 Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining. We're going to give about one minute or two for everyone to log on, and I'll be back with you in just a moment. Well, welcome, everyone, to the webinar. My name is Sianne Testify. I'm a communications justice fellow at Public Knowledge, where I've been researching diversity in tech policy with a particular focus on early career roles in tech policy, because those roles can be very foundational in helping someone build a network or explore different issue areas in tech policy, and they can also help launch someone into a very influential role later in their career. This week, we released the report, Diversity in Early Career Tech Policy Roles, Challenges and Opportunities, and the report really summarizes ideas from conversations I've had with people about some of the barriers people of color face in beginning a career in tech policy. It also summarizes responses from a survey that we sent to different nonprofits that have a tech policy issue area focus. And what we really wanted to learn was what the early career opportunities look like in these organizations, what the racial diversity look like in those tech policy roles, how job opportunities were shared, and what approaches some organizations were taking to increase diversity. We have a great panel with us today. We're going to talk a little bit more about some approaches to increasing diversity, as well as different perspectives on the state of diversity in tech policy and the implications for communities of color. And we'll talk a little bit more about the value of mentoring. I'll go ahead and introduce our panelists. We have Elisa Valentin, the Special Advisor in the Office of FCC Commissioner Jeffrey Starks. We have Misty Perez Trudson, who is the Chief of Staff at Free Press. We have Joe Torres, who is the Senior Director of Strategy and Engagement at Free Press, and Dominique Harrison, the Director of Technology Policy at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. Thank you all for joining and participating and helping us elevate this conversation. I'd like to also thank the Nielsen Foundation and the Democracy Fund for their support of this project and this webinar. If you are joining us on Zoom and you have a question, you can click on the Q&A icon at the bottom right hand corner of your screen to submit a question. And if you're joining us on YouTube, you can submit your questions in the comments. Elisa, I'll start with you. I'd like to anchor these discussions about diversity and talking about the value people of color bring to tech policy conversations. And some of your observation really helped inspire our research. So can you just share what your perspectives are on how policy, tech policy discussions are really enriched with the inclusion of people of color? Yeah, sure. Well, thank you for having me and congratulations on your research. I know you work really hard on that. And, you know, I would say, you know, thank you for all saying that I, you know, helped kind of inspire this work. But I do want to lift up Gene Kimmelman because he created the fellowship program at PK. He invested so much in the fellowship program. Christine DeBry, who I know continues to guide fellows and really kind of gave us the space to explore our interests and find our voice. Chris Lewis gave us responsibilities and opportunities to lead as well. And so the work that I did at Public Knowledge and even the work that I continue to do in Commissioner Sark's office, like wouldn't be possible without the support of those people over time. But to answer your question, I think it's incredibly important for people of color from diverse backgrounds to be part of and lead policy discussions, because we just experience the world in a different way. And if you're someone, for example, who comes from, you know, a family of immigrants, you're going to talk about, you know, issues related to privacy or surveillance in a different way. If you're someone who is from a rural area, from rural South Georgia, you're going to talk about broadband access issues in a completely different way. Or if you're someone who has lived in poverty or like just knows people who have lived in poverty or continue to live in poverty, you're going to talk about broadband affordability issues in a different way as well. So the narratives and the experiences that we elevate, it matters, right? And I think there's a lot of times where, you know, we might not have inclusive policy solutions, because we fail to diagnose the problem correctly from the jump. So a prime example I would say is, you know, with the Lifeline program that we have at the FCC, there were some, you know, kind of questions and proposals about if we should impose, you know, a co-pay or a fee to these folks who are already low income consumers. And $5 to some people is just, you know, Starbucks coffee run, right? But to other people who are on a really tight budget, that's how they get to and from work, right? And I would add that, you know, there are times that people of all intentions, even well intentioned people who, you know, really just can't see it outside of themselves. And so no matter, you know, how many times you can, you know, quote, Martin Luther King or have a Black Lives Matter sign outside of your house, at the end of the day, you don't experience life the way that I experienced. So it's really important to have those folks at the table and to listen to them, right? And to collaborate with people of color if we really truly want to create inclusive and equitable tech policies. Yeah, I'd like to add something. I mean, just topping off what, you know, Dr. Valentin said, and what's in the report, excuse me, is that, you know, you need diversity and policy discussions to center the concerns of Black communities in the conversation. That's something that we do at the Joint Center. What was mentioned in the report is that policy is not race neutral, right? And when policy leaders do not examine pre-existing disparities, there's risk of exacerbating them in the kind of legislation that has passed. Policy impacts specific communities in unique ways. So we need members of Black, Brown and Asian, Indigenous communities to be in leadership positions leading federal agencies or on teams at big tech companies to explore the benefits and costs of specific policies on our communities. Everything from antitrust to trade, to health, to education, to tech. If we are not in the room, many times our concerns are not on the table and they're not being addressed. And then these products or policies