed at
highlighting some of these issues that we are going to hear
more about today, getting more women, people with disabilities,
minorities, veterans, into the tech sector.
At a time when we are celebrating a booming economy because
of our work on tax reform and to lift the regulatory burden,
our economy has more jobs today. We have record low
unemployment, record participation with African Americans,
Hispanics, people with disabilities, people coming off the
sidelines. It means that there are more opportunities for
people to find better-paying jobs and have an opportunity for a
better life.
Today's hearing focuses, I believe, on an important aspect
of encouraging those opportunities for all. And it is the focus
on recruitment. We need to be doing more to recruit into the
tech field, but also, once we recruit, to retain and promote
these individuals into positions of leadership.
The creation of one high-tech job is projected to create
4.3 other jobs in the local economy. I often say the job is the
opportunity. It is vital that these opportunities are available
to people from all walks of life. A vibrant and dynamic
workplace with women, people of color, people with
disabilities, reflects the promise of America, where, no matter
who you are, you can achieve your version of the American
dream.
Oftentimes, it might look different than your own. I am
excited personally for the opportunities for those with
disabilities to work because more are offering the
accommodations and the job coaches. Employing people with
disabilities fosters innovation and it creates a stronger
workplace culture.
Many tech companies are leading in hiring those with
autism. And because of their unique abilities for the attention
to detail and the abilities to detect patterns, taking a
software testing company like ULTRA Testing, the founder's wife
one day told him, quote, ``We spend all this time focused on
things these children may never be good at, but we spend no
time nurturing the skills they already have a talent for. Isn't
that a shame?'' And he agreed, and he got to work hiring people
with autism to leverage their strengths. And now, ULTRA Testing
is outperforming bigger companies in software quality
assurance.
This month, we are also celebrating Women's History Month,
and it is a time to celebrate women who are leading across the
board. Our goal today is to see more women in tech leading,
being those disruptors, inspiring our next generation of
transformational women leaders.
Again, it may look different. Women have different
leadership styles. And research is showing that we have greater
understanding for teams and systems. We foster a healthy
workplace culture. When women are not at the table, our
perspectives and voices aren't represented. A study by McKinsey
shows that companies with women in executive positions
outperform the average profitability of their industries by 21
percent. Tech companies that don't open the door for women to
shine and be decisionmakers risk being left behind. So, yes, we
need to do more to open the door to allow these women to shine
and do more to retain and promote these women.
America has led the world in innovation. We celebrate that
every single day. Entrepreneurs from all walks of life are
taking an idea, making it a reality, creating more
opportunities for hardworking people across the country. Again,
that is the promise of America. It is not the promise for just
some people or the somebodies in Silicon Valley. It is a
promise for everyone. When we celebrate every person's
strengths and abilities and embrace what every person has to
offer, we are living up to that promise.
I recognize there has been tremendous efforts, like
recruiting more girls into STEM, and hiring people with
disabilities, like ULTRA Testing that I mentioned. We need to
continue to do more to address the pipeline, whether it is
young people of every background, in girls in elementary and
middle school, and exceptional people with disabilities, but we
also need to focus on how we retain those individuals once they
are recruited, and do more to encourage their promotion to
leadership positions. So, today I look forward to hearing how
the tech industry is leading on this and where you can also do
better.
Thank you all for being here.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Rodgers follows:]
Prepared statement of Hon. Cathy McMorris Rodgers
Good morning.
Today we are focused on an issue I have led on for quite
some time: diversity in the tech industry.
Today, we will have an opportunity to give credit where
credit is due, while also exploring how we continue to do
better.especially where we can continue to improve where we
recruit, retain, and promote a more diverse workforce.
I want to thank Chair Schakowsky for organizing this
hearing today and for including all the voices at the table.
I also would like to recognize my good friend from
Illinois, Robin Kelly.
In 2015, we launched the Diversifying Technology Caucus
aimed at getting more women, people with disabilities,
minorities, and veterans into the tech sector.
I want to thank Ms. Kelly for working with me to promote
more opportunities for all in the tech sector.
This is an exciting time in America. Because of our work on
tax reform and to lift the regulatory burden our economy is
booming. After a decade of Americans asking, ``where are the
jobs?'' wages are rising and there are more jobs available than
people looking for work.
As the Wall Street Journal just reported, women are driving
the laborforce comeback.
In addition, a record number of African Americans,
Hispanics, and people with disabilities are coming off the
sidelines and finding work.
It means that more people are finding opportunities for a
better life in healthcare, energy, construction, the service
industry and more.
Today's hearing is about ensuring more individuals have
opportunities to pursue and advance careers in the tech
industry too.
The creation of one high tech job is projected to create
4.3 other jobs in a local economy.
Because a job is the opportunity it's vital that these
opportunities are available to people of all walks of life.
A vibrant and dynamic workplace with women, people of
color, people with disabilities, and more reflects the promise
of America where no matter who you are, you can achieve your
version of the American dream.
Oftentimes it may look different and I'm excited about more
opportunities for those with disabilities to work because of
more commitments to accommodations and job coaches.
Employing people with disabilities fosters innovation and
it creates a stronger workplace culture.
Many tech companies are leading in hiring people on the
autism spectrum because of their unique abilities for attention
to detail, and abilities to detect patterns.
Take a software testing company called, ULTRA Testing. The
founder's wife one day told him:
``We spend all this time focused on things these children
may never be good at but we spend no time nurturing the skills
they already have a talent for--isn't that a shame?''
He agreed, and got to work hiring people with autism to
leverage their strengths. Now ULTRA Testing, a startup, is
outperforming bigger companies in software quality assurance.
This month we are also celebrating Women's History Month.
It's a time to celebrate the women who are leading in tech
being disruptors and inspiring our next generation of
transformational women leaders.
Again, it may look different. Women have different
leadership styles.
And research is showing that we have greater understanding
for teams and systems and we foster a healthy workplace
culture.
When women are not leading at the table. our perspectives
and our voices aren't represented.
A study by McKinsey shows that companies with women in
executive positions outperformed the average profitability of
their industries by 21 percent.
Tech companies that don't open the door for women to shine
and be decision makers risk being left behind.
Yes, that means hiring more women but it also means
fostering an environment focused on retention and the promotion
of women too.
America is leading the world in innovation.
Every single day, entrepreneurs from all walks of life are
taking an idea making it a reality and creating more
opportunities for hardworking people across the country.
Again, that's the Promise of America. It's not the promise
for just some people or the somebodies in Silicon Valley. It's
a promise for everyone.
When we celebrate every person's strengths and abilities
and embrace what every person has to offer we are living up to
that promise.
I recognize there's been tremendous efforts like recruiting
more girls into STEM and hiring people with disabilities, like
at ULTRA Testing.
We need to continue to do more to address the pipeline,
whether it's young people of every background and girls in
elementary and middle school. and exceptional people with
disabilities.
We also need to focus on how we retain those individuals
once they are recruited and do more to encourage their
promotion to leadership positions.
So today, I look forward to hearing how the tech industry
is leading on this and where you can also do better.
Thank you to our witnesses.
I yield back.
Ms. Schakowsky. The gentlewoman yields back. And now, the
Chair recognizes Mr. Pallone, chairman of the full committee,
for 5 minutes for his opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK PALLONE, Jr., A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY
Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Madam Chair.
As this subcommittee knows well, the influence of the
internet and technology in our lives has grown exponentially
over the past two decades, and our daily lives as consumers and
workers have become dependent on technology. But while the U.S.
has become more and more diverse, the workforce of the
technology sector has not kept up. And we are seeing the
effects of that in the products and services we use, like the
wearable fitness trackers that don't work for people with dark
skin, online job advertisements targeted at men over women, and
websites with buttons and links too small for people with motor
impairments to use.
Without inclusive workforces, too often product design
leaves people out, and the result can be embarrassing for the
company when discovered and harmful for society when a
discriminatory result is not identified and fixed. These are
complicated and often uncomfortable discussions, but they are
necessary to start to make changes.
The Congressional Black Caucus launched its Tech 2020
Initiative in 2015 and has been working to hold companies
accountable since. And several members of this committee have
been working on these issues for years.
I would like to yield time to some of them today. So, I
will start beginning with Mr. Lujan. I would yield 1 minute to
him.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pallone follows:]
Prepared statement of Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr.
As this subcommittee knows well, the influence of the
Internet and technology in our lives has grown exponentially
over the past two decades. Our daily lives as consumers and
workers have become dependent on technology.
But while the United States has become more and more
diverse, the workforce of the technology sector has not kept
up. And we are seeing the effects of that in the products and
services we use-like wearable fitness trackers that don't work
for people with dark skin, online job advertisements targeted
at men over women, and websites with buttons and links too
small for people with motor impairments to use. Without
inclusive workforces, too often product design leaves people
out. The result can be embarrassing for the company when
discovered and harmful for society when a discriminatory result
is not identified and fixed.
These are complicated and often uncomfortable discussions,
but they are necessary to start to make changes. The
Congressional Black Caucus launched its Tech 2020 initiative in
2015 and has been working to hold companies accountable since.
And several members of this committee have been working on
these issues for years. I'd like to yield time to some of them
today, beginning with Mr. Lujan for 1 minute.
Thank you, I will also yield a minute to Mr. Butterfield
for 1 minute.
Thank you. And I will yield my final minute to Mr. Rush.
Mr. Lujan. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I thank
our Chair and our ranking member for this important hearing.
When it comes to diversity in tech, let me be clear, more
is needed. The tech industry is not where it needs to be on
this issue. Representation of women and people of color in tech
companies lags the rest of corporate America, and this matters.
As Dr. Lee notes in her testimony, the absence of diversity
among the people that make the decisions around products and
services for the tech sector and the markets that these
companies serve hurts us all. This lack of diversity informs
the algorithms that determine whether people get a loan or a
job, impacts how much people pay for everyday products and
services. Investigations and studies have shown that these
algorithms often have biased results and discriminatory
outcomes.
It is one reason why I am reintroducing the Accountable
Capitalism Act with the inclusion of diversity language, to
push corporations to make more socially responsible decisions.
Action and accountability are a must.
And I yield back.
Mr. Pallone. And, Madam Chair, I would now like to yield a
minute to Mr. Butterfield.
Mr. Butterfield. Thank you, Chairman Pallone. Thank you,
Chairwoman Schakowsky.
For too long, the promise of the internet age for
communities of color has been left unfulfilled. Technology is a
fast-growing and lucrative industry, employing thousands every
year. However, the rate of racial minorities in tech industries
has not increased at a sufficient rate. This is unacceptable,
Madam Chair, considering the number of capable racial minority
students and workers that are available.
The problem is exacerbated by insufficient resources in K-
12 schools to HBCUs and often low expectations for our minority
students. Studies show that African-American children enter
kindergarten at a competitive disadvantage. To close the gap in
tech, we must give our students the resources they need to
compete, not starting in college, but in the earliest stages of
primary education. Public and private sectors have a
responsibility to work together to create effective diversity
and inclusion initiatives.
The CBC Tech 2020 has been pounding tech companies now for
years. We are beginning to see modest results.
And so, I want to thank you for your effort in this space,
and I yield back.
Mr. Pallone. Thank you.
Before I yield to Mr. Rush for the last minute, I just want
to say, as you could probably tell, Mr. Rush had a subcommittee
hearing in the Energy Subcommittee on diversity in the
workforce. And now, we are doing this in the Consumer
Protection Subcommittee with Ms. Schakowsky. Because the Energy
and Commerce Committee has jurisdiction over so many sort of
jobs of the future and areas of the future, I think it is
particularly important that we address this issue of diversity.
Mr. Rush, I yield the balance of the time.
Mr. Rush. I want to thank you, Chairman Pallone, for
yielding. And I want to thank you, Chairwoman Schakowsky, for
holding this important hearing.
In the 1990s, Chicago's O'Hare Airport, the world's busiest
airport at the time, became the first to install touchless
faucets. This innovation's promise of making things more
sanitary and wasting less water were anticlimactic, however,
when it was shown that these faucets had difficulties in
recognizing the hands of black and brown Americans. While
seemingly trivial, this is just one example of the real-world
impediments that people of color across the Nation face because
of their lack of representation in the technology industry.
This same phenomenon has been repeated in facial
recognition technology that mistakenly identified 28 Members of
Congress, myself included, in search engines that provide ads
related to criminal record history when associating, quote,
``black-sounding names,'' end of quote.
Madam Chairman, it should be clear that, while the issue
and emergency in tech may seem like a relatively
straightforward problem, its ramifications are much bigger and
go much deeper than it would appear. Madam Chairman, progress
and innovation must go beyond being just skin deep.
So, I thank you for holding this hearing and I look forward
to hearing from the witnesses.
And, Madam Chair, I would like unanimous consent to submit
a New York Times article about mistakes in facial recognition
for the record.
And thank you. I yield back the balance of my time.
Ms. Schakowsky. Without objection, so ordered.
[The article appears at the conclusion of the hearing. The
prepared statement of Mr. Rush follows:]
Prepared statement of Hon. Bobby L. Rush
Thank you, Chairman Pallone, for yielding. And thank you,
Chairwoman Schakowsky, for holding this important hearing.
