The Stanford CIO Council (CIOC) and the Stanford People of Color in Technology (POC-IT) affinity group stand in solidarity with the Black community at large and, specifically, at Stanford. Furthermore, we support transformative measures to increase representation and opportunities across the Stanford IT community for Blacks and other people of color.
A history of racism in America
In the months since George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and others were murdered, the world has begun to discuss racism against Blacks and alternatives to traditional policing approaches.
Discrimination and inequality against Blacks and other people of color has been going on for hundreds of years. These communities are denied the same basic rights that others receive, as well as equal access to education, healthcare, and financial opportunities.
The discussion about racism is not new. What is new is the laser focus these issues are receiving from many different quarters.
Our IT Community action plan
The CIOC and POC-IT jointly formulated a long-term plan that puts actions behind mere words. We’ve created a set of immediate and longer-term initiatives that will guide our collective work in strengthening and expanding recruitment programs, addressing factors that impede staff retention, expanding leadership programs, and increasing representation and opportunities for all Blacks and other people of color who come to work in the CIOC units.
By focusing attention on the issues at the core of anti-Black racism, we hope to simultaneously address many of the issues that other marginalized groups experience. While many of the actions we’ve identified are geared towards our Black staff, they are meant to be inclusive as we must work together.
Through this plan, we will more broadly source job openings to ensure that all candidate pools include significant numbers of diverse candidates so that we more closely reflect the communities in which we live, and to establish a foundation to effect lasting change across Stanford.
Immediate Actions
Effective Aug. 1, 2020, the following actions have been implemented by the CIOC and/or POC-IT:
- CIOC units will deliberately design/redesign systems and services for equity
- Purge racist terminology in technology
- Sponsor Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative (Updated 1/04/2023)
- Engage in intentional systems thinking and design processes
- Purge racist terminology in technology
- CIOC units will promote/advertise/market open positions in places where Blacks and other people of color look for jobs/opportunities
- Make this list available as a Stanford-wide resource
- Support University HR (UHR) in their efforts to proactively outreach to include these lists as part of the norm for postings and searches
- Commit to being present at job fairs where the candidates are in attendance
- CIOC will expand the Stanford IT Experiential Development Program (EDP) pilot to the Stanford POC-IT community
- Offer more opportunities to Stanford IT-wide affinity groups (POC-IT, Stanford Women in Technology)
- Encourage Blacks and other people of color campus-wide to take advantage of IT EDP
- CIOC units will require the representation of Blacks and other people of color on interview panels or search committees for positions of salary grade K/L or higher within their organizations
- Blacks and other people of color will have the opportunity to be sponsored by CIOC members to
- Help them be more competitive when seeking career advancement opportunities
- Help them strengthen their resume/CV and build the skills needed to move up the career ladder
- Pilot program to launch in Winter 2021
- CIOC members have agreed to make combined demographic/representational data across all CIOC organizations available on the IT Community website