are being developed and end up having negative consequences for our communities. And so I think that's really important as we think about why we need to usher in a new generation of tech policy advocates and scholars who are from communities of color. I want to add to that, if I can't do that, Sianna, I totally agree with everything that's been said and I'll just add that if you address race, if you address anti-Blackness in our media system, in tech policy in our media system, for organizations that we work for, we actually achieve the goals we want to achieve as a mission for our organization. If we're trying to create a more just media system and not addressing race, then we're not serious then. We're not a serious organization. Because if you address the fundamentally structural racism that exists in our media system and we're all finding structural and institutional racism in our policies, right, in our missions and in what we do. But if you're doing that, not addressing race, then you're not really trying to solve the problem, you know, because and as people of color who work in this space, often many of us, you know, we're just not born with the knowledge. We have lived experience, of course, but knowledge about what's on our communities. We worked on that, you know, we have to study that ourselves. We have to learn that. I didn't learn anything about being what is to be Puerto Rican growing up in New York City, you know, if we're going to school, or going to college, that stuff I had to learn on my own in a community with other people of color, you know, and learning from other folks. So the reason folks are higher, and also have us as interns in life, because folks are working on this, this is an expertise that they have, you know, it's not just because the skin they occupy, it's also like it's also they are examining historical harms, you know, and trying to understand how this fundamentally is reflected in the system that we have that's hurt, that's harming us. So which other folks are not doing or need to do what they're not doing it, you know, so it's like, is an expertise you're also hiring, you know, that and combined with the live experience, to understand like what are the changes that need to happen in our meeting system, we're trying to better understand that needs to happen. Yet, there should be more of us working at these, at these places. Thank you. Thank you all for that. I think you touched on some really important points and making the case for why we need more people of color and tech policy. And, you know, I'll just add that I do find it especially compelling when people are able to share the stories of their lived experiences. And it really encourages, you know, bolder policy solutions. I want to turn the conversation into turn the conversation to strategies now. Dominique, one idea that we talked about in the report is the opportunity to frame tech policy issues in the context of social justice, because there's that dimension to tech policy issues. And, you know, one of the things that we were looking to explore was how job descriptions can, you know, encourage or discourage people. Can you share a little bit about how you think job descriptions and applications from or might encourage applications from people who might not have thought about tech policy as an area where they could pursue professionally? Yeah, thank you for that question. At my former job, I was doing some work around lack of representation within tech companies. I mean, I feel like when folks think about tech policy positions, they think that you have to be an attorney, right? And you have to be have studied this issue in your former education. And I don't think that's the case. I also think that you need to be very specific in your job requirements and qualifications, call it out, right? So everything from stating that you encourage diverse applicants to apply, right? Make it a requirement under the job description that candidates help identify potential civil rights implications of emerging technologies, state that the minimum qualification is that the candidate is interested or have experience and tech policy issues in the context of social justice. And lastly, it should not be a requirement, like I said, to have a legal background or degree. I'm a social scientist. I'm sure other folks like Dr. Valentin is a social scientist. You need those people in the room, data scientists and others who are community advocates, right? grassroots experts to be able to understand the nuances of how tech policy impacts people of color. And so I think that being specific and being open to the type of people who can do that job, right, being open to learning, right, and teaching the person in the organization will be helpful to attract a diversity of folks because I this is an interesting area for many of our communities, but they might not be aware of the opportunities that exist at different companies and within government. Great. And, you know, as we talked about in our in our last webinar, there were some questions from, you know, people in their early career search, and they shared that, you know, sometimes they were they expressed that they thought that they would need certain qualifications that I think a lot of people, you know, think about when they think when they hear tech policy. And, you know, they were wondering, you know, someone having a social science background or coming in to this space with a different background, are they suitable for these roles? Can they be competitive for these roles? And the answer is yes. And there's an opportunity to, you know, be more explicit about that in the job description. I'd like to move on with our conversation about approaches and ask you, Misty, a little bit more about Free Press's journey in bringing more diversity to the organization and centering race equity in your organization. We featured a case study from Free Press in our report. And we have Misty on here today to talk a little bit about the hiring practices your organization has adopted to try to minimize bias and evaluating candidates for a job role and other strategies you all have adopted to bring more diversity and inclusion into your workplace. Yeah, thank you so much for having me today. And it's great to just be here in community with all of you to talk about how we're changing the media and tech field and how we're changing the organizations we work at. We don't do this alone. We do this in community. We learn in community, so I'm really grateful for this. I think a lot of the ways that we've transformed our hiring process certainly