Here Are the Industries Doing Best on Diversity

The New York Times reports today that the diversity of corporate boards hasn’t made much progress over the past five years. Overall, non-white directors make up 12.5 percent of board seats today, up from 10 percent in 2015.

I can’t say I’m too surprised about this, but I was interested in the accompanying chart that breaks things down by industry sector:

What’s intriguing here is that the industry that gets the most public pressure is information tech  but they’re far from being the biggest problem. Five years ago they were among the top performers and today they are the top performer.

Compare that to the good ’ol boys in the oil bidness, who were at the bottom in 2015 and remain at the bottom five years later. But how often do they get Twitter mobs coming after them? Ditto for all the others, who could stand to see a few pickets or boycotts far more than the folks in Silicon Valley.

Perhaps the people pressing for diversity are mostly youngish technophiles, and tech companies are what they know best. There’s also the ironic fact that tech companies have all been pressured into reporting their progress on diversity goals, which makes it a lot easier to see where they’re falling down.

Still, how about a campaign targeting Exxon and Halliburton? These are the companies that really need a swift kick.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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