From the Bay Journal: The ‘green ceiling’: Environmental organizations lack diversity
A new report out this fall confirms what many have noted anecdotally: Environmental organizations and causes often do not reflect the country’s racial diversity.And my guess is that if you look at the actual positions of authority in the environmental movement, the figures would be even worse. There are simply very few minorities who have gone through the trouble to become educated in the STEM fields, and then chosen to squander the money and career potential on the relatively unsure life in the NGOs.
The report, “The State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations,” surveyed nearly 300 environmental nonprofits, government agencies and grant-making foundations to find a “green ceiling” that leaves people of color underrepresented at these organizations, especially in the higher echelons of leadership.
“For decades, environmental organizations have stressed the value of diversity…(But they) are not adequately reaching out to organizations representing people of color communities,” states the report produced by the Green 2.0 working group and authored by Dorceta E. Taylor, a professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment.
The report finds that although people of color constitute 36 percent of the U.S. population and 29 percent of the science and engineering workforce, they did not exceed 16 percent of the staff at any of the organizations that were surveyed.
But even with that, the situation in the Chesapeake Bay region is exceptionally bad:
Forty percent of the more than 15 million people living in the Chesapeake Bay region are African American, Hispanic or another minority. But, for example, Brown found that the Alliance had only three minority employees on its Annapolis-based staff of 24, or 12 percent.But how much do you want to bet that women are over-represented?
Any chance the Justice Department will be looking into this?
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