started with job postings, like how are we being transparent about our values, about who we are as an organization, about the work that we do. And I think that really came from how are we centering racial equity in our work and the issues that we work on? We are not going to attract diverse candidates if we're not actually talking about the work that we do based on how they impact communities of color. So if we're not talking about access to broadband or affordability or surveillance or the future of journalism or hate and disinformation and the impacts it has on by POC communities, then people aren't going to see our values in our work. So I think it starts with our values in our work. It starts with the job descriptions that we put out there and being transparent and everything Dominique said, I totally agree. That's sort of our approach to it. And then when it comes to minimizing bias in our hiring process, so we've again borrowed from several organizations, folks like Race Forward, the Kairos Fellowship, the Colorado Open Media Foundation and others who, as we learn and as we engage in partnership, we say, oh, this is an interesting way to continue to innovate our system. So one of the things we do is we completely remove the use of cover letters. We don't ask for cover letters anymore. We start with a grounding and application question. So questions that will really tell us, why do folks want to work for free press? What is it about our mission and the issue areas that are appealing to them? Why this particular role? What is the skill set that they bring to this? What attracts them to the role? And then we might have a question or two focused on kind of demonstrated experience within that skill set. So we're hiring for a social media manager right now. Analytics is really important. How people use analytics in their previous experience and how would they apply it? We also always ask our applicants how they've advanced race equity in their work. It's expected that everyone within the organization has a role in advancing race equity through their work and through their role. And we make that very clear in our job applications as well. And we start that as part of the initial assessment. And so when we get those responses in, we also look to ensure we're building a diverse equity or diverse applicant pool. So if we've got 60 applicants and it's only 10% POC, we can't move on. Like we've got to actually do the work as an organization to recruit and attract diverse talent. And so what we do is we also send out a voluntary demographic survey. We do this after the fact we separate these things from the application because we want to make sure we're following legal guidelines as well. And we're evaluating that separately. So the hiring supervisor and myself will get a spreadsheet full of responses to all of those questions detached from the applicant's name or demographic information, their resumes, their work experience. And we will go through every one of those questions and individually rank their responses. So you can get a one to five on your response to why do you want to work for free press anywhere from you look like a great place to work to something really in depth about why free press and the issues we work on really resonates with someone. And so then we compare those results of the two hiring supervisors for myself and someone else without knowing how the other person did. And our operations manager will say, OK, here's where you land at of the 60 applicants. You've got 30 that you want to advance because a lot of these responses are really compelling. It's almost like a first interview. And then she'll inform us of the demographics of that that part of the applicant pool. So where are we at if we are at 50 percent or higher of IPOC folks, then we're able to move forward to narrow that down and actually look at the questions a little more in depth in the responses to say, let's get to an applicant pool. We can phone screen and every step of the way we look at where our demographics in that hiring process so that we know where we are and where we have work to do. And I think the importance about demographic information is that you're really clear with applicants. You're doing this to evaluate yourself and your organization and to hold true to your commitments around equity, diversity and inclusion. But this isn't about the applicant, but it's about the organization. So those processes grounding in the issues that we work on with a race equity analysis, doing all the steps that we can to eliminate bias in the screening process, engaging a diverse hiring committee of folks who are diverse in race, gender and tenure, but grounded in the position. So a broad range of digital communication folks engaged in our social media manager hiring process, I think also creates a really rich assessment of applicants and further checks of bias of either the hiring manager or myself or the other folks who are participating in that. So those have been really key to us not only seeing more diversity in our overall applicant pool, but more diversity in our narrowed qualified applicant pool, which has been quite exciting for us and certainly led to a shift in free press. Thank you for sharing that, Misty. I'm through throughout reading the survey responses, you know, I've noticed some organization organizations had tried a few of the things you talked about, you know, particularly the one with, you know, creating questions, targeted questions for the applicant as opposed to something like a cover letter as a way of trying to encourage applications and encourage answers that might show that someone is really suitable for the role because of the value that they can bring through their lived experiences and their passions around that. One thing I'd like to touch on, even though we didn't cover it in the report, but I think can be really helpful in thinking about how we, you know, how we sustain people of color, you know, once they have begun their careers in tech policy and that is mentorship. And Joe, could you share a little bit more about your experiencing, your experiences mentoring people? Yeah, you know, for me, I've been real lucky in my career. I've had in my life to have folks who have been mentors to me and it wasn't like I'm your mentor, but have been there as someone who I can learn from, but also talk to. I've had a couple of major ones who really shaped my life, but I have so many people who who show up in my life that for a minute or for more than a minute, who who who helped to shape, who helped to shape me and my viewpoints and and