In the 1990s, Chicago's O'Hare Airport--the world's busiest
airport, at the time--became the first to install touchless
faucets. This innovation's promise of making things more
sanitary and wasting less water were anticlimactic, however,
when it was shown that these faucets had difficulty in
recognizing Black and Brown Americans' hands.
While seemingly trivial, this is just one example of the
real-world impediments that people of color across the country
face because of the lack of representation in the technology
industry. This same phenomenon has been repeated in facial
recognition technology that mistakenly identified 28 Members of
Congress, myself included, and in search engines that provide
ads related to criminal record history when searching ``Black
sounding'' names.
Madame Chairwoman, it should be clear that while the issue
of diversity in tech may seem like a relatively straightforward
problem, its ramifications are much bigger and go much deeper
than it would appear.
So, I thank you for holding this hearing and look forward
to hearing from the witnesses.
Madame Chairwoman, I ask unanimous consent to submit a New
York Times article about mistakes in facial recognition for the
record.
Thank you, I yield back the balance of my time.
Ms. Schakowsky. And I want to thank the ranking member for
her indulgence on going over some time.
Next, I will yield 5 minutes to Mr. Hudson, who has been
designated to take the place of our ranking member of the full
committee, Mr. Walden.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD HUDSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA
Mr. Hudson. Thank you, Madam Chair.
This is my first opportunity publicly to say
congratulations on your chairmanship. I look forward to working
with you and finding common ground where we can work together.
I know you are going to provide strong leadership.
Thank you for recognizing me.
I would say that today we have an exceptional panel of
witnesses here to examine inclusion and diversity in tech. I am
proud to represent a district that has many institutions of
higher education that have recognized the value a diverse
workforce brings to the table.
As a member of the Historically Black Colleges and
Universities Caucus, I have seen firsthand how these
institutions greatly contribute and prepare our students for a
21st century workforce. Fayetteville State University is a
prime example of this leadership. Because of their great track
record, they are a recent recipient of a $2 million grant from
the project Strengthening Student Success in STEM. The project
at Fayetteville State University seeks to build on previous
successful efforts to increase the participation of African-
American students in STEM disciplines through education and
research.
Additionally, we will examine ways to include other groups
of individuals, including service-disabled veterans and
military spouses. My district is home to the epicenter of the
universe, Fort Bragg, home of the Airborne Special Operations
Forces. Our community is no stranger to supporting these
groups, and we understand the value that they bring to our
community.
Many businesses and entrepreneurs in the tech space have
started in our community, including RLM Communications, a
minority-owned and service-disabled, veteran-owned small
business which has repeatedly been recognized for its
outstanding work.
The fact is that a variety of experiences and perspectives
yield better results. That is exactly what diversity brings to
the table. That is why I have been proud to work very closely
with Chairman Rush the past two Congresses on the issue of
diversity in our 21st century energy economy and preparing our
students for those jobs, particularly minority students and
disadvantaged groups. And I look forward to working with my
colleagues on this important issue here in the tech industry as
well.
With that, Madam Chair, I would like to yield the balance
of my time to my good friend from Montana, Mr. Gianforte.
Mr. Gianforte. Thank you, Mr. Hudson, for the recognition.
Getting more Americans working in tech businesses increases
opportunities for all of our communities, not just in Silicon
Valley. In Montana, we continually face a workforce
availability challenge across most businesses. It is
particularly pronounced, however, in the high-tech sector. In
the software business that I built in Montana, we were always
competing to get the best and the brightest. Rather than go far
and abroad, however, we worked to develop people from within.
Recently, I had the pleasure of spending a day with fourth-
graders at Bozeman's Emily Dickinson School during their hour
of code. Allowing the kids time to engage in coding early
increases awareness and drew new faces into the field. Using
prewritten code, these students were able to blow up their
screens and make farm animals talk. They were having fun and
they were learning at the same time.
Another successful program for the State has been Code
Montana. This class brings high school students into the
computer lab. Students experiment with JavaScript and other
programs to create their own apps and earn college credit.
Over 90 percent of Montana parents want their kids to study
computer science. Unfortunately, only 40 percent of our public
schools offer this curriculum.
Our company understood that we needed to grow our workforce
organically, and we recognized the challenges facing our local
schools. We started working with the local university, Montana
State, to develop cutting-edge computer science programs. Other
entrepreneurs developed classes to develop their employees for
the next generation. And through organizations like the Montana
High Tech Business Alliance, we created space to share ideas
and address challenges facing tech in Montana. We are making
progress, but there is still a lot more to do. I look forward
to the testimony and the discussion as we look for solutions.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Ms. Schakowsky. Mr. Hudson, do you yield back?
Mr. Hudson. I do.
Ms. Schakowsky. OK. Thank you.
So, the Chair wants to remind Members that, pursuant to
committee rules, all Members' written opening statements shall
be made part of the record.
And now, I would like to introduce our illustrious panel
and our witnesses.
First, we have Mr. Mark Luckie, digital media strategist
and former manager at Facebook and Twitter.
Dr. Joan Ferrini-Mundy, president of the University of
Maine, welcome.
Ms. Jiny Kim, Vice President of Policy and Programs at
Asian Americans Advancing Justice.
Dr. Nicol Turner Lee, fellow at the Center for Technology
Innovation, Governance Studies, at the Brookings Institution.
Ms. Natalie Oliverio, CEO of Military Talent Partners.
Ms. Jill Houghton, president and CEO of Disability:IN.
And Mr. David Lopez, counsel at Outten & Golden, LLP, and
co-dean of the Rutgers Law School.
And we are missing somebody, right? Did I get everybody?
OK, I guess it is Natalie Oliverio, who is not here yet.
OK. So, let's begin, then, with Mr. Luckie, 5 minutes.
STATEMENTS OF MARK S. LUCKIE, DIGITAL MEDIA STRATEGIST AND
FORMER MANAGER, TWITTER AND FACEBOOK; JOAN FERRINI-MUNDY,
PH.D., PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF MAINE; JINY KIM, VICE
PRESIDENT, POLICY AND PROGRAMS, ASIAN AMERICANS ADVANCING
JUSTICE; NICOL TURNER LEE, PH.D., FELLOW, CENTER FOR TECHNOLOGY
INNOVATION, GOVERNANCE STUDIES, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION; NATALIE
OLIVERIO, FOUNDER AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, MILITARY TALENT
PARTNERS; JILL HOUGHTON, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER,
DISABILITY:IN, AND DAVID LOPEZ, CO-DEAN, RUTGERS LAW SCHOOL-
NEWARK
STATEMENT OF MARK S. LUCKIE
Mr. Luckie. Chairwoman Schakowsky and members of the
committee, I thank you for the invitation to participate in
today's hearing on inclusion in tech.
From toddlers to seniors, technology has become a vital
part of the lives of many Americans. However, the way we use
these tech products is not singular. Gender, age, race,
ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, religion, political
beliefs, geographic location, and other factors can all
dramatically change the way people interact with a product.
And yet, the hundreds of thousands of people who are
creating these technologies remain mostly homogeneous. The tech
industry continues to be populated by mostly white and Asian
men. Diversity is an integral part of the fabric of America,
but that is not reflected in the companies that affect the
lives of millions of this country's citizens.
In my time as a manager at tech companies, including
Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit, I have seen firsthand the issues
around diversity that continue to plague the industry. The
concerns surrounding the lack of diversity at U.S. technology
companies is not just about the fair treatment of their
employees.
What is even more alarming is the discrimination built into
the products emerging from Silicon Valley companies, from the
use of artificial intelligence software, more likely to flag
black defendants as future criminals; Asian-Americans being
charged higher prices for online test prep; apps lightening the
skin of users to make them more attractive; Amazon's recruiting
tool penalizing resumes that included the word ``women's,'' to
Facebook's real-name policy that discriminates against Native
American names and transgender people.
In many of these instances, the transgressions were
unintentional and later corrected, but most of these oversights
can be mitigated by employing and retaining staff from diverse
backgrounds in an environment that welcomes all voices.
Statistically, tech companies are not doing that. In 2017, at
eight of the largest tech companies in the U.S., women, on
average, made up a little over 30 percent of the staff; 4.2
percent were black, and 6 percent were Latinx, according to the
company's self-reported numbers. While there is a
disproportionately high number of Asians who work in tech,
industry data shows they are the least likely to attain a
leadership role.
One of the common explanations of why there is a lack of
diversity in Silicon Valley is the pipeline. Tech companies
argue that there are not enough women and people of color
graduating with degrees in computer science. However, there are
more women and people of color with tech-related degrees that
are graduating than are actually being hired.
The discussions around the pipeline also ignore an obvious,
but overlooked fact. Most jobs at tech companies are not in
engineering. At least one-third of the jobs listed in the
career websites of many of the top tech companies are on
nonengineering teams.
There is a common refrain in Silicon Valley: ``We can't
lower the bar.'' This term is widely understood to infer that
black, Latinx, and women candidates are less qualified. Their
hiring would be a token, putting them over more qualified white
or Asian male candidates, who in some cases are actually
equally or sometimes less qualified.
When women and people of color are hired, they often face
unwelcoming environments that upend the great work they came to
do. Half of all diverse employees said they see bias as part of
their day-to-day work experience, according to a recent study.
Women in tech are leaving the industry at nearly double the
rate as men. A person over 40 at a tech company is a rarity,
and even more so if they are not in a managerial position.
Despite all these challenges, we are thriving. We are
leaders impacting our communities and executing the ideas that
are transforming the landscape of technology and beyond. Tech
companies need to recognize the greatness or risk losing some
of the industry's most brilliant minds.
A study by McKinsey found that ethnically diverse companies
were more than 35 percent more likely to outperform their
industry counterparts. And companies in the bottom quartile,
both for gender and for ethnicity and race, are statistically
less likely to achieve above-average financial returns.
Superficial proclamations from corporate leaders are not
enough. It is time to stop saying we can do better and to start
being better.
For Congress and this committee, more oversight of this
Nation's tech companies is absolutely necessary. Continuing to
learn about how the industry functions in hearings like this
will lead to better economic solutions for all Americans.
Tech companies must do their part, step up, and reflect the
ideals of equality, democracy, and justice for all, on which
this country was founded.
Thank you for this opportunity to share, and I look forward
to answering questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Luckie follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you very much.
Next, I want to invite Dr. Joan Ferrini-Mundy for 5
minutes.
STATEMENT OF JOAN FERRINI-MUNDY
Dr. Ferrini-Mundy. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman
Schakowsky, Ranking Member Rodgers, and members of the
subcommittee. Thank you for inviting me here today.
My name is Joan Ferrini-Mundy, and since July of 2018, I
have been the president of the University of Maine and the
University of Maine at Machias.
I plan to comment on the roles of institutions of higher
education in the preparation of a diverse STEM and technology
workforce that is ready to solve problems and innovate through
diversity, and to provide pathways, especially in STEM, for
diversity.
The mission of the University of Maine is to advance
learning and discovery through excellence and innovation in
undergraduate and graduate academic programs while addressing
the complex challenges and opportunities of the 21st century
through research-based knowledge.
Our population on our campus of about 11,000 students in
Orono, Maine, is 51 percent women. Our geographic diversity is
above the national average, but we are below the national
average in racial and ethnic diversity. White students comprise
about 82 percent of our student body, and 12 percent of our
students are black or African-American, Hispanic, or Latino,
and other races and ethnicities.
In addition to diversity of race, gender, and ethnicity, at
U Maine we have diversity on the dimensions of age, sexual
orientation, socioeconomic status, religion, disability,
disciplinary background, veteran service, and experience. In
Maine, 47 percent of precollege students are economically
disadvantaged. Twenty-six percent of our entering students are
first-generation college students.
For some college students, the diverse environments of
higher education are their first experience with people
different from themselves and from their home communities. Our
institutions need to be skilled and effective in supporting
their success and opening up their pathways into the tech
industries and into the STEM fields more generally. At the
University of Maine, we have more than 40 different
organizations and initiatives to support our diverse students.
Scott Page has argued that people from different
backgrounds have varying ways of looking at problems. There is
certainly a lot of evidence that people's identity groups,
ethnic, racial, sexual, age, matter when it comes to diversity
in thinking. And as we have heard, their solutions to problems
will be equitable and more effective.
One function of the university is to prepare leaders and a
workforce for tomorrow. And universities across the country are
doing so with inclusive, cross-disciplinary STEM programs,
research to better understand and ensure inclusion, support
services to promote student success, curriculum and instruction
designed to build from the diversity on our campuses and to
engage diverse students, and through partnerships.
Through the University of Maine, for example, students,
faculty, and staff from around the world and from very diverse
backgrounds come together in our Graduate School for the
Biomedical Sciences and Engineering to participate in
convergence research. They work in molecular and cellular
biology, bioinformatics and genomics, toxicology, neuroscience,
and biomedical engineering, to address some of tomorrow's
biggest challenges. And the diversity that they bring to those
challenges is absolutely essential.
Our campus Center on Aging promotes and facilitates
activities on aging and aging-related education and training
programs. Our Center for Community Inclusion and Disability
Studies partners with the community to enhance the lives of
individuals with disabilities and their families.
