IDCG ideas for consideration for building an action plan

Leonie, thanks for pulling together a meeting of the Inclusion and 
Diversity Community Group.

All, I'm particularly hoping we can discuss elements of a multi-point 
plan of action, even if part of our discussion is focused on a possible 
W3C statement.

It may seem hard at first to figure out what W3C can do for an action 
plan given that we're an international technology consortium. But on 
other aspects of diversity, including disability and gender, W3C has 
made some progress over the years, even though we often questioned 
whether any particular step would have an impact, and even though 
there's lots more to do. On racial justice issues I'm hoping that we can 
think broadly when considering possible actions across the W3C 
community. Here are some possible ideas to brainstorm on, mostly phrased 
as questions. I'd welcome discussion on these on the IDCG list, in 
meetings, and in any other W3C fora, and also an expansion of an ideas 
list that might provide us good options to turn into an action plan. 
Some of these repeat a few things already mentioned on the list, and I 
also haven't captured them all.

1. _*Principles and practices*_: W3C has the TAG's *Ethical Web 
Principles* [1]; does anything in that that need updating to better 
capture current issues? W3C also has a proposed new version of the *Code 
of Ethics and Professional Conduct* (CEPC) [2] currently under Advisory 
Committee review, which goes into more detail on racism than the 
previous version.

2. _*Learning*_: There are many reading lists which have useful 
resources for learning about racism. It can also be useful to look 
specifically at the intersection of racism and technology, such as this 
list from Venture Beat [3]. Are there other reading lists on racism and 
technology that we could pull together, and perhaps curate a list that 
could serve as a resource for the web community?

3. _*Discussion*_: We can let W3C colleagues know about discussions 
within the Inclusion and Diversity Community Group  [4], and also 
encourage discussions in other W3C settings. For instance, do we want to 
promote this as a discussion topic for our upcoming TPAC? Other events?

4. _*Participation*_: W3C doesn't do a lot of hiring, but occasionally 
does, and many of our member organizations do. Do hiring managers know 
where to reach out to to increase the diversity of candidate pools, and 
could that information be shared?

5. _*Outreach*_: What conferences and events do we all show up to, and 
with what messages? Early on a few women in standards organizations 
started showing up to conferences such as the Grace Hopper Conference on 
Women and Computing, and talking to women engineers about what's so 
compelling about working in standards organizations. They had not heard 
of these opportunities from their managers or colleagues, and it took 
some spreading the word. Maybe finding different venues and talking 
about participation in standards organizations would be relevant around 
race as well.

6. _*Work areas*_: Are there any particular topics or issues that we're 
missing work on, such as AI bias around race? And looking at 
intersectional issues may be useful as well -- for instance, the 
intersection of racial and cultural issues with disability can doubly 
disenfranchise people from the training and mentoring opportunities that 
help bring people into the field. Are there intersections between race 
and other areas of W3C work that we could explore?

7. _*Individuals*_, _*organizations and communities*_: People have 
already raised ideas around diversity scholarships, and/or equipment 
support, for individuals. Could we broaden this approach to encouraging 
the web community to look for coaching, mentoring, partnering and 
support opportunities with local community organizations that could help 
feed a pipeline of engagement?

8. _*International context*_: Anti-black racism is an issue in many 
countries especially at this moment, and needs focused attention. But we 
should probably also continue to work on how this fits within braoder 
diversity issues that that W3C has worked on worldwide.

9. *_Action Plan?_* Some of these ideas may not be a good fit for W3C, 
and a lot of other good ideas may be missing. If we think ahead a year, 
what kind of progress would we want to be able report, and what among 
these possibilities -- or other possibilities -- might help get us 
there? Anyone interested in starting to build an action plan from these 
or similar ideas?

- Judy

_*Refs*_

 1. W3C TAG Ethical Web Principles:
    https://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/ethical-web-principles-20191204
 2. Proposed new version of Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct:
    https://www.w3.org/2020/05/CEPC
 3. Some essential reading and research on race and technology:
    https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/02/some-essential-reading-and-research-on-race-and-technology/
 4. Inclusion and Diversity Community Group (IDCG):
    https://www.w3.org/community/idcg <https://www.w3.org/community/idcg/>


-- 
Judy Brewer
Director, Web Accessibility Initiative
at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
105 Broadway, Room 7-128, MIT/CSAIL
Cambridge MA 02142 USA
www.w3.org/WAI/