provide support. Really, I think so much of like being like, like within our organization or within this sector, working with racial justice leaders is it's not only to like provide your expertise and kind of support to work one another, but it's also it's really like so often at times it's it's the emotional support, you know, it's like it's sort of the technical part is and like this is how you do your job and how you can do this is how how these are policies and you can think about and support folks in their work, but it's really just the human relationships and human connections, you know, of, you know, when you work in at institutions where you may be the only one or one of a few, it's hard, you know, it's hard. There's a lot of just, you know, you have to do a lot of stuff and within your organization or within the larger sector. We talk about policymaking and how often it doesn't reflect people of color may be mentioned often time to be three years as an add-on, but it's not centered, you know, it's like, you know, and so when you're fighting for your community and your voice is not being validated and you're having all these internal struggles within your own institutions, who do you get to, who do you community with and who understand your struggle? And I think like, I think like, you know, that's the emotional part of like being able to continue to find inspiration to work that you do is is is is continue to be in community with folks who have your back, you know, and you can talk to you about stuff, you know, because you don't have to hold on to it, you know, and it can help you get through that situation and know that you're just not alone in how you're feeling. You know, sometimes you may think you're crazy, but think feeling a certain way of emotion. It might be you like, it's me on the problem, right? That's why my ideas or my voice is not being heard. But it's like, no, no, no, this is like you're not alone. We've all gone through this, you know. And so and the other thing is I think for is important to with mentorship, anyone who's a mentor and anyone could be a mentor, right? I think, you know, I learned that it doesn't take a lot of people. We're not a big sector, you know, with the public interest community. We need a larger we need more people to be able to create change. At the same time, I believe and I was taught this that it doesn't take a lot of people to start create creating great change, you can create great change with with a dedicated handful of people, you know, a dedicated staff around the Hill at the FCC can do so many great things, can do some wondrous things, you know what I'm saying? And like, who are who are dedicated and determined. And then and then, you know, and and too is like a job of a mentor is to create more leaders, you know. And I think we need more leadership and we need more people in here in here. So folks have leadership to be able to to build a bigger army. So a folks lack of own what's great word army but build a bigger a bigger base of support to create because I truly believe if we change the narrative than our media system and all of this why I got into this about narrative, right? And anti black narrative, anti indigenous narrative, right? And the Latinx narratives and the harm it does to public policy throughout we can change the narrative in this kind in this in our media system and our tech system. We have a chance to change other public policies that help people of color, whether it's education, health, criminal justice. When you have a narrative that's telling you like, your your your danger to your country, you know, and your or it's hard to change policy. And we see like folks know how to use narrative to demonize historically, black folks, people of color. And so we need a bigger army to I. I believe I'm a part of a racial justice movement, right? But I do it through the sector of media, you know, that's that's my contribution. And so we're trying to create a more liberated just future. We need a bigger army. And so we need to mentor folks, you know, to understand the system and how the system is doing harm to our communities. And so and then and then build those relationships that we support one another, you know, we support one other emotion because this work is not easy. And sometimes working at these institutions is not easy as well. No. Oh, can I just quickly add, you know, when it comes to kind of creating the army or a larger base, I think it's definitely important to bring in folks from, you know, historically black colleges and universities, tribal colleges and universities, other minority serving institutions that may not be like connected to these various circles as well. And, you know, at the FCC Commissioner of Starks actually started the early career staff diversity initiative. And it started in January. And we actually have an intern in our office now, who's from Southern University in Louisiana. There's law school there. And, you know, without that opportunity and like paid internship and that sort of a thing, they may not have been able to, you know, participate in the FCC's internship program. So I think it's definitely important and to make sure also, and no public knowledge does this, you know, we got to pay our interns, you know, and I would like and we I think we need to do that throughout like the federal government. You know, I think it needs to happen in nonprofit organizations. Like we we have to to do better about that. So yeah. And one last thing I wanted to say is that not only is mentorship important, but we need our white allies to advocate and to cheer lead for communities of color people who are great candidates for these positions, right? They are often in offices and meetings and rooms where we are not. And if it's not someone bringing up our name saying, hey, look at Mr. Or at least Joseph, he's a great we should then no one is going to say that, you know, we're out here, we're available. We have great experience knowledge and etc. And so it's so important for our white allies to be understanding of the kind of candidates that are diverse and the importance of nominating them and saying their names so they get the recognition and are able to get the positions that are within these organizations. I tell you this position that I have right now. My boss who mentored me Spencer Overton said that, you know, 13 people around mentioned my name before getting the job. That means that I wouldn't even have to be there. And someone said, hey, you should take a look at Dominique. And so I just think and I want to emphasize the point of how important