op-ed: “apple’s mostly white board says a call for diversity is ‘unduly burdensome and not necessary’ ” (via quartz)

“In a proxy statement filed Jan. 6, Apple’s board called Maldonado’s proposal “unduly burdensome and not necessary,” citing its ongoing diversity efforts, which include: providing scholarships for black students attending historically black colleges and universities, providing iPads, MacBooks, and Apple TVs to underserved schools in the US, and sponsoring the Grace Hopper conference for women in tech,” writes Quartz.com.