In Maine, within 1 year of high school graduation, 50
percent of economically disadvantaged youth are enrolled in
higher education compared to 75 percent of noneconomically
disadvantaged youth. Enabling all students to be able to attain
degrees is critical for the diversity that we discuss here
today. The University of Maine is addressing this through a new
First Year Student Initiative.
Some of our focus is directly in the curriculum. With
funding from the National Science Foundation INCLUDES Program,
U Maine anthropologist Dr. Darren Ranco and colleagues are
developing the Wabanaki Youth in Science Program to bridge
inclusion in postsecondary education through the sciences. The
team is developing a course that brings together traditional
ecological knowledge and Western science for undergraduates.
The success of this ongoing effort will depend upon diversity
and student engagement with ideas that are unfamiliar and with
experts who bring diverse experiences.
I would like to also mention that the University of Maine
system partners with Educate Maine in a project to match
students with internships and full-time jobs in computing
occupations. And we hope to bring underrepresented minorities,
women, and rural students to pursue a variety of experiential
learning opportunities.
In closing, our Nation's diversity is a resource for
learning and for solving the most complex problems of our
times. As technologies and advances lead to changes in our
workplace, new generations of STEM professionals will bring
their collective diversity to bear on improvements and
innovations. U.S. higher education has a key role to play in
ensuring the pathways for inclusive learning environments, so
that those professionals are ready to make a difference.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Ferrini-Mundy follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Schakowsky. Right on the dot. Thank you.
Ms. Jiny Kim, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF JINY KIM
Ms. Kim. Good morning, Chairwoman Schakowsky, Ranking
Member Rodgers, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for
the opportunity to testify on the importance of diversity in
the technology sector.
My name is Jiny Kim, and I am vice president for policy and
programs at Asian Americans Advancing Justice, AAJC, a national
civil rights organization dedicated to advancing the civil and
human rights of Asian-Americans and building and promoting a
fair and equitable society for all.
The economic rationale for diversity has been well-
documented in numerous studies. Companies in the top quartile
in terms of racial diversity are 35 percent more likely to have
financial returns higher than the national median in their
industry. But, despite this economic reality, women and people
of color have historically been excluded from both the rank and
file and from positions of leadership within tech companies.
According to the EEOC, African Americans and Latinos were
underrepresented in the tech sector by 16 to 18 percentage
points compared with their presence in the American labor force
overall.
While there is a higher representation of Asians in the
tech workforce, they are still underrepresented in nontechnical
roles compared to their presence in technical roles, and they
are disproportionately left out of C-suite positions.
While the effort companies are making to provide
transparency in their diversity data should be appreciated,
there remain issues in how that data is reported. Asian-
Americans and Pacific Islanders include over 50 different
ethnic groups and over 100 languages and dialects. Yet,
companies fail to disaggregate the data, resulting in
overlooking the most underrepresented and historically
marginalized AAPI communities with lower levels of educational
attainment, higher rates of poverty, and larger populations
with limited English proficiency. When these groups are left
out, those efforts by industry and other stakeholders to
encourage recruitment and build pipelines from diverse
communities remain incomplete.
Not surprisingly, tech companies have developed digital
tools to review the myriad applications for positions in their
companies. The problem with this approach is that the ideal
profile being used as a model reflects a majority white culture
and the resulting unconscious bias.
Issues are not limited to recruitment, and greater effort
is also needed to retain employees of color and women. Some
tech companies have taken the important step of reporting
attrition rates of employees from diverse backgrounds, as well
as supporting their employees through mentorship programs and
employee resource groups. We applaud these efforts as positive
steps toward understanding what is needed to retain diverse
staff and eventually place them in the leadership pipeline.
Now it is a common understanding among civil society
organizations that the prejudice, ignorance, and the hate we
combat in real life live in the digital space as well. Tech
companies that foster a majority white male employee base feed
their own biases into the machines they create.
In the criminal justice system, we see disturbing examples
of algorithmic bias. Courts have begun using predictive
software to sentence convicted individuals. ProPublica
published an account of two individuals who separately
committed shoplifting. One was African-American, and the other
was white. When a sentencing algorithm was used to predict the
likelihood of each committing a future crime, the African-
American individual was rated a higher risk, even though she
had only committed misdemeanors as a juvenile, while the white
individual had previously been convicted of attempted armed
robbery. Two years later, the computer algorithm was proven
wrong, with only the white individual having committed a
felony.
Further alarming is facial recognition technology. In 2015,
this technology came under scrutiny when software incorrectly
categorized photos of African Americans as primates. Despite
this incident, companies have still failed to take adequate
action. Studies published as recently as last year found that
facial recognition algorithms had significantly higher error
rates detecting the gender of darker-skinned individuals
compared to lighter-skinned individuals.
Given the magnitude of the impact of lack of diversity in
tech, a serious culture shift must take place. And civil rights
organizations like Advancing Justice, AAJC, have already begun
to play their part. Last month, we joined more than 40 advocacy
groups in sending a letter to congressional leaders urging them
to put civil and human rights at the center of the digital
privacy discourse. And tech companies have begun engaging our
organizations on diversity and inclusion issues and taking part
in civil rights audits.
The tech sector has transformed the way we communicate and
connect with one another. We must ensure that the development
of technological products, services, and experiences leave no
one behind and do not harm communities of color. In order to do
so, employees who create these innovative tools must reflect
the diversity of the communities that the companies seek to
reach.
Thank you for this opportunity.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Kim follows:]\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ A February 2017 report entitled ``Breaking the Mold: Investing
in Racial Diversity in Tech'' submitted by Ms. Kim has been retained in
committee files and also is available as part of her written testimony
at https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF17/20190306/108901/HHRG-116-
IF17-Wstate-KimJ-20190306.pdf.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you.
We do have that letter in the record from last year, from
the last hearing rather. So, thank you for that.
And next, I want to recognize Dr. Nicol Turner Lee for 5
minutes.
STATEMENT OF NICOL TURNER LEE
Dr. Turner Lee. Thank you. Good morning, Chairwoman
Schakowsky, Ranking Member Rodgers, and members of the
subcommittee.
I am encouraged by your interest in this topic,
particularly as some of the members of the subcommittee have
worked to diversity your own staff.
Let me start just by stating again what Congressman Lujan
summarized from my written testimony. The absence of diversity
among the people who make decisions around products and
services, along with the markets that these companies and the
tech serve, will ultimately lead the U.S. to abysmal failure.
With the U.S. population predicted to become minority white
in 2045, tech companies that do not fully embrace diversity
will ultimately compromise the quality of future technologies
and make it difficult for all people to gain the benefits of
the digital revolution.
Today, existing and emerging technologies are helping to
solve complex social problems through automation, advanced
scientific research, and artificial intelligence, while
disrupting legacy industries and widely accepted norms. Yet,
despite this growth, African Americans and Hispanics remain
vastly underrepresented in the computer and mathematical
fields, 7.9 percent and 6.8 percent, respectively, compared to
whites, which are over at least 12 to 14 percent.
In fact, African Americans and Hispanics are the most
underrepresented in certain tech jobs by nearly 50 percent.
Less than 5 percent of the tech workforce in social media
companies is African-American, with similar findings for
Hispanics and certain Asian-American populations.
The irony here is that 35 percent of Hispanics and 24
percent of African Americans have no other online connection,
except through their smartphones and mobile devices, compared
to 14 percent whites, but they are connected to the
applications and the platforms that actually run off these
devices. Without them, they have no other way to live, learn,
earn, vote, and network. These mismatched realities also make
these populations most susceptible to digital disruption when
the jobs that they once held are automated and eliminated or
predatory products and services are marketed to them online on
an ongoing basis.
So, this is why diversity matters. In certain sectors of
tech, there is a talent pipeline problem, leaving empty pockets
of workforce diversity in board, C-suite, and other leadership
positions. And this human resource problem ultimately impacts
the design, implementation, and evaluation of products and
services, some of which are collectively profiling,
surveilling, and even discriminating against protected classes.
That is why we are here today.
I am going to just summarize in my closing remarks three
things that I have actually put forth that I think Congress and
the tech sector should do.
First, tech companies must be more deliberate and
systematic in the recruitment, hiring, and retention of diverse
talent and change the sources for where they find talent of
color. Historically Black Colleges and Universities and
Hispanic-serving institutions are often discounted in remedying
pipeline concerns. Yet, 22 percent of African-American college
students graduate from one of the 101 HBCUs and offer some of
the Nation's most gifted talent which are prepared to work in
Silicon Valley. Yet, those colleges are not the source for
where we actually look for talent.
In addition to that, they may be challenged by the
resources that HBCUs and HSIs find. The appropriations that go
to those universities and colleges are often comparable to
others; therefore, reducing their ability to entice a tech
center to actually hire them. Congress, we must do better than
that.
Second, tech companies must explore ethical and
collaborative frameworks that explore the intended and
unintended biases of algorithms and deploy solutions that quell
these biases. With big data being collected in real time from
users at all times, people are now being denied credit based on
their web-browsing history or aggregated predictive analytics
are wrongly determining a person's suitability for employment
or applying a longer prison sentence. These are deplorable, and
we need to work together, as my colleagues have said, to
increase the pipeline, so we can make less of these mistakes.
Even among members of the Congressional Black Caucus, facial
recognition technology wrongly associated them with arrest
records 90 percent of the time, and I know my distinguished
members of the CBC aren't those people.
And finally, I would say this inattentional blindness is a
problem in the tech sector that should no longer be tolerable.
The strength of the online economy proves that it is no longer
insulated from the guardrails designed for other regulated
industries, especially those that establish baseline
protections against discrimination.
Congress should consider review and the potential
modernization of civil rights law and apply them to certain
online cases. We did it in the case of housing. We did it in
the case of civil rights. We have done it in the case of equal
opportunity, and we should do it in the online space.
Thank you very much, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Turner Lee follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you very much.
Next, we will recognize Ms. Natalie Oliverio. You are
recognized for 5 minutes. Welcome.
STATEMENT OF NATALIE OLIVERIO
Ms. Oliverio. Thank you so much for allowing me to testify
before you this morning.
My name is Natalie Oliverio, and I am a post-9/11 Navy
veteran, the founder and CEO of Military Talent Partners.
And too frequently, too often, veterans and military
spouses are left out of the diversity conversation. It doesn't
naturally occur to you to think of them as diverse individuals,
but less than 1 percent of our country today serves. So, when
you serve in the military or you are a spouse supporting your
significant other as they serve, time doesn't stand still. The
world keeps moving without you while you are serving your
country. The military is its own business and it has ever job
type, skill, and capability to run on its own, and those skills
really prepare veterans to do anything.
But I talk with companies every single day who feel that
they don't have jobs suitable for veterans. They don't have
security-type or protective work, which is what they believe
that veterans are qualified and capable of doing. There have
been massive steps forward in the programs offered, the
trainings available, and the abilities that veterans can then
leverage to their second careers. But not everyone knows about
them because they are just left out of the conversation, even
more so for military spouses.
For veterans, unemployment isn't really the issue anymore.
It is more of underemployment. Meaningful careers make all the
difference. From an extreme case of contributing to 22 suicides
a day in the veteran communities, meaningful careers can put a
stop to that. Meaningful careers for military spouses help them
provide for their families when today's economy really needs a
two-income household. Putting your life on hold to support your
spouse as they are service member is a major sacrifice, but in
today's job market they are seen as risky hires or job-hoppers,
but that is not the case at all. So, we have a lot of
stereotypes to overcome, but those challenges can be overcome
by adding veterans and military spouses to the conversations
around diversity and inclusion.
I, myself, had a very difficult transition from active duty
post-9/11, and I thought I had it all figured out, but I didn't
know what kind of resources were available to me and what kind
of possibilities existed. So, I struggled for years to find my
niche, and that has been my motivation to lead the way in
mentorship and coaching for all active-duty transitioning
service members, military spouses, and Gold Star families, to
help them find and obtain the meaningful careers for them.
But that is just one small step. There is a lot of work to
be done. It is really up to Congress to lead the way for more
veteran initiatives, and not just the initiatives and programs
that are benefitting us today, but to make it known,
widespread, so there is no question about the capabilities that
a military spouse or a veteran brings to the corporate world
today.
Thank you so much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Oliverio follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you.
And now, Ms. Jill Houghton is recognized for 5 minutes.
Thank you.
STATEMENT OF JILL HOUGHTON
Ms. Houghton. Chairman Schakowsky, Ranking Member McMorris
Rodgers, members of the committee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify today.
My name is Jill Houghton. I am the president and chief
executive officer of a nonprofit called Disability:IN, and we
exist to help business achieve disability inclusion and
equality. We have over 50 affiliates across the country. We
represent more than 170 major Fortune 1000 corporations, and
almost one-quarter of those corporations operate within the
technology industry.
My testimony is rooted in my personal experience. I am a
female leader and I have a nonapparent disability. And I really
want to focus on three issues today. I think it is really
important that you remember that disability is an important
component of diversity. No. 2, disability drives business
performance. And No. 3, disability inclusion drives innovation.