that is that we need to be talking about diverse candidates. And if we don't have people advocating for us, then oftentimes we're overlooked. Yes. And I just want to add, I mean, Joe is incredibly humble. He's also an incredible mentor both inside and outside of the organization. And so I mean, he was the first phone call I received when I started at Free Press. I remember that he intentionally reached out and continued to. And I can look across our field and organizations and see where Joe also did that to other folks coming into other allied organizations, reaching out and saying, hey, I know what the sector looks like and I'm here. I'm here to be a mentor to you even even outside of Free Press. So I think making sure that we're engaging with IPSE folks outside of our own organizations to to offer that community, that networking and that connection and throughout, you know, throughout the last however long there's always been sort of formal and informal networks. And I think it's really important to create that space and to support staff to take advantage of that space, too. I think this was something that we talked a lot about in the last three years. We've done a lot of hiring and a lot of entry-level hiring, too, and also wanting to make sure that the staff of color who were coming in had the time and the space to participate in either PSU luncheon or networking or just time with other organizations that were more diverse than Free Press because, you know, we're still growing, we're still changing. And so I think that's really important to look about how we can use connections across organizations and throughout our sector. Yeah, and my last thing you can, you know, I've been able to meet through this job amazing, like, racial justice leaders and people of color, like, who've been able to really help me grow as a person and human being and also my own knowledge of who I am and my relationship to this country as a person and public descent, you know. So it's like I've, it's been it's been amazing, like all the folks you get to meet and those all folks are mentors in a lot of different ways, you know. And so it's not just people within your organization in on it. And I didn't make this point before, but I didn't make it clear. Doesn't just have to be people within your own organization, you know, it's people also outside the organization to who are the mentors. Great. Thank you all for contributing your thoughts on mentorship. Some of the things you all brought up, I think sort of helps us shift to understanding how powerful networking can be. And one thing that we learned through the survey, when we asked the respondents to share a little bit about how job opportunities were shared and how frequently they're shared in certain ways. You know, one thing we did learn is that a lot of these opportunities are shared primarily within the tech policy space. And, you know, one thing I asked people throughout my conversations, I asked, you know, how can we create more enduring networks with, you know, HBCUs, HSIs, tribal colleges and universities and other racial based affinity networks? You know, one thing I learned, for example, with speaking with someone who works at an HBCU is that tech policy organizations can do more to sort of create a stronger presence. And, you know, she thought about creative ideas like guest lecturing or, you know, different ways that, you know, tech policy groups can just have a stronger presence and interact with people who may be starting their career very soon. I'm wondering from the panel, are there other ideas that jump out to you that you think, you know, would really help bridge the tech policy gap with communities of color? And I recognize that this is something that, you know, we could all benefit from reflecting on more. But I wanted to elevate that issue of networking because it's one that we think that, you know, we can make some improvement in or organizations, rather, can make improvement in. I want to also touch on another point about collecting data on race and ethnicity and how using metrics like that might help organizations, you know, I think it could encourage them the accountability there. Do any of you have thoughts on best practices about using data to encourage change? Yeah, I can share a bit on that. And also just thinking of your previous question in terms of building relationships with universities and academics. Like, I think what we've seen from that is where we have relationships. We see a flood of applicants coming in. So taking the time to build those relationships, whether it's through guest lecturing, internship programs, partnering with the universities, you know, having strong relationships with professors who are invested in the field, some of our staff are adjunct professors, like where we have like even a small relationship we generally see an increase in applications from. So taking the time to really invest, I think, is a great way to further diversify the applicants for both fellowships and positions. And your report also inspired me to think about, oh, yeah, and how do we engage in externships as well? How do we ground with academic institutions, POC-serving academic institutions where we know that we need to really advance our research chops or something of that nature? Like, I think that's another important way to do it. In terms of data, I thought a lot about this after our conversation. So I mean, I think I said this earlier, but collecting demographic data is a great way to hold ourselves and our institutions or organizations accountable to our commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion. So I was surprised to see maybe I wasn't totally surprised to see that a lot of the orgs you surveyed didn't collect demographic information. There's so much that you can learn from that in terms of how are you doing as an organization in your commitment? And if you're committed to this, what does the data say? So in terms of best practices, I'm not a lawyer. I don't play one on TV or webinars, but I do think it's important to consult with your general counsel to be sure that your practices are guided in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act so that you're ensuring you're covering yourself and making sure you're doing this in an appropriate way. So again, once you've got a grounding for why you want to collect demographic information, then you have to do your job to be sure that you're simultaneously guarding against discrimination in your selection process. So go ahead and collect it and keep it separate. You'll learn about your applicant pool and