?Troubling employment patterns and practices in the technology sector."

As tech and mainstream media (including Speed Matters) have been reporting, the high-tech industry has revealed astonishingly low employment rates of women and ethnic minorities. Various outlets, activists, politicians and companies themselves have taken these fabulously wealthy industries to ask for failing to diversify their workforces. All with little effective change.

Now, the Minority Media and Telecom Council has written to the FCC asking that the federal government intervene. The council cites the abysmal racial employment percentages: 70.9 white, 12.3 Asian, 7.2 Latino, and 3 black. These numbers said the MMTC, “closely resemble the statistics of the broadcasting industry in the late 1960’s.”

The council goes on to say that the FCC and the government not only can, but must, ensure equality. As the MMTC notes, the FCC’s Diversity Committee charter will “provide recommendations to the FCC regarding policies and practices that will further enhance diverse participation in the telecommunications and related [emphasis added] industries.”

Specifically, “Industry convergence and stark employment gaps within the technology sector necessitate an investigation by the Diversity Committee, and appropriate follow-through either by the Commission itself, another federal agency, or a referral to Congress for FCC jurisdictional authority.”

They conclude by saying, “we look forward to working with the Commission to ensure that the full benefits of technology, and the opportunities it enables, are readily available to all Americans.”

Speed Matters concurs.

Silicon Valley persists in lack of diversity, write Democrats (Speed Matters, Jul. 10, 2014)

MMTC Urges FCC to Research Causes of Lack of Diversity in the Tech Sector (Minority Media and Telecom Council blog, Sep. 16, 2014)