Re: W3C action/response to the BLM Movement

Hi Jeff,

Thank you for the quick reply. I too hope we can come up with some actionable items for the organization. I don’t expect an answer tonight, but in reading over the policy in [1] I do not see anything that appears to contravene with the W3C agreeing with and supporting the position of Black Lives Matter.

For anyone who doesn’t want to read the entire thing, I believe these are the salient points:

Public positions on "political" (S5, S6) issues may be made with any of the first two levels of association (A1, A2) without consultation with the Membership or the Advisory Board
Public positions on political issues that reflect established W3C values (S5) may be made at any level of association.
Rationale: These are not new policies but application of existing values and principles to policy subjects, and hence do not require approval.
Public positions on partisan issues (S6) have generally been avoided by W3C (with A3, A4, or A5), since W3C is a Member organization and Members have different points of view about certain partisan policy issues. However, W3C Staff finds some of these limits incredibly frustrating. Here we are discussing issues that may be clear in the minds of W3C staff, and the fact that their “employer” – W3C - says nothing is negative for morale. It would be interesting to get the AB’s views if there were a way to have W3C voice its point of view on positions of this type.

It is good to see that individuals are permitted to comment as themselves and staff, but on a matter like this, I think it sends the wrong message for the organization not to comment. But I only quickly perused the document, so clarification would be helpful!

Thanks,
Wendy

From: Jeff Jaffe <jeff@w3.org>
Date: Thursday, June 4, 2020 at 8:08 PM
To: "Reid, Wendy" <wendy.reid@rakuten.com>, "public-idcg@w3.org" <public-idcg@w3.org>
Subject: Re: W3C action/response to the BLM Movement


Thanks, Wendy.

Several years ago, the Team worked with the Advisory Board to establish policies about W3C making public statements [1].  Based on this policy, it is not in our scope to make a statement about Black Lives Matter, until/unless we change [1].

W3C does support the work of IDCG and strives to improve inclusion and diversity.  I endorse your renewed call for additional action in this area.  I hope to be able to make this call.  June is the time for my annual blog report on Diversity at W3C [2], and so this discussion is very timely for me.

Jeff

[1] https://www.w3.org/2014/01/PSGMatrix


[2] https://www.w3.org/blog/tags/inclusion/

On 6/4/2020 7:03 PM, Reid, Wendy wrote:

Dear Colleagues,



I hope everyone has been keeping well and safe during these times. I wanted to reach out to this group as I believe we need to do something to address the W3C’s lack of diversity and inclusion in 2020, a time where we see protests for the rights of black people take over not just the United States and Canada, but many other places as well.



The web is a platform for many great things, including the organizing for many of these protests and movements, but it is also where world leaders make threats and groups gather to profess hate. As an organization we’ve built specifications around the ideas of inclusivity, security, and privacy, but the faces in the rooms where these discussions are held still do not reflect the makeup of the world around us. Tech, and by extension the W3C, is notoriously male and white.



I notice that W3C has not yet made a public statement about their support for the Black Lives Matter movement, and I wanted to come here because if/when that happens, the logical request will be for what actions is W3C intending to make to address our lack of diversity.



So I raise the question here first, because I think everyone here is of the mind that we should do something. I do think this should be a sentiment and action that comes from W3M, the AB, AC, and the members as a whole, but I hope we can come up with a starting point for everyone to build off of.



What should W3C do about the lack of diversity in our working groups and F2F meetings?

How can we as an organization support community members who are limited in participation by factors like economics, family situation, geography?

What actions should we take to recruit more members from diverse backgrounds and retain them once they are here?



I propose we have a call soon to discuss these matters, but I will leave that judgement to the chairs. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
Wendy Reid
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