Disability knows no stranger. Race, gender, ethnicity,
sexual orientation, gender identity, it can happen to any one
of us at anytime in our life. According to the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 4 Americans live with a
disability, and disability is often forgotten. We are said to
be the silent ``D'' in diversity. And yet, there are 61 million
Americans living with disabilities. So, we are an integral part
of diversity.
When the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in
1990, that was opportunity, economic opportunity, for people
with disabilities, but the one thing that it couldn't do was
legislate attitudes. And so, we know that, when we look at the
Bureau of Labor Statistics in January of 2019, that the labor
force participation rate for people with disabilities was 20.5
percent versus people without disabilities of 68.3 percent.
At Disability:IN, we have committed our self to helping
corporate America with data and insight. In that spirit, we
have joined forces with the American Association of People with
Disabilities to create something called the Disability Equality
Index. This is the Nation's trusted disability inclusion
benchmark, because business wants to do better. and it looks at
things like leadership and culture, employment practices,
community engagement, enterprisewide access, and supplier
diversity. The technology industry actively participates in the
DEI, and we are growing by 30 percent every year.
The companies that score an 80 or above are publicly
acknowledged on our website at disabilityequalityindex.org and
ranked as the best place to work for people with disabilities.
But I will tell you, even the companies that are scoring a
hundred would be the first to tell you that they don't have it
all figured out, that they want to do better, but there is a
lot more work to do.
Using the Disability Equality Index, we teamed with
Accenture, because what we know, if we are going to take
disability inclusion and diversity to the board room, to the C-
suite, we need the business case. So, we teamed with Accenture.
They studied the first 4 years of data. They worked with
Vanguard and algorithms. What they found in getting to equal
the disability inclusion advantage is that, on average,
companies, leading companies, that are driving disability
inclusion rated 28 percent in higher revenue, double the net
income, and 30 percent higher economic profit margins than
their peers. Disability inclusion impacts business performance.
With that concrete evidence, we confirmed that disability
inclusion is good for business and investors are viewing it as
the next frontier in environment, social, and governance
investing. We rolled out that report on the floor of the Stock
Exchange and Wall Street. And the Comptroller DiNapoli from New
York State has issued a letter--he runs the third largest
pension fund in the Nation--to the top Nasdaq companies calling
on them to ask what they are doing around disability inclusion.
And last, disability inclusion drives innovation. We like
to say that inclusion and disability, at the nexus is
accessibility, and without accessibility, we have got nothing.
And so, that is very important, that the tech sector continue
to focus on building accessibility and driving disability
inclusion.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Houghton follows:]\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ A report entitled ``The 2018 Disability Equality Index: A
Record Year for Corporate Disability Inclusion and Leadership''
submitted by Ms. Houghton has been retained in committee files and also
is available as part of her written testimony at https://
docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF17/20190306/108901/HHRG-116-IF17-Wstate-
HoughtonJ-20190306.pdf.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Schakowsky. And next, Dean David Lopez, you are
recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF DAVID LOPEZ
Mr. Lopez. Thank you very much, Chairwoman Schakowsky,
Ranking Member Rodgers, members of the subcommittee, for
inviting me to this very important hearing.
My name is David Lopez, and I am currently the co-dean of
Rutgers Law School in Newark. Over the last 100 years, Rutgers
Law School has stood as an exemplary model of a public
institution that both welcomes and promotes diversity,
meaningful sociability, and leverages the law to achieve
equality of opportunity in the public, private, and nonprofit
sectors. We believe we have normalized the idea of opportunity.
From 2010 to 2016, I was the longest-serving general
counsel of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,
twice nominated by President Barack Obama and twice confirmed
by the U.S. Senate. I was the first Latino selected to this
position, and in the capacity as general counsel, I led the
litigation program charged with enforcing Federal
antidiscrimination statutes nationwide. So, I come here both as
an educator and as a lifelong civil rights practitioner.
During the last 30 years, technology has transformed our
economy and changed our daily lives--how we work, how we learn,
how we make decisions, how we play. The tech industry has
produced remarkable tools and resources, providing us with
social media and new ways to connect with others, as well as
instant access to huge amounts of information.
But, as we have heard, it is no secret that the tech
industry has suffered with the persistent problem of the
absence of diversity. We have heard many of the Members here
today, from many of you, from many of the panelists. And this
all comes at a time when tech jobs are growing rapidly in our
economy.
To use the words of a very common phrase today, ``The tech
industry operates in a bubble.'' It operates in a bubble. It
operates without the cross-currents of thinking, from
reflecting the beauty of this country.
Of course, ideals of living in a discrimination-free
society with equal opportunity, these are bedrock principles
central to social mobility and the American dream. The
elimination of arbitrary barriers ensures that hard work
matters, that investing in your dreams matters.
It is well established that racial, gender, and other types
of diversity in the workplace has a positive influence on
teams, and we have heard many of those studies. Diverse teams
are more productive. Teams that are made up of individuals of
diverse backgrounds are more innovative, generally make more
error-free decisions. Further, there is convincing evidence
that increased diversity in the workplace leads to higher
revenues and increases innovation.
One of the problems I believe that the tech industry faces
is the problem of implicit bias. The science of implicit bias
is recognized as the automatic associations of stereotypes or
attitudes about a particular group. One study demonstrated
implicit bias by showing that resumes with more white-sounding
names received requests for interviews 50 percent more
frequently than the same resume with more African-American-
sounding names, but with equal or better qualifications.
A number of recent studies also suggest that isolation and
bias influenced women leaving STEM careers. Often, it is not
simply the choices that employees make that influence the
careers, but the workplace environment that drives denial of
opportunity.
Now let's talk a little bit about the products. And we have
heard many of the stories here today about the end results of
perhaps the absence of diversity. Big data analytics allows
your employer to know whether you are pregnant even before you
disclose it. That is against the law. In one high-profile
incident, one retailer, drawing on consumer data, knew a young
woman was pregnant before her parents did. Software used by
many police departments across the country that determines the
likelihood of recidivism has been shown, as discussed today, to
have a bias against African Americans. Companies are using
algorithms to determine who is likely to default on a loan or
recommit crimes, despite the algorithm's tendency to reflect
society's bias towards racial minorities.
So, all of this demonstrates that this is a very important
discussion. Diversity is important not only because it is the
right thing to do and it is a reflection of the American dream;
diversity also has consequences on these tools and these
products of predictive analytics and artificial intelligence
rapidly changing our environment, and the way that we live and
that we play in our society.
The public university has a very special role in addressing
these issues because a public university provides an
opportunity for interdisciplinary learning, for computer
science, that enshrines values of equal opportunity, fairness,
competition, and justice.
And I welcome your questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lopez follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you so much. This has been really a
wonderful panel that I think underscores how diversity is not
just a side issue.
And now, we will move to a number of questions. Each Member
will have 5 minutes to ask questions of our witnesses, and I am
going to start by recognizing myself for 5 minutes.
I just want the panel to know that there are a lot of
things going on today. The fact that there are a number of
empty chairs is not indicative of lack of interest in what you
are saying. All of your statements will be in the record, and I
expect people will be coming in and out.
So, I am going to focus on women. Just 31 percent of the
employees at Facebook are women, and that's also true at Apple.
The number of women who work in technical roles at these
companies is even lower. We also see that the female share of
computer science degrees has actually dropped from 28 percent
to 18 percent between 1993 and 2016, while at the same time the
tech industry is booming and continuing to grow at an
unprecedented rate.
This isn't a problem that will be solved overnight. But,
starting at the top, getting more women into visible technical
positions, providing role models for young women, college
students deciding on choosing a technical path of study, seems
to be a very good strategy.
So, Dean Lopez, intentional efforts to reduce the bias that
is not necessarily deliberate in recruiting have dramatically
increased opportunities for women in other fields. For example,
orchestra auditions where the musician's gender was hidden has
increased the hiring of women by over 25 percent. What are some
ways that tech companies can change their recruitment
techniques in order to adapt to the need of diversity in the
workforce?
Mr. Lopez. I thin the most important thing a tech company
can do really is provide meaningful leadership at the top. If
tech companies want to be diverse, they need to have the
leadership making very clear pronouncements that they will
examine every aspect of the work culture, the evaluation
system, the recruitment system, the promotion system, to make
sure that it is free from gender bias. And that means looking
at issues of implicit bias.
You see this particularly in pay disparities based on
gender, where you often have systems that are almost
systematically stacked against women. So, it really takes a
clear statement from leadership that diversity is important,
that inclusiveness is important.
The other thing that is really important is to really
examine how you conduct recruitment. Recruitment is often based
on sort of the tap on the shoulder, the old boys' club. It is
really important, I think, for high-tech companies to examine
their networks. As the co-dean at a public university, as a
graduate of Arizona State University, I certainly understand
the grit and the talent that you get out of those universities,
but often the Silicon Valley recruits in a very, very narrow
way, right?
And then, the last thing I want to mention is that, as
diversity relates to the end product, we have seen Amazon, for
instance, they had to stop a hiring tool because they found out
that the hiring tool itself was biased against women. The
algorithms they used were biased against women.
We have seen lawsuits recently involving Facebook's
dropdown box where women were excluded from certain job
advertisements in traditionally male industries. So, there is a
connection between the two.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you.
Funding for female entrepreneurs is minuscule compared to
men. Women receive just 2.2 percent of the venture capital
investment. This is despite the fact that women-founded
businesses generate more than two times the revenue per
investment dollar than businesses founded by men.
Ms. Kim, what do you think is happening here? What is going
on?
Ms. Kim. Much like the other economic reasons for having
diversity, you are seeing something that doesn't make sense. It
is the system that exists that needs a complete culture shift
in how to--I mean, whether it is employee recruitment or
whether it is investing in programs to recruit from diverse
populations, as well as investing in building those
opportunities for entrepreneurs as well. It doesn't make sense,
what is going on, because there is a clear economic rationale
to hire and promote from communities of color, hire and promote
women, and invest in businesses led by people of color and
women.
And so, we call on the tech sector to examine what within
the culture is going on, and, also, to engage with civil
society organizations, and civil rights organizations, in
particular, to talk to us about what is going on in the hiring
and investment practices that results in these very harmful
impacts.
Ms. Schakowsky. Yes, I wish I could get to--5 minutes goes
really fast. Maybe at the end I can open it up to others on the
panel. But, in the meantime, I want to yield for questions to
our ranking member, Ms. McMorris Rodgers.
Mrs. Rodgers. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And thank you, everyone, for being here. Excellent
testimony today.
I wanted to start with Ms. Houghton. I wanted to ask you to
speak some more to how companies can build an inclusive
workforce for people with disabilities, and address both the
physical and intellectual disabilities, and what the benefits
are that you see as a result.
I also wanted to ask you to speak and share some of the
examples of the impact of having people with disabilities in
the workforce and how that ensures products and services are
accessible to everyone.
Ms. Houghton. Thank you, Congresswoman McMorris Rodgers.
I think that what we are seeing is really driven in tech.
It is companies like Microsoft and SAP and DXC Technology that
have created these inclusive hiring programs that are based on
the premise that there is bias in their hiring process, and
they want to tear down those walls. And so, they have created
these hiring programs where they are sourcing talent with
disabilities, with all different kinds of disabilities, and
bringing them in, perhaps rather than in a typical interview,
coming in and maybe doing a two-week program. And maybe the
interview is with LEGOs and like a different kind of a process.
Because what they recognize is that the traditional models
are screening the talent out. And so, they have grown these
inclusive programs, these Autism at Work programs, and they are
putting everything out in the public domain to try to help
their peers.
I think what they are experiencing, as a result of this, is
that this talent is coming in and helping them develop new
products and tools and make things more accessible. Filing for
patents, things that wouldn't have happened if they hadn't torn
down those walls.
Mrs. Rodgers. Would you speak briefly as to the impact of
job coaches or accommodations, the internships, just very
briefly?
Ms. Houghton. Yes, people with disabilities, we come in
different shapes and sizes. The on-the-job supports when
individuals have the opportunity to perform with the right
support, they far exceed their peers. Their productivity, their
decrease in absenteeism, they stay.
Mrs. Rodgers. That is great. Thank you. Thank you for being
here.
Dr. Ferrini-Mundy, I wanted just to ask you to speak a
little bit more about how you see the commitment to science,
technology, engineering, and math helping create the pipeline,
and are you seeing that translate into the opportunities with
the tech companies, in particular?
Dr. Ferrini-Mundy. Thank you.
Absolutely. The STEM field, science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics, writ large, are often a key
foundation for people who will pursue careers in the technology
areas. And so, making certain that that basic preparation--and
I will speak specifically about mathematics; it is my own
field. And also, it is an underpinning for so much of what goes
on in the tech industry.
Making certain that our approach to engaging people in
mathematics, to instruction, is inclusive, that it attends to
differences and draws on those, and supports students to be
successful, to draw on their grit, because mathematics is not
necessarily seen as an easy kind of pursuit.
To continue, I wanted to just tack on a little bit on these
questions about internships and how companies can be more fully
engaged with diversity. Universities can be wonderful partners
and are across our Nation, our public universities, in
particular, with the private sector. And we have found that U
Maine, for example, in our engineering college, that a large
percentage, maybe 75 percent of our students have actual
internships in a variety of high-tech sectors, and those
internships turn into positions. And so, getting to know
students and making opportunities for diverse students early on
is really crucial to this whole business.
