[NCSG-Discuss] On Diversity and Discrimination

[Andrew A. Adams]

Dan and Avri's points are both well-made and strong further arguments for 
supporting decent diversity requirements in decision-making bodies.

A further point is that such bodies interact and again we see that same 
dynamic. For small bodies with tens of members it is hard to get 
representation of all groups (and of course individual differences between 
members of groups are as large as the differences between groups on many 
occasions). So, for groups which are relatively small percentages of the 
overall population (LGBT, to the best of my knowledge are only a few 
percentage of the entire population) it is difficult to require a group of 
only ten to always have one LGBT member. Within the broader set of groups, 
however, there should be efforts made to ensure that out of the perhaps few 
hundreds of representatives (and over time, multiples of that) that at least 
some of these representatives are from these small groups. Again, the local 
maximum of one committee and one term should be leavened with understanding 
of the longer term benefits of diversity.

Avri's point about how one measures these things applies across all of these 
broad considerations also provides us with ethical guidance pointing towards 
requiring best efforts in diversity within groups, across groups and over 
time, while maintaining open and transparent definitions of "Minimum 
Competence" required (and providing avenues to gain the necessary competences 
for those in under-represented groups). ICANN's Fellowship Program is, I 
think, a good example of an effort to provide better geographic diversity, 
though there may be room to expand upon it to cover other under- or 
un-represented minority groups rather than simply developed/developing nation 
citizenship/residency.





-- 
Professor Andrew A Adams                      aaa at meiji.ac.jp
Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration,  and
Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics
Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan       http://www.a-cubed.info/