Help with W3C BLM statement

Dear Kim,

Thanks for accepting to help W3C review its statement in support of Black
Lives Matter[1].

In the spirit of transparency and following our conversation, I'm making
public the content of this email which I previously shared with you.

I'm providing a bit of context upfront to help make the best use of your
time.

*CONTEXT*
Because W3C is a member-lead industry consortium, it has to obtain the
approval of its membership before making a public statement about a
political issue. This is complicated by the international nature of W3C's
membership, which might disagree on the nature or the importance of various
political issues.

The process for membership approval is rather lengthy. There is a 4 week
review period during which member representatives are allowed to make
comments, approve, or formally object to the statement. Formal objections
then need to be addressed. This can be done either by modifying the
statement to accommodate the objection (and getting the objector to rescind
their objection as a result) or by having W3C's Director (Tim Berners-Lee)
override the objection and approve the statement as is. This process is not
public.

The request for W3C to make a statement about Black Lives Matter has come
from the Inclusion and Diversity Community Group (IDCG). Community groups
are W3C groups which are proposed and run by members of the broad Web
community. They are mostly run in public. There are no requirements to be
employed by a W3C member to participate in a Community Group or run one.
There exists a number of groups on a wide variety of topics. Having a
Community Group request W3C makes a statement about what W3C defines as a
political issue is, as far as I know, a first in W3C's history.

The IDCG wrote a statement in support of Black Lives Matter backed by a
list of diversity and inclusion initiatives it had already started or was
planning to start. The IDCG then submitted this statement to W3C to make it
an official statement. This triggered the above mentioned process. During
that process, a formal objection was made[2]. There were also two change
suggestions[3] (that I made) which weren't formal objections (i.e. the IDCG
can choose whether to incorporate those suggestions or not).


*NEXT STEPS*The IDCG now has to review this formal objection and the change
suggestions. This process has already started on the mailing list[4].

THE IDCG has the following options:

1. it can make substantial changes to the statement which would retrigger
the 4 week review process again, and potentially allow for more objections
(for example on the ground of the statement coming too late), or
2. it can incorporate the changes proposed by the objector, or
3. it can decide to submit the statement as is and request that the
Director override the objection.

In all cases the IDCG can make non-substantial changes to the language
without retriggering a review.


*WHAT WE NEED YOUR HELP FOR*Essentially, we’d need your help wording the
most supportive statement possible given the above-mentioned constraints.
As another 4 week review period puts the whole project at risk, the IDCG
believes that the safest option is to avoid retriggering a review.

Thank you so much for your help with this,

--tobie

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[1]: https://github.com/w3c/idcg/wiki/Draft-BLM-statement
[2]: https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-idcg/2020Aug/0010.html
[3]: https://github.com/w3c/idcg/issues?q=is%3Aissue+label%3Astatement
[4]: https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-idcg/2020Aug/thread.html