Mrs. Rodgers. Thank you.
And finally, Ms. Oliverio, would you speak, just in the 20
seconds I have left, just what do you see veterans--what are
the unique qualities that veterans can add to this
conversation?
Ms. Oliverio. Veterans are so unique. They are natural
leaders and that leadership is cultivated in an authentic way
throughout their military service. They are resilient. They can
adapt and overcome to any situation and any challenge. If tech
can just meet them where they are, they will be able to
diversify on their own.
Mrs. Rodgers. Great. Thank you all.
I yield back.
Ms. Schakowsky. I recognize Representative Castor for 5
minutes.
Ms. Castor. Thank you, Chairwoman Schakowsky.
Sharing diversity and inclusion in the technology sector
workforce and products is critical to a thriving industry.
Unfortunately, the U.S. Congress and the industry itself have
overlooked this topic for too long. So, I am glad we are
holding this hearing today.
Thank you very much, and I want to thank the witnesses for
your expert advice on what Congress can do to make the workers
in the tech sector more representative of America. Because I
believe, when that happens, business will thrive and consumers
will benefit.
In addition to your testimony, I have seen report after
report that has been rather troubling about technology
adversely affecting communities of color. Companies have given
different prices and credit card deals to consumers based upon
location, which can mean white neighborhoods are offered better
deals and prices than minority neighborhoods. Supposedly
unbiased algorithms that companies use for a variety of
different processes have been shown to produce discriminatory
results. Facial recognition software often cannot accurately
recognize people of color.
Ms. Turner Lee, these are just a few examples, but they
illustrate a larger pattern in tech of discriminatory products
and processes. What are some of the specific policies the tech
industry could adopt right now to fix this, and what should
Congress be doing?
Dr. Turner Lee. Yes, thank you for just acknowledging all
those examples. Because as we go deeper and deeper into the
tech space, I think we are going to see more of these.
I think it is important, as I recommended and, again, put
into my written testimony, that we think about a guardrail that
we have now, which are the antidiscrimination laws. I think as
we see more of these offers become discriminatory or produce a
discriminatory output, people being denied credit because of
the fact that their web-browsing history suggests that they are
not creditworthy, higher education using algorithmic
decisionmaking on whether or not kids should be accepted into
college, those types of things have, I think, implications that
we have not really looked at in connecting the physical and the
digital spaces.
So, I would implore Congress to just have a review and
analysis of what those nondiscrimination laws are and see if
there is any connection to what we actually see in the digital
space that can generate these unintended consequences. I think
that is the first.
I would also just add real quickly, I think there will be
innocuous cases, as it was suggested, where the training data
may not be correct and companies themselves will self-regulate.
I think those conversations still need to be had.
Google voluntarily removed payday ads from their search
query, just to make sure that low-income people were not being
dragged into this pathway of inequality. I think we need to see
more of that, and I think Congress can actually use the bully
pulpit in some ways to suggest that those conversations should
happen, as well as collaborations with civil society, who
actually see the outputs of this.
It is the technologist that oftentimes sits within the
vacuum, and civil society groups like AAJC, then, sort of have
to clean it up. And then, Congress has to somehow get in the
middle of these conversations.
I think more collaborative dialog to best understand how
these ecosystems work and the application of guardrails that we
have in our favor can actually help quell some of these biases.
Ms. Castor. Thank you very much.
Mr. Luckie, isn't there also a role for people of diverse
backgrounds in decisionmaking positions in these tech
companies? And how do we encourage that and what are the
barriers that prevent that from happening now?
Mr. Luckie. I think there is a lot of focus on the
managerial positions and having someone at the top that will
filter down and make a workplace more diverse. I think it is
more important on the employee level to have multiple people in
the room who can say, hey, are we testing on this particular
audience; have we thought about this particular impact on this
community?
As I said in my opening statement, making sure that those
voices are being heard, that there is an equal opportunity for
people to share those concepts, and it is important for tech
companies to do an audit of these individual teams and
understand where are the gaps in diversity, not just in the
company overall, but on the individual teams that are all
impacting the company's overall goals.
Ms. Castor. Thank you very much.
I have a few other questions. I had a group of neighbors
from Florida come and visit me who happened to be blind, and
they had a number of suggestions. My time is running out. So, I
am going to submit those to you for the record and ask you to
please send in your specific answer to those.
Thank you.
And I yield back.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you.
And now, 5 minutes to Mr. Guthrie.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate it very
much. Thanks for this hearing. This is a very important
hearing.
A couple of things. One, and this is for Dr. Ferrini-Mundy,
or anybody that would like to answer the questions, but I will
focus on you. I understand that Facebook, Google, and all the
tech companies have people in marketing in all different
degrees, but I am going to focus on the STEM side of their
businesses.
I think the Chair just said in her questions that, as we
need more computer science people, as that seems to be the
initial higher, where big money is, people in tech fields, if I
heard you correctly--I know you said it correctly--but if I
heard you correctly, 28 percent of the computer science used to
be women and now it is down to 18 percent. So, I guess my
question is, does the tech workforce in Silicon Valley or in
tech, the tech people, does it reflect the people in the tech
programs, the demographics? So, is it kind of they are hiring
who we are training or educating as a nation? And if so, how do
we get more people into it? How do we get a more diverse STEM
populace, so that there will be a more diverse technical?
Because the other side is, if it doesn't reflect that, that
means they are just really being biased in who they hire. Of
course, I am talking on the STEM side of their business, their
employees.
Dr. Ferrini-Mundy. Right.
Mr. Guthrie. OK.
Dr. Ferrini-Mundy. Thanks. And so, there are several
questions in there. I think in terms of the tech workforce,
others in this panel are more expert in the dispersed expertise
across that tech force, because I suspect it comes from a
variety of areas. That all said, we must do better in higher
education to attract people to these STEM fields, to computer
science, and to make their time in higher education much more
inclusive, so that they are a part of the groups that are,
then, going to be taking on these product questions when they
get into the tech workforce.
Mr. Guthrie. How do we get more people, a diverse group,
into the----
Dr. Ferrini-Mundy. Right.
Mr. Guthrie [continuing]. Because what happens in tech
school, not just computer, if you are talking about a
manufacturing company in Kentucky needs a computer science, I
mean a numerical control person, whether it is male, female, or
whatever, they can't find them, and we have all these people
not going to secondary schools. So, there seems to be a
breakdown in the market----
Dr. Ferrini-Mundy. Right.
Mr. Guthrie [continuing]. For getting people into the
right--no matter who they are.
Dr. Ferrini-Mundy. At U Maine, I just learned that about 47
percent of our students are in STEM fields, which is high. What
that means is that we are creating pathways from our secondary
schools that are welcoming. We do an early college program that
gives students the opportunity to study with our faculty before
they get out of high school.
I think a lot of it is about pathways and helping students
be able to see themselves in these careers, see them as
meaningful career options. And a lot of that has to do, then,
with real-world kinds of problem-solving as undergraduates, so
that it is real-world learning outside the classroom in
internships, in clinical experiences, that put them together
with people in these fields. A lot of collaboration with K-12
is crucial for this, too. It begins very early. So, all of the
work in coding, for example, that we heard about is one piece
of, I think, an important systemic effort to get people
interested, to get diverse people interested in STEM.
Mr. Guthrie. I have got a few seconds. I want to ask
another question. Anybody want to comment on how we get more
people into, a more diverse, educated group to come out, so a
pool?
Dr. Turner Lee. Yes. No, Congressman, I think it is a great
question. I mean, overall, we have a national shortage of tech
workers. So, let's just start there. I mean, in programming, we
have seen that in government where years ago there were 10 to
15 thousand people we couldn't employ in cybersecurity tech
jobs. So, if we look at the national shortage of where we are
as a country, and then, you trickle that down to diversity, it
becomes even more problematic, right?
But I think what we are seeing is this movement in colleges
and universities to sort of focus on computer science, which I
think may become a better shift. I mean, I have seen Members of
Congress, your colleagues, sort of introduce computer science
as a national initiative. It has not been a national priority.
People, you know, they change where they are in terms of
their leaning towards STEM. There are studies that say, with
African-American children, if a young African-American boy is
not actually focused on math by sixth grade, it is less likely
that he will pursue a STEM career when he goes to college.
That is why I say I think it is important for us to look at
the sources of where we are recruiting students and build up
where there is a possibility of more appropriations in these
programs, opportunities. It is also important----
Mr. Guthrie. I do have one more quick question I want to
get to.
Dr. Ferrini-Mundy. OK.
Mr. Guthrie. I apologize for that.
Ms. Oliverio, I wanted to ask you a question about
veterans. I served in the military myself. But I think you said
to maybe Congresswoman McMorris Rodgers, you said, ``Tech will
meet veterans where they are and they will diversify
themselves.'' I mean, what does that mean, tech needs to meet
veterans where they are?
Ms. Oliverio. By more fellowships, apprenticeships, and
opportunities for veterans to bridge their skills gap in a
field such as coding. Coding is wildly popular, and there is a
lot of professional opportunity across corporate America to get
a job in coding. But that is one major skill that is not
utilized in any branch of service.
Mr. Guthrie. And 5 minutes does pass too fast.
[Laughter.]
So, thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you for your answers.
Ms. Schakowsky. Now I recognize Congresswoman Kelly for 5
minutes.
Ms. Kelly. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Algorithms are the undercurrent of the internet. So much of
what we do online is run by automated machine-learning
algorithms. But it has become clear, as we have talked about,
that bias of all kinds permeates many of these algorithms.
In his written testimony, Mr. Luckie pointed to several
examples of bias output of algorithms. What makes this even
more concerning is that, apparently, no one, often not even in
the engineers and computer scientists creating the algorithms,
really know how these machine-learning algorithms work. All
they really know is what datasets are used to train the
algorithms and what results come out of the other end. As we
often hear, garbage in, garbage out.
Ms. Kim, can you expand on how the decisions made by
algorithms can hurt vulnerable communities?
Ms. Kim. Thank you, Congresswoman.
Ms. Kelly. You're welcome.
Ms. Kim. In terms of, again, the specifics of the technical
aspects of why things happen, it is upon industry to let us
know, have more transparency, and work and engage with us in
terms of civil rights organizations and communities of color to
let us know why these things are happening.
But, in terms of the examples that have happened, we have
seen, for instance, in Oakland, California, the police
department using predictive software to send police to
neighbors that are more often than not communities of color,
regardless of the actual crime rate of those neighborhoods. You
see examples again and again like this. And it is upon us, it
is our job as civil society organizations to raise these issues
to tech companies, but the tech companies must engage, and many
have. And we appreciate companies that have engaged in civil
rights audits and other opportunities to raise these concerns,
and often to raise concerns before they become actual problems.
And so, we look forward to additional engagement.
Ms. Kelly. So you feel the companies need to be more
proactive?
Ms. Kim. Absolutely.
Ms. Kelly. Mr. Luckie, you said that some of the more major
incidents that you listed can result in bad publicity, which
can alienate customers, leading to profit loss. Is it fair to
say that there are biased outcomes that have not been
identified?
Mr. Luckie. Absolutely. One of the things about working at
Facebook, in particular, is that you don't see the fires that
the company has put out before it gets to the public. And there
are whole teams that are just working on getting those out of
the public eye.
What I will say is that companies like Facebook think about
the best possible uses of their platform and not the worst.
That is where you see issues like Russia and hackings and
privacy, and then, they become issues that they have to fix
later down the road.
Ms. Kelly. So, are you saying that companies, again, need
to be more proactive and not just reactive--
Mr. Luckie. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Ms. Kelly [continuing]. When something happens or when the
press is looking?
Mr. Luckie. And having more people in the room from
different backgrounds will aid in that.
Ms. Kelly. OK. Targeted online advertising has become so
sophisticated that advertisers can skirt Federal law by using
interests as a proxy for disability, race, or other protected
traits. Mr. Luckie, what do platforms need to do to address
these loopholes and fight less blatant forms of discrimination?
Mr. Luckie. It is really about the education and making
sure that that is being disseminated from the top. Too often
what is happening is this is happening on a ground level, where
employees are fighting the good fight and educating up, rather
than that happening top-down. And so, it has to be a priority
for leadership and them to be vocal and, also, to hold people
accountable in order to make sure that these things aren't
happening.
Ms. Kelly. Dr. Turner Lee, do you have anything more to
add?
Dr. Turner Lee. Yes, I would add, the interesting area that
we are in, Congresswoman, right now is the fact that we do not
have demographic data collected about us by technology
companies. And so, what you are suggesting is that use proxies,
your zip code, maybe your profile picture, things that actually
are subjective measures to sort of come at your identity.
Because a lot of what we see in algorithms are inferential
circumstances, right, it is inferring from my purchasing
behavior where I visit, who I speak to and connect to, the type
of person that I am; therefore, determine the type of product
that I might be interested in. Thus, leading to targeted
advertising.
I think there is an opportunity here for Congress as well
as the tech sector to think about ways to look at how to
correct bias. Are there secondary datasets that they can use to
sort of ensure, as Mr. Luckie has said, that this algorithm is
not going to generate an unintended consequence? Are there
cases where they want demographic data and want permission from
consumers to collect that, to ensure that the algorithm will
not be biased? I think as we go forward those conversations
will need to be had.
I think it is also important for customers and consumers to
have a feedback loop.
Ms. Kelly. Let me just get my last question in----
Dr. Turner Lee. Yes.
Ms. Kelly [continuing]. Which you can answer and anybody
else. What is the role of the Federal Government? Do Federal
laws and guidelines need to be updated to reflect changes in
advertising technologies? So, I just wanted to quickly get
that.
Dr. Turner Lee. Yes, and I will be quick. I have said it,
and I will keep saying it. I think we need to revisit those
nondiscrimination laws and, where they are applicable, apply
them to digital space, and maybe not do it in a way that is
punitive, but just extend those protections to consumers.
Everything that you have heard around algorithm bias is
mitigated through existing guardrails, but I also think that it
is important that we have self-regulatory measures where the
tech sector sits down with civil society, it has been
mentioned, to think through these cases. There are going to be
use cases where data will be weaponized against communities of
color, against women, against people with disabilities, and we
need to find ways to stop that.
Ms. Kelly. Thank you.
Ms. Schakowsky. Now I recognize Congressman Gianforte for 5
minutes.
Mr. Gianforte. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And thank you for the panel today, for your testimony. This
is a very important topic.
In our technology business, we found that internship
programs and coding classes were effective ways to train and
recruit good hires. And I would love to hear from Dr. Ferrini-
Mundy. With that in mind, can you please discuss some of the
steps your university is taking to engage with the local
business community to match up the educational pursuits with
the needs in the marketplace?
Dr. Ferrini-Mundy. Thank you for the question.
We, of course, are situated in Maine, in a rural State like
yours. So, we are very, very eager to be certain that we are
serving the economic development of the State of Maine with
very well-prepared students who will engage that business and
industry. And there are a few key fields where this is
especially opportune for us in Maine, in the forest resources
industry and agriculture fields, in the marine science areas,
for a few. Those fields are all becoming increasingly
technological. So, they are not high-tech in the sense that we
are discussing here exactly, but they really do depend upon
people who will bring the kind of knowledge that we are
discussing.
So, we are very eager. We have a number of important
internship opportunities. We have an incubator that allows
students to work together with companies that are looking to
expand and new companies coming into the State. We try to make
those real-world problems that these companies are facing a
part of the education of our students.
Mr. Gianforte. OK. Thank you.
We have been talking a lot today about the shortage of
workforce. One of the things we have experimented with--not
experiment, we have done it in Montana--was we, particularly in
the computer science curriculum, we have introduced a bachelor
of arts in computer science versus a bachelor of science----
Dr. Ferrini-Mundy. Right.
Mr. Gianforte [continuing]. To attract more people.
Mr. Guthrie was asking about how do we broaden the net to
attract more people into these STEM programs at a college
level. Could you just talk to that a little bit, about other
things we might try?
Dr. Ferrini-Mundy. Sure. And I should say that, prior to
coming to the University of Maine, I worked at the National
Science Foundation for a number of years, and was a part of a
variety of conversations there. In part, the NSF has identified
something called The Future of Work at the Human-Technology
Frontier, as one of its initiatives that is described on their
website. And that is a program that is calling for research
that will help us to better understand these technological
changes that our society is addressing and how we can really
better understand what it takes to prepare people to work in
these spaces.
So, within computer science, for example, there is a
national conversation about what you described, creating the BA
in computer science, but also the notion of computer science
plus some other field as a kind of major. So, computer science
plus biomedical engineering, computer science plus sociology.
The idea that we want to advertise to students, the computer
sciences is meant to help us solve a very wide range of
problems, not only problems that are specifically in some
vision of technology that may be an old-fashioned one.
Just one quick last point that I wanted to make relative to
the discussion of the algorithms and the algorithmic bias. I do
think that a piece of addressing this should be sitting within
universities as well, so that researchers are working within
machine learning, within AI, to understand and help to shape
these algorithms in ways that are consistent with the kind of
diversity we are talking about.
Mr. Gianforte. Well, I certainly agree with you. It is a
truism that computers are here to stay, and I can't imagine any
degree that wouldn't benefit----
Dr. Ferrini-Mundy. Right.
Mr. Gianforte [continuing]. Without some minor in computer
science----
Dr. Ferrini-Mundy. Right.
Mr. Gianforte [continuing]. Making a better candidate for
any job in the marketplace.
Dr. Ferrini-Mundy. Absolutely.
Mr. Gianforte. Yes. Ms. Oliverio, I understand your
organization works with veterans. We have the second-highest
per capita number of veterans of any State in the country in
Montana. Some people might have a difficult time understanding
how a ranch hand or a combat veteran might end up in the tech
industry, but I believe the key to a good employee is always
work ethic and selflessness. I am interested in having you just
summarize for me briefly the work that you do to help veterans
make that transition into the tech industry.
Ms. Oliverio. For us at Military Talent Partners, we
believe that everything begins with mentorship, understanding
the goals and the purpose and helping veterans and spouses
really find their ``why'' and understand what they want to
accomplish in their career. It may have absolutely nothing to
do with their job in their service, but by aligning their goals
and their purpose, they become empowered to find a meaningful
career that is meant for them.
Mr. Gianforte. OK. Great.
And just, Ms. Houghton, if I could, I understand some
companies exclude people with disabilities. One of the reasons
they give is the cost. Can you just comment briefly on how can
companies accommodate costs associated with hiring people with
disabilities and what impact that really has?
Ms. Houghton. So, I think that that is a myth, and that
what we have found and what we have shown with the Accenture
data is that it is quite the contrary. For companies that are
committed to disability inclusion, they actually four times
greater total shareholder returns.
Mr. Gianforte. Thank you for your enthusiasm.
With that, I yield back.
Ms. Schakowsky. Mr. O'Halleran, I recognize you for 5
minutes.
Mr. O'Halleran. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And, Panel, I have really appreciated this discussion
today.
Mr. Luckie had identified within his written testimony at
least that there were 22 percent of rural residents that did
not have the high-speed broadband ability to be able to even
get prepared for the industry. Whether it is gender bias or
racial bias or disability bias or geographic bias, and it
really bothers a lot of us on all those fronts, along with our
veterans, the bottom line is that it is still human input into
this process and somewhere along the line these organizations
need to identify that peer review, and input from the community
is critically important to be able to get some fairness into
the process. I would rather see that done through the companies
themselves, and I think that that is the direction we need to
go.
I am going to kind of go to the geographical issue right
now. Dr. Ferrini-Mundy, you have mentioned a ton of programs at
the university, but it gets down to how do we get students from
those geographic areas. My district in Arizona has 12 Native
American tribes that make up 24 percent of the district's
population. Twenty-some percent of the district population is
Hispanic. A tremendous amount of poverty. Arizona is a big
State. Sixty percent of the land mass of that State is in my
district.
And so, the problem becomes that, when it gets down to just
the sheer technology needs, and now that we are going from
where we are at now to 5G, I think personally that that is
going to put rural America and those areas back further, even
though they will get better than what they have, they will lose
ground from where people are going to be in urban areas. What
is your experience in getting students from those areas, first,
into the university, keeping them in the university, and
getting them into these programs? Also, we have, obviously,
many of those families that the first time they hit the
university is the first person from that family ever to get
there.
Dr. Ferrini-Mundy. Right, right. So, I can speak to that in
a couple of ways. In the University of Maine, we are actually a
part of a university system with several regional campuses
across the State, many of them located in extremely rural
areas. In fact, one of them, the University of Maine at
Machias, is a regional campus of the University of Maine. And
so, we are very dependent upon making certain that those
campuses, and particularly Machias, are responding to the
challenges and issues of that particular geography. It is a
coastal area. It is a very economically disadvantaged area. So,
we are seeing that campus really thrive as a center for the
community, as a way to address issues that are of interest
there, to try to build a workforce that can thrive in such
areas as healthcare and community services. So, some of this is
about customizing what the institutions offer to the regions
that are there.
The broadband issue is a serious challenge in Maine. And
so, we face that in a variety of ways, working together with
the State, with the legislature, to see what kind of progress
we can make on that front. Because online opportunities will
continue to abound, and we want to be certain that those are
accessible to all students.
Mr. O'Halleran. How much of a disadvantage is this to those
residents and their children from those areas versus urban
areas?
Dr. Ferrini-Mundy. It certainly is a major challenge. That
is why at this point we want to be certain that our regional
campuses are providing very good opportunities and services,
ranging from programs for first-generation college-going
students to other kinds of support. But it is a serious problem
for us in our State.
Mr. O'Halleran. And just a comment towards the end here on
our veterans. First of all, it is Women's Month and we need to
make sure that--we can't just take 50-some percent of our
population and not them have an active high-level role in our
society and leaders of our society. But our veterans, again,
when you take a look at the training that our service personnel
go through, that is a key indicator of leadership in the
future, the ability. All they need is that little bit extra to
be able to adapt. It is not changing; it is adapting to a new
role. We all go through that in life, and we just need to make
sure our veterans have that opportunity.
So, thank you for what you are doing.
I yield.
Ms. Schakowsky. Mr. Carter, you are recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
And thank all of you for being here. We appreciate this.
This is certainly a very important subject.
I want to start with you, Ms. Ferrini-Mundy. Is that right?
Dr. Ferrini-Mundy. Yes.
Mr. Carter. I'm sorry. Thank you.
Obviously, you have got an extensive background in
developing policies that would help young people enter into the
job market and into new opportunities, particularly as it
relates to STEM and particularly as it relates to getting a
number of minorities involved, a number of those who don't have
the opportunities perhaps that some others do.
Would you agree that there is a major problem in the number
of minority communities that have access to these STEM fields
and tech-related jobs?
Dr. Ferrini-Mundy. Certainly if we look at the numbers of
minorities well represented in the STEM fields, there is a
problem.
Mr. Carter. Right.
Dr. Ferrini-Mundy. I mean, those numbers should be tracking
at least with representation across the society.
Mr. Carter. So, let's talk about that for just a second.
When you say ``STEM,'' I think we all think of just STEM and
more engineering.
Dr. Ferrini-Mundy. Right.
Mr. Carter. But there is more to it than that.
Dr. Ferrini-Mundy. Certainly, certainly.
Mr. Carter. In the State of Georgia, we have been very
successful in building up our film industry through tax credits
and different incentives, and through the work of the Georgia
State legislature, and particularly the economic development
committee in the House and our chairman. Chairman Ron Stephens
has done an outstanding job. It has resulted in a lot of
opportunities for these type of jobs. It has created a number
of jobs.
One of the things that we are very proud of is the Georgia
Film Academy. That was established through the State, and it
runs through 12 different institutions, through the university
system and the technical college system. They offer degrees and
certificates, and that is the type of thing.
Can you think of any other examples like this where it
necessarily might not be engineering jobs per se, which is I
think what we think of when talk about STEM? But it is
opportunities, nonetheless, and good opportunities and good-
paying jobs.
Dr. Ferrini-Mundy. I would mention a few areas at least
that are relevant for us along these lines in Maine and that do
require some combination of background in science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics. I will keep putting in plugs for
mathematics and statistics as central features for these areas.
But industries such as the forestry industry in the State
of Maine or aquaculture, a growing industry in our State, these
are industries that do depend on technological solutions to
some of the challenges that they face. Agriculture, more
generally, is, of course, also facing opportunities with new
technologies. So, people with a range of backgrounds really can
come together to solve the sorts of problems that these
industries face in States that are particularly suited to
particular industries.
Mr. Carter. Great. And thank you for mentioning timber
because Georgia is the No. 1 forestry State in the Nation. That
is something that is very important to us as well.
Real quickly, I am going to switch over to you, Ms.
Oliverio. I'm sorry. I hope that is OK. But I am very blessed;
in the First Congressional District of Georgia we have four
military installations. We have a number of veterans. We are
home to over 75,000 veterans. Our quality of life and all the
things that we enjoy, our environment, lead to a lot of people
retiring in our area, particularly after we have four military
installations, a lot of them just stay there and retire.
The hiring of veterans, this is something that is very
important. A lot of companies in the First District have really
capitalized on this and found the veterans to be excellent
employees. What are some of the challenges that we face, that
veterans have faced, to being hired?
Ms. Oliverio. Specifically, to the major Atlanta area,
there are a number, a massive number of veterans that want to
relocate to that area and to work, and have struggled to find
meaningful job opportunities to get in front of the interviews.
So, while there is a huge footprint for veterans in that area
in the beautiful State of Georgia, we can do better on the
messaging on what is available for veterans and how we can
better acclimate them into the businesses in that State, and
then, therefore, retain them and mitigate turnover issues
across the landscape of the corporate build in Georgia, and in
specifically Atlanta. But if we can make it more well known as
to what is available and welcome them in, we would have a much
higher success rate.
Mr. Carter. Is there anything we can do from a State
perspective or from a government perspective as far as
certificates, as far as our technical schools are concerned?
Ms. Oliverio. Absolutely. I think encouraging mentorships
or fellowships or apprenticeships of technical schools is an
excellent idea. It is making it known. We create a lot of great
programs and ideas, but the word doesn't get out, and it
becomes too difficult for people to understand how they can
apply to it or how they qualify or how their business will fit
into that model. So, by making it more accessible, they can
take more advantage.
Mr. Carter. Great. Well, thank you all very much. This is
extremely important.
And thank you, Madam Chair, and I yield back.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you.
And now, I am calling on Congresswoman Blunt Rochester for
5 minutes.
Ms. Blunt Rochester. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and thank
you for having this very important panel.
Diversifying and including folks in the tech industry is
one that I think all of us on the committee can agree with. I
really wanted to use this time to talk about the fact that,
whether it is diversifying the workforce or whether it is the
products that are being created, if you don't have
representation, we don't get a good product. We have already
heard the stories of facial recognition that might not
recognize darker-skinned people or voice-enabled devices that
have a hard time with accents. And at its worst, we have seen
algorithmic bias result in criminal risk assessment software
predicting that black offenders were almost twice as likely to
reoffend than white offenders, even though their history showed
otherwise.
So, it is really vitally important to have this panel. I am
grateful to the diversity even of the panel that is represented
here and for the work that you do.
My first question is for Dr. Turner Lee. In your written
testimony, you mention COMPAS, the AI software used across the
country by judges to determine how likely a convicted criminal
is to commit more crimes. Can you speak more about the real-
world consequences of the bias found in the program?
Dr. Turner Lee. Thank you, Congresswoman.
Yes. I think as a researcher--and I have a degree in
sociology--I think that is a really important use case that
deserves some more discussion. What we are talking about in the
COMPAS algorithm is the ability of judges to rely upon
automated decisionmaking to assess whether or not people should
have longer sentences, be released on bail, et cetera. But the
challenge with that comes--and I think we have heard it a few
times--in the training data. We all know in the criminal
justice system that African Americans are more likely to be
arrested. They, therefore, are more likely to be populated
within this training set. As a result of that, when it comes to
sentencing, they are more likely to be penalized or assessed
larger penalties because of their overrepresentation there.
That is problematic because what that is suggesting is that
we are not taking technology and assessing against settled
research, settled stereotypes, or information that we know are
assumptions about stereotypes, which brings in, I think, what
was discussed around implicit and conscious bias, and it also
brings in structural race and the discrimination. Unless we fix
those, we, then, develop products that will continue to pick up
on those errors.
Ms. Blunt Rochester. Right.
Dr. Turner Lee. And so, again, Congressman, you picked up
on something that is quite problematic because there are
irreparable consequences to being incarcerated longer that we
cannot solve.
Ms. Blunt Rochester. Thank you.
And it leads me to Mr. Lopez. I know you were the longest-
serving general counsel at the U.S. EEOC. What role should the
EEOC play in all of this? And do you have the tools?
Mr. Lopez. Yes. No, I think the EEOC has been very active
in terms of collecting the data on the absence of diversity in
the high-tech field. It has also held, I believe, three
commission meetings which focused on developing information on
the use of big datasets as employment screens, which is, I
think, one of the more controversial and one of the most
important areas in terms of how predictive analytics are now
being used as a way to recruit and to select applicants.
And I think what happens is that many of the companies
involved in these efforts market them as a way to actually
eliminate bias, and that is a possibility. I mean, really big
data, data analytics, if used correctly, is not necessarily a
bad thing. I don't think any of us are coming here as Neo-
Luddites against the technology. But I think the EEOC has been
very active in terms of talking about the problem of bad data
in, bad data out, some of the inherent biases in these tools in
terms of addressing discrimination.
Ms. Blunt Rochester. Thank you.
And, Ms. Houghton, I want to briefly say that I was pleased
to see the work that you are doing, and I also wanted to
reinforce what you said about the statistics for people with
disabilities. When you intersect that with being a woman or
being a person of color, it is even double. In the last 20
seconds, could you talk about some of the myths that people,
particularly employers, have for hiring individuals with
disabilities?
Ms. Houghton. I think that that is a great question,
Congresswoman. And there are a lot of myths. There are myths
that the talent doesn't exist. There are myths that, if I hire
these people, that they are going to cost me money, that they
are going to sue me, and on and on and on.
Ms. Blunt Rochester. Great. And I yield the balance of my
time.
Ms. Schakowsky. Mr. Bucshon, you are recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Bucshon. Thank you very much.
My daughter is currently majoring in computer science at
Cornell University. She is a junior, and she is primarily in
STEM because, when I first came to Congress, I heard all these
stories about how we needed more diversity in STEM, which is
very true, and we all agree on that, I think. I told her, look,
if you want a job, you should probably look at computer
science, and she did. So, it is the only kid that has listened
to me so far. The rest of them, you know, they won't listen.
[Laughter.]
And she will be interning in a large bank in New York City
this summer.
And so, in this discussion I think--and I apologize, I had
another hearing--but we a lot of times focus on edge providers
like Facebook, Google, Twitter, and other tech companies like
that. But, really, these opportunities are growing across all
sectors of our economy.
And so, Dr. Ferrini-Mundy, can you explain how universities
are working to promote these types of tech opportunities to
their students, including, for example, the big banks which are
hiring more tech people than they are bankers?
Dr. Ferrini-Mundy. So, again, I think there are many things
universities are doing and can do. One is to make sure that the
education that we provide our students both deep and broad
enough to enable them to seek those kinds of opportunities.
The second is to continue to work to have internships,
apprenticeships, opportunities for students along the way as
undergraduates to get access to chances to work in some of
these different sectors, and to both show what they bring
because of their diversity and their knowledge, and also get a
chance to imagine whether they could work there. Those
frequently turn into offers at those kinds of companies.
Mr. Bucshon. Based on American Community Survey-PUMS data,
1.1 percent of people from Indiana have a degree in computer
science. Again to you, diversity is important in all
industries, including diversity of ideas and background. Can
you provide examples of what efforts universities might be
taking to promote STEM degrees like computer science in rural
communities? And honestly, I think this may be as applicable to
urban settings also, but particularly rural communities that
may not have the knowledge of these job opportunities offered
in the tech sphere.
Dr. Ferrini-Mundy. A lot of the examples that I am aware of
have to do with working at the K-12 level, to actually go into
schools, to create after-school learning opportunities, coding
kinds of programs. So that students can get a picture of what
it might be like, rural students particularly who may not have
a good opportunity to see these options, and then, imagine what
they could be in those careers. So that they can follow a
pathway that will take them toward an undergraduate major.
Mr. Bucshon. Dr. Turner Lee, why do you think we are having
a discussion about the lack of diversity in tech? I mean, what
is your fundamental view about--I mean, why? I think we have
answered some of that today and we have given some opinions
today. But that is fundamentally why we are here, right? We all
believe that diversity is very important, diversity based on
like my daughter; she is a woman. And then, what is your view?
I mean, fundamentally, when you get really cut to the chase?
And what can we do about it?
Dr. Turner Lee. Yes, I think, fundamentally, we are having
this conversation because we are in this fourth Industrial
Revolution, right? And this Industrial Revolution has people
tethered to technology, and we are seeing the consumption
trends sort of amplify itself to the extent to which people who
are now consuming these products are not part of the
decisionmaking of these products.
And just like we saw in other industries, let's just go
back, we saw in the '60s and '70s the same type of diversity
programs initiated to bring in more representation, and they
made companies better. And so, I think, going forward, we are--
--
Mr. Bucshon. Yes, for medicine, for example.
Dr. Turner Lee. Yes, medicine.
Mr. Bucshon. I am a doctor. My wife is a doctor.
Dr. Turner Lee. That is right. Automobiles----
Mr. Bucshon. Right. If you look back at the '60s, the
makeup of people who are physicians was not very diverse,
right?
Dr. Turner Lee. Yes. I just think we are at a turning
point, Congressman. I think it is one of those conversations
that for years people have been discussing, but, as technology
becomes more entrenched and the boundaries between the physical
space and the digital space become much more connected, that we
are just trying to figure out as a country, for us to be
internationally competitive, how do we bring in more diverse
perspectives and minds. That is why the diversity of this panel
reflects this conversation.
By the same token, we don't want these products that people
are depending upon--we are no longer an in-line economy; we are
in an online economy--to hurt them or harm them. And that is
why we are having a discussion around consumer protection. So,
I think that is at the crux of why we are here today.
Mr. Bucshon. OK. Thank you. I yield back.
Ms. Schakowsky. Beautiful.
I am calling on Mr. McNerney right now for 5 minutes.
And I just want to say, you are seeing that people are
coming back. They really feel that this panel and this
discussion is very important.
Mr. McNerney?
Mr. McNerney. Well, thank you. I thank the Chair.
And I thank the witnesses. I apologize for missing most of
your testimony.
But, first of all, I want to say I am a mathematician by
education. I cochair the Congressional AI Caucus. And I
represent a district that is very, very diverse. So, while I am
excited about many of the technology innovations that we are
witnessing today, I am also concerned that many people will be
left behind, and what that means for my district and my
constituents.
Specifically, I am worried about how automated
decisionmaking can impact my constituents' ability to obtain a
loan, to receive social services, to see housing ads, to be
promoted in jobs, or even to get consideration for a job in the
first place. So, it is clearly critical that the teams
designing these products are representative of who the products
are going to serve.
Now there is a real need for greater transparency in how
these algorithms are produced and the decisionmaking is made.
Mr. Lopez, in your written testimony you noted that algorithms
are often predicated on data that amplifies, rather than
reduces, the already present biases in society, racial, ethnic,
and socioeconomic. Can you elaborate on that a little bit,
please, and maybe provide an example?
Mr. Lopez. I mean, I think a good example would be using
social media to advertise for housing opportunities and to
limit the advertisement to certain zip codes. Zip codes have
traditionally, due to the history of housing segregation in
this country, have often been used as a proxy for minority----
Mr. McNerney. So, is that being done by algorithms or by
human beings, those decisions, or both?
Mr. Lopez. Everything that we are talking about is being
done by human beings at the end of the day. I think what
happens is that the algorithms--and let me use a different
example from the employment context. Let's say there is a
correlation between having an interest in manga comic books and
being somebody who might be a good computer engineer. This is a
real example. But, again, the individuals--it is correlation,
not causation--and the individuals that tend to have an
interest in manga comic books tend to be men, right? And so, if
you start to use that algorithm to select computer engineers,
what you do is you sort of reinforce and you replicate, I
think, the general systemic exclusion of women.
Mr. McNerney. So, that is an example of why machine
learning makes bias more difficult, right?
Mr. Lopez. Yes, yes.
Mr. McNerney. Thank you.
Ms. Turner Lee, in your testimony you mentioned that you
will be issuing a paper next month addressing a course of
developing quality instruments and questions to measure
algorithmic bias. Do some of these instruments already exist?
Dr. Turner Lee. There are some instruments, and I think it
has been mentioned that we have seen companies more on the tail
end that do audits. The paper that we will be releasing at
Brookings is more of a forward-thinking paper, to your point,
and it is coming up with questions. Do we need an algorithm for
this actual use case? If we do, is there diversity in design? A
lot of the questions that you are asking. Are the right people
at the table? Is civil society part of the conversation and
debate? Is there a feedback loop? I think that is part of the
pathway toward more responsible governance over the way that we
are constructing algorithms, evaluating, et cetera.
But I do want to suggest to you, Congressman, something in
your previous question. I don't want us to put in a bucket that
all technologies are acting discriminatory or racist.
Mr. McNerney. Right.
Dr. Turner Lee. I think the way the technology has been
structured and how opaque the internet has become, these
algorithms are adapting to our human behavior. So, there are
cases where a developer, a technologist, may not say, ``I want
to flag women for this particular job.'' But how the internet
has actually become layered, it will see the name Mary and
assume that Mary is a woman, and populate itself and operate
and function pretty much adapting to the historical biases that
we have as a society.
Mr. McNerney. Again, that is machine learning, a machine-
learning tool.
Dr. Turner Lee. That is machine learning, yes. And I think
the paper that we are going to be putting out is really trying
to help companies have a more proactive stance to actually how
you look at these conditions and how you look at these teams,
and how you look at these outputs, and come up with solutions
to do something about it.
Mr. McNerney. Well, you also mention that businesses have
taken action to correct bias, such as Facebook and Google, but
that was only after a lot of public pressure. Are there
examples of companies that have proactively acted or do you
think that is a trend that we could expect to see without
significant motivation from Congress?
Dr. Turner Lee. I actually want to say that there are
companies that are taking advantage of this. Microsoft is
another case where they are actually very proactive in how they
design algorithms. They had a case where they put out a voice-
activated computation or application that was picking up--it
was taking in people's voices and, basically, putting out very
antisemitic and racist stuff. They took it off market, right,
because the developer did not anticipate those consequences.
So, I think we are seeing a blend, which is why I said
previously and put it in my testimony, self-regulation is not a
bad idea. It is just a combination of how do we combine that
framework with what we already have existing in our resource
kit.
Mr. McNerney. Thank you. I yield back.
Ms. Schakowsky. Mr. Soto, for 5 minutes. Welcome back.
Mr. Soto. Thank you, Madam Chair.
It was briefly mentioned before, a report came out from the
ACLU about new facial recognition technology where they
downloaded 25,000 arrest records, used them against pictures of
every current Member of Congress in the last term. There are 28
false matches. People of color made up 20 percent of Congress
at that time, more now, by the way. And 40 percent of the false
matches were people of color, including legendary civil rights
hero John Lewis. Obviously, the software as it stood there
would disproportionately target minorities. This is a
technology that is being used in my hometown of Orlando, only
voluntarily, to track officers to test the technology, but
certainly it is something that is concerning for us.
Recently, I got to join Representatives Brenda Lawrence, Ro
Khanna, and others, on ethical guidelines for AI development,
including transparency and process, empowering women and
underrepresented populations, and accountability. So, it really
brings up sort of a broader topic of what Congress' role is in
being able to address these things.
I will start with Dr. Turner. Some of the algorithmic bias
mentioned today is the result of bias datasets, are there
practices and procedures that can be implemented to reduce the
bias in training data that could be helpful?
Dr. Turner Lee. Yes, I would say start with
overrepresentation, right, of what those faces look like. So,
an MIT researcher--and I don't want to butcher her last name,
maybe Mr. Luckie can help me--Joy Buolamwini has actually done
a lot of studies where she has actually said a lot of facial
recognition technologies do not work because they are
underrepresented in terms of African Americans or darker skin
hues. So, we have to actually populate the training data where
it reflects the entire population.
I think part of the problem we have, Congressman, why
people don't do that, as a researcher, I am subjected to
guidelines when it comes to IRB requirements and human
conditions. We are rushed to market when we come to proprietary
algorithms, right? It is who gets there first.
And so, I think having some attention to overrepresentation
is really important. Also, feedback loops also help with the
training data. The paper that we will be releasing will talk a
little bit about the technical side. Again, I'm not a computer
scientist. I am interested in the civil rights outputs that
actually come as a result of that and what legislators should
actually be looking for. But I think combining those
conversations and having multi-stakeholder conversations is
also helpful because the left hand often doesn't know what the
right hand is doing.
Mr. Soto. Thank you.
And for Ms. Kim, what is the role for increased
transparency and explainability in reducing algorithmic bias?
Ms. Kim. Thank you, Congressman.
In looking at the decisionmakers within the tech sector,
the employees, the professionals, the technicians, as well as
the executives that make much of the decisions, we need to have
more diversity. And the transparency that we need is more data.
We applaud the efforts of companies that voluntarily release
diversity data for recruitment, retention, and attrition data.
But, for the AAPI community, that data is incomplete
because it is not disaggregated. Our communities are so
diverse, and we have to look beyond the glare of the model
minority and say, what is actually going on behind the
aggregated number? Yes, there are more Asian tech workers than
other minority groups, but, in fact, if you look deeper--and we
don't have these numbers, but based on other industries and
other Census data and other information, we know that there are
communities that have incredibly high poverty rates, low
educational attainment levels, and high limited English
proficiency levels that don't get represented at educational
levels in schools, in other sectors. And so, we need more data
and more information and transparency from tech companies, so
that we can see what is actually going on underneath that model
minority myth of Asian-Americans are doing OK.
Mr. Soto. Thank you, Ms. Kim.
And I just want to end with sort of a personalized story
from my own family. My little cousins, I can't get them off of
video games. They are of Puerto Rican descent, like I am. And
it turned out that when one of my cousins went into the Air
Force, that skill set ended up serving him well to be one of
only two people out of two dozen to actually pass the drone
aviation course.
And it occurs to me how critical having access to
technology at an early age is. When you look at Bill Gates or
Bill Joy, or others, the stories go about how they had access
to computers early on, and that proved critical in them getting
their 10,000 hours ahead of everybody and being able to really
change the world. So, those are things that we also will be
taking very seriously to get into, access at an early age for
young people of all communities.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Ms. Schakowsky. So, I want to thank our panel, but I also
want to see--I spoke to our ranking member. I would like 5 more
minutes, and I would welcome her taking 5 more minutes.
Mr. Luckie, we have talked a lot about the pipeline and
making sure of the educational system and educational
opportunities. But you said something that really struck me. It
is that, even where women and minorities, and others that
aren't represented in the tech industry, are available, that
they still are not hired for those jobs and advancing in the
positions. We also see women leaving those jobs earlier than
men.
So, rather than blame the victims, you know, you have got
to go to school and you have got to take these courses, what
are we going to do about--there is obviously some
discrimination. I really want to stop here, but ask the rest of
the panel, what should we be doing? You have mentioned, Dr.
Turner Lee, that there are discrimination laws that are in
place. You have talked about the EEOC, Dean Lopez. I mean, what
should we be doing, both about the algorithmic bias that is
there, but also just about hiring people, investing in people
right now?
Mr. Luckie. Well, it is like you said, a lot of the onus
has been put on the people who are graduating from STEM or who
have not heard about STEM to break into these tech companies.
But what we are finding is that the stopgap is actually
happening within the interview process, where employees are not
seeing people who look like them. And so, they are choosing the
people who look like them, come from the same backgrounds, come
from the same schools, which puts others at a disadvantage. We
are seeing it in the discrimination that people face once they
are inside of the companies. What is happening is that people
are graduating from STEM, but end up choosing other industries
because they see the discrimination.
I think the most important point that we should take away
from this is that the people who come from diverse backgrounds
are the representatives of these companies who go back out into
the communities and say, yes, you should be STEM, be in the
STEM areas. And so, we have to call on those people to say,
hey, we need you to go back to the communities; the people who
are coming from Maine and from Texas, and from these locations,
to go back and say, you can do this because I am inside of the
company now and I am making it work.
Ms. Schakowsky. I wonder, Dr. Turner Lee, how can we use
the current laws to help here?
Dr. Turner Lee. Yes, I think we have some tools in our
toolkit. A lot of the stories that we have heard today, it is
not just the one-time action where it happen, but it is this
latter consequence.
The former Obama administration was real key about putting
out reports on algorithmic bias. It is not a new topic to us.
The difference is, as we go over time and we let this evolve,
that we are going to find people being denied loans. And I
don't think we want to see structural discrimination actually
find its place into the internet, which has always been the
low-hanging fruit for opportunity.
So, I think what Congress does have at its disposal are
tools to have a conversation around nondiscrimination and to
see which ways do we extend that. And companies, I think, in
the tech sector are starting to realize that. Facebook, in
particular, last year pulled down a process that was
discriminating in the case of housing, where advertisers were
able to click off who they did not want to serve, and they
immediately stopped that process. But they didn't realize that
the Fair Housing Act was one of the levers for why you
shouldn't do that in the first place.
So, I think Congress has an opportunity to have
conversations about that, as we have had in the past, as we see
these transitions happen. And I also think it is important,
just to complement your previous question, Congresswoman, STEM
has to be a national priority. This is no longer a conversation
of investing in programs. We have to invest in people. And if
we invest in people, we will have an international competitive
edge on any of these careers, particularly as digital access
becomes much more permeated and much more embedded in our
society.
Ms. Schakowsky. There is almost a minute left. Anybody else
want to comment on that? Dr. Lopez? Go ahead.
Mr. Lopez. Congresswoman, as part of Congress' oversight
responsibilities over the agencies, I think there is a real
opportunity to ask the relevant agencies, EEOC, HUD, Department
of Justice, FTC, anybody operating in this space, what they are
doing in this area. And it doesn't, obviously, have to be
hostile. I came out of the EEOC. I happen to think that they
have been very forward-thinking in this area. They continue to
be forward-thinking. But I think that the oversight
responsibility and the power of the purse is very important.
Ms. Schakowsky. Go ahead. And did you say something?
Anybody else? OK.
Mr. Luckie. I would just like to say, in terms of the
larger conversation, that we have to stop treating AI and
algorithms as omnipotent, as if they know everything. They are
still being programmed by humans, and we need to recognize that
in order to curb this bias.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you very much.
Mrs. Rodgers. OK. Madam Chair, I wanted just to follow up
on your line of questioning right there.
As I said in my opening statement and opening remarks, part
of the challenge here is that it does demand change. It is
going to demand change in our culture. A lot of the focus today
was on recruitment, and I think that is an important piece of
this. We have to focus on the pipeline. That is very
foundational. Education is important, skills training, access,
and exposure to what is possible. Helping people imagine is
important.
We have talked a lot about the value of teams and having
teams--Mr. Lopez, in your testimony it says, you highlighted
that teams that are made up of individuals of diverse
backgrounds are more innovative and generally make more error-
free decisions.
I, too, just wanted to take this at the close here to kind
of those next steps. So, even after we get some of these
individuals hired, what is working as far as the retention and
the promotion? Because there are these next steps. We have to
do better at retaining these employees, and then, promoting
them to leadership positions.
I know I have seen some of the work on women where women
respond to the coaching and to giving that feedback. But,
often, when they are given a chance for leadership, they shine.
So, I, too, just wanted to open this up at the end and ask,
what do you see working when it comes to the retention, and
then, the promotion to leadership? And how do we better invest
in these people after they are hired?
Do you want to start it, Mr. Luckie?
Mr. Luckie. Sure. So, I will say the best thing that is
driving retention is the employee resource groups that are in
major tech companies and businesses everywhere, where women are
helping women, black people are helping black people. Part of
the reason why I stayed at Facebook as long as I did is because
of the black ad group, which was the employees that were coming
together, mentoring each other, exploring other opportunities
inside the company. The more you empower those employee
resource groups, give them the budget, give them the space in
which to operate, the more you are going to see that retention
increase within these companies.
Mrs. Rodgers. Thank you. OK.
And so, do you want to----
Dr. Ferrini-Mundy. Yes, I will just add to that. What Mr.
Luckie is explaining has to do with cultures within these
environments, and those cultures get built by the people who
are there. And so, I would still make my argument that
education and the pathways that get provided through education,
which include early opportunities to work together in groups,
to learn how to be resourceful within particular subgroups, all
of that is critical to building that kind of culture.
Mrs. Rodgers. All right. Thank you.
Ms. Kim or whoever is next? Yes?
Dr. Turner Lee. If I can, in a previous life I worked with
the cable industry doing some work. What I found there is that,
internally, companies have to have metrics, they have to have
accountability, and they also have to have some type of
executive support. Without it, it doesn't work.
Where we know diversity and inclusion works is when there
are bonuses tied to leadership. We know that it works when the
executive claims that this is the only way we are going to
actually conduct business, training, et cetera. And those
invested resources happen at an internal level.
Obviously, we can't manage what companies do inside, but
what we can do--and this is something I think in terms of what
is next--is we can place a level of stewardship and
responsibility on companies through their reporting, whether it
is mandatory or voluntary. There are tons of regulated
industries that provide voluntary information and scorecards on
how they are doing with diversity. And that is something I
think is going to be an acceptable practice going forward,
because we, as consumers, want to know that people are doing
the right thing. And so, I think, going forward, it is going to
take a mix of the internal pressure and the external pressure
to actually move to a place of, I want to say peace, where
everybody can just get along, but where we actually indulge
ourselves in diversity in ways that make us more profitability
and much more successful as a country.
Mrs. Rodgers. Thank you.
Do you have any thoughts?
Ms. Oliverio. Yes, thank you.
I spent more than 10 years in recruiting all across
technical fields, across the U.S. And in any company, in any
demographic, in any background, the key to retention is making
employees feel like they belong. Much like Mr. Luckie was
stating, employee resource groups are amazing, but the core
value there is making employees feel valued, making them feel
like they belong. That is where veterans and military spouses
struggle most to feel like they are a part of a unit again, to
feel like they are welcomed in their work environment, that
they have reasonable accommodation, and that they belong there.
There, they are more likely to stay and to be happy and to do
well.
Mrs. Rodgers. Thank you.
Ms. Houghton. In addition to seeing yourself and feeling a
sense of belonging, I think one key thing that I want to make
sure gets on the record is that, internally, within these
companies we need accessible technology. If people are going to
grow, technology accessibility has to be built in from the
beginning, not as an afterthought.
Mrs. Rodgers. OK. Thank you, everyone.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you so much.
I think this has been a terrific panel and something that
we, as a Congress, need to follow up on now. Thank you.
I request unanimous consent to enter the following
documents into the record. Where are they? OK. The National
Urban League letter on diversity in tech; a letter from the
Electronic Privacy Information Center; the Internet
Association's letter for the record; testimony from Jennifer
Huddleston, research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George
Mason University; a letter from Maxine Williams, Facebook's
chief diversity officer; statement from Representative Maxine
Waters; a blog post and case study from Charter Communications.
Is that it?
Without objection, so ordered.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Ms. Schakowsky. Oh, I have one more page? This? OK.
I would like to thank the witnesses for their participation
in today's hearing.
I remind Members that, pursuant to committee rules, they
have 10 business days to submit additional questions for the
record, to be answered by the witnesses who have appeared. I
ask each witness to respond promptly to any such question that
you may receive, and you may receive them because a number of
people were traveling from different hearings.
So, at this time, the subcommittee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:46 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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