the work you have to do. We also collect demographic information on our staff annually, and we again review that annually so that we get a chance to see what is the diversity of our staff, both in leadership positions, entry-level positions, who's progressing, who's not progressing. I think one of the places that we have talked a lot about is what does it look like when you diversify your staff with junior or entry-level positions and there's only one or no POC supervisors, right? So that was a place where we were able to look at the data and be like, E, this has to change. Like, you can't continue to bring on by POC folks and not have a diversity of leadership or a diversity of supervisors. And so that's one way for us to show how these changes can take place over time, but also to check ourselves. What does diversity look like within our leadership teams, our executive team, within folks who are leading campaign work or programmatic areas of work, within folks who have decision-making power? Like, how are we actually using the data to ground in what we think is happening within our organizations, but also to hold ourselves to like what we're committed to. So if we're committed to increasing the number of people of color who are supervisors in our org, what's the data showing us about that over time? And if it's not moving, then we're not doing our job. What's it telling us about the number of people of color who are reporting to POC supervisors? Because that's important too. And if that's not changing, then we're not accounting for the feedback we're receiving from our staff. So I think there's a lot of really good reasons to collect and to regularly review the demographic data. We also look at it in terms of equity and compensation. So what does it look like within our tiers? We have a five-tier compensation system. What does the, what does diversity look like throughout that? What does it look like when you look at Black Indigenous POC folks or you look at it by gender to say, where are the salary ranges? What's the difference? What's notable on an org-wide level? What's notable on a tier level? And why? How are we accounting for that? Or how are we making changes to account for that? So I think it's incredibly valuable. I think it's an important guide and an important accountability measure. And I think at an organization like FreePress where there's 34 folks, we also have to be mindful of like, how do we grapple with some of the things the data shows us, right? So I told you earlier that in our hiring process, we look to have a diverse applicant pool. Well, at one point, we were hiring a few years ago and we had only 40% of people of color in the applicant pool. But when we looked at the qualified applicants, they were 100% POC and the finalists were all Black. So we were kind of like, oh, do we stop here or do we keep investing and investigating and seeing what the data tells us about where our efforts have been spent? So I think there's important reason to use the data as a guide to inform your practices, but also you have to grapple with what it shows you and what it tells you over time. Yeah, I just wanna emphasize that I think that data is very important. If racial equity is a North Star, how do you know you're getting there if you're not collecting the data? If you're not transparent about the information? If you're not holding people accountable, managers for hiring and diverse candidates? And so it's very important to collect it. And the EEOC actually encourages that you collect that information so you know that you can have diverse representation within companies. We actually had a commissioner a part of one of the convenings I did at my former job who was when we were talking about these issues around importance of data and sharing data, particularly within tech companies. And so sometimes often when folks are filling out job applications the questions are actually there and people have to answer they don't have to, but they have the option of answering their race, age and disability question. So anyways, I just wanna emphasize how important it is because if you don't know where you're going and how you're gonna get there the data will help you get there by knowing that information. Great, thank you, Misty and Dominique for your perspective on that. We're in a good place now to turn to some questions. So I have one question here. How can technology policy influence influence changes in diversity leadership roles? I think this question is trying to get at how how can organizations encourage diversity and more senior roles? Any thoughts or perspectives on that? I think it goes back to is the organization centering race? If the organization is centering race and believe that if you're addressing anti-black racism anti-POC racism, you actually are like, we see what's happening in the world is in this country. It's like it's a multiracial democracy possible, right? When democracy has been fully realized, right? And this is what the struggle is, right? And so if we're gonna democratize our tech system and media system, we have a good chance of achieving a multiracial democracy, right? Which I like to think is the goal many folks share. And so you have to grapple with it because it's just not like the idea you're gonna just hire POC folks to get into these positions of power within your organization because there needs to be folks who acquire power because representation is important but presidents like Rashad Robson also often accept color change. Presence is in power, right? Power is the ability to change the rules, right? And so can you change the rules of your own organization of how you actually do business? How you actually approach the policy, right? And I'm talking about non-POC led orgs, right? For the most part, right? It's like, and so getting a person of color into a position of power is that person gonna be allowed to fully bring everything they have to especially if they're advocating on race to make sure that is addressed in the policies, you know? And that's where organizations need to really grapple with if folks who haven't done a sufficient job of employing people of color in senior positions is giving the power to fully bring that part of themselves to the job and for our organization, I'd just say I think really important is really hard to change organizational culture, right? It's really hard, right? And that's where you have to be willing to change. If you're not willing to change, it's not gonna change, right? But if you're willing to change, I think, and it's hard to and then you don't know how to do it, that's why I think for us as we press like we benefited from having like really skilled consultants to help guide us, you know? So if you have a ability to have consultants to be able to guide you to your better angels because otherwise sometimes when you grapple, you kind of like have a circular argument all the time. You're all kind of pushing each other buttons and it gets, you're not really resolving anything, you know? And so that's where you can have like a neutral third party to be like helping you all get into the next step. And it's who's real skillful at that. And so it's hard for an organization to change their culture, you know? It has to happen. But what are the, what are the help you need as an organization to empower those folks of color and your staff to change the dynamics within your own, you know, the way you go out doing business? And if you do, I think you actually have a much stronger organization, obviously, you know? Thank you. Thank you, Joe, for that response. I have another question I think is pretty timely given that we're mostly working virtual right now. This person would like to know some ideas or strategies or approaches to facilitate or encourage networking opportunities when so many of our colleagues are still in the virtual space as we navigate COVID. So going back to networking opportunities and how we might be able to create those opportunities in the virtual world, have any of you had experience with that during COVID or have any ideas on how we can think about still trying to make sure that we're in communication with different communities and allowing that networking space to take place even though we're virtual right now? Yeah, so I guess I'm gonna announce this here. It'll be on social media, I guess, after this. But Latinas and tech DC, we are having an event with Black Women Talk Tech DC chapter next Thursday and it is a networking event. So I'll post that on my Twitter after this, but that's something that we're doing, a kind of virtual dinner and networking breakout session. So hopefully we can kind of collaborate in the future and people can meet each other in this kind of virtual world. And I'll also say something that one of my friends is doing, she's having like office hours and she's a pretty high-up person in the tech space. I think that's something, Gray, if you're someone who people would like to chat with and get mentored by and all of that, then maybe you should set 30 minutes an hour on your calendar every month and for people to stop by and have kind of a virtual coffee with you. Thank you, Elisa, for sharing that. Sounds like a really great opportunity. But those ideas like that for the person who asked the question, I think is one way we can sustain networking opportunities even though we're all virtual right now. Still looking for a few more questions. I think we're at a good place actually to ask my last question, which is what advice would you all give to organizations that might be in the very early stages of trying to bring more diversity into tech policy roles? Can just be your observations or if you have experience and have been in the early stages of promoting an effort like this, what advice would you give to people just beginning these efforts? I mean, I have a suggestion and I really wanna get to an issue I brought to you, and what I wanted to see on was that the space is small, the communities of color who are running some of these tech policy groups or organizations want to examine a number of issues, but our teams are not that big. We don't have the proper resources and the financial commitments by foundations to do the work we wanna do. So we need foundation support, that means money, so that we can hire more people to help us do the work. We can create fellowships, that we can create more opportunities for people of color to be in these positions, to examine these issues, to be able to rise up in these ranks to do the work that we're also striving to do. And so I would really put pressure and encourage foundations to look at racial equity organizations, tech policy groups that are doing the kind of work that they're interested in and support them, right? We need that financial support to be able to hire people. And I can't hire a person and build a great program at the Joint Center if I can't get money from a foundation to do this kind of work. So I really wanna stress that part and I'll allow my fellow colleagues to talk about other kind of opportunities. But just to your point, we did ask in the survey, we asked organizations if they were funding available to increase the number of opportunities, especially early career roles, would they seek funding to advance that? And everyone said that they would, right? So it's definitely something that tech policy organizations would like to have support around. I just wanna second how many it's like, there needs to be more funding to orgs of color in this space. And it needs to be more org foundation funding in this space. There needs to be more foundations who have a portfolio on media and tech policy because it's related to like building democracy, right? But then with that is more money needs to go to orgs of color for sure who are, because I mean, just look at the statistics, you talk about data, just look at the data of how many black led or Latinx led, so forth, we see foundation dollars. And it's another place where that's been long the story, and that has to change, you know? So I'll say that my colleagues, right before Christmas wrote a column, because we've worked on journalism for the Neiman Foundation talk about like, what should the Knight Foundation do? What is being dollars? And how should we redistribute it to black led journalism projects, you know? And dreaming of what that would be. So yeah, it needs to be addressed because it needs to be addressed. So yeah, I just want to second what Dominique is saying, for sure. And I would add like, if you are an organization that is really well funded, right? Don't just give lip service to things about like racial equity, right? You have to also put the resources behind it. If you have a fellowship program, don't pay people $30,000 a year to live in DC, right? You have to give them a livable wage. And I would also say as it relates to kind of workplace culture, you know, allow people to show up in the world as they show up, right? You don't have to look a certain way to be a tech policy advocate. You don't have to speak a certain way to be a tech policy advocate. Just, you know, give people the room to, you know, show up as they are. And, you know, I would also say, you know, don't make assumptions about what you think folks' interests are when they enter your organization, just because they are a person of color. They might not want to be pigeonholed to only doing like diversity and inclusion work. So I think that's something that's important as it relates to workplace culture as well. Yes, I can say yes over and over. Yes, I mean, all of that, like it takes an investment of resources. It certainly does. And both from foundations and organizations saying like actually we need to make an investment in this work and the investment is substantial and it's over time too. Like it's not something, you know, everybody goes to a training and it's done. It's got to be a sustained investment from both funders and from organizations. And I think we touched on this a bit with the first question, but like leadership is really important. The leadership within an organization has to champion racial equity, diversity and inclusion and not just as talking points like they actually have to be invested in doing the work themselves and doing the work through their role within the organization and in doing the work to actually support a transfer of power and a transition in leadership, especially for white led organizations. It's essential. I mean, we learned this lesson a lot when we go out and work in partnerships with organizations that are ready to do this work. But when we run into a space where leaders aren't ready to do this work, it doesn't succeed. So that I think is really critical. And that's both from the leadership within the organization to diversifying your board. And then to ensuring that people of color have leadership opportunities both within their role and to grow within the organization. I think this like shifting of power is something that we've talked a lot about at FreePress and I've again looked at like, how do we use the data to monitor that we're actually doing this? We're not just saying like, yes, we want to shift power, but we're actually shifting decision-making power. We're actually moving away from like processes that are either really hierarchical or bureaucratic to like, how do we support folks moving with autonomy to make decisions both within their role and for the organization that have impacts and changes on both the work that we do. And I mean, I just want to say that to make it plain, if you want diverse talent, you need to do the work. You need to do the research. Go on Google, go on LinkedIn, go and search for these organizations and see where these different candidates are. So when people are saying, oh, there's enough people are not applying, we can't find, I mean, we're out here. You just got to do the text dedication. I think that's a part of your job is that you've got to find the right and great talent that's out there. And if that means spending a couple of hours on LinkedIn, online, looking for those people and reaching out and saying, you should apply to this position. I think you're a great candidate. Then that's what's going to take. And so we shouldn't be, people shouldn't be quick to assume that's going to be a quick and easy process. It's going to take work. And that's what racial equity, getting to that next step, that place is going to need. Can I have a moment of thinking? I mean, there's so many great things being said. Like, Alisa, what you just said about like not pigeonholing people of color, you know, there's no shame in like a person of color who doesn't want to race equity, let's say for example, right? I have no like, I was a journalist and I was a worker journalist association. And a lot of journalists, like don't give me the diversity beat because that is no way for me to get ahead in my job. You know, like I'm not going to get promoted, you know, and or if I'm working on race, I'm not going to become the CEO of the company or I'm not going to become a senior, you know, I'm not going to become a part of it. I'm not going to advance in my career. I mean, that's always a fear, right? You're going to get that the white folks will pigeonhole you, right? This is not a career for career advancement, right? I mean, that's some of the fears I've seen through the years, you know, in working and it's like, it's legit, folks got to take care of their families, is a real, you know, and pay for, pay the student loans and all this other stuff, right? And so, and with that said, also to white folks, when you have people of color, and I agree with you, you said, Dominique, early on in this conversation, that you don't have to be a lawyer or a part of the policy team to affect policy, right? Policy should be the vision of policy should be held by many, you know, and not just within the policy team. The folks who have the expertise, they say to lawyers and stuff like that, that can help guide folks on how the law works and what, if we want this vision, this is how we can get there. But that doesn't mean they have to come up with the vision themselves, right? And it's to the exclusion of not interacting with folks who don't have a policy background, let's say like technical legal policy background. And last thing is like, in white folks got to do the work themselves on race. You know, it's like, they have to also become more knowledgeable about race and structural racism. And, but at the same time, following the lead of people of color, you know, on what the solutions are. But they have to also like say, like, oh, I don't have to work on this because we have this person here to work on it. And you have to work on it as well, you know, you're not excluded from working on it, but you follow the lead of people of color when it comes to what the solutions are, you know, and you can contribute to that vision, but we should follow the leadership of other folks, of people of color in it. Anyway, but you are not excluded from that work. So I'll stop there. Thank you all so much for weighing in and sharing and giving your opinions and expertise. We're almost at time. I wanna say before we conclude the webinar, you know, we'll send a follow-up email and it'll have my contact information. If there is something else you wanted to discuss and didn't get to ask or didn't have your question answered, please follow up with me and I can reach out to the panelists so they can have more time to reflect on responses to a few of your questions. And I wanna thank you all for attending and being a part of this conversation. I hope it's something that we can sustain and, you know, this work is ongoing and I hope that you'll leave the webinar with some ideas and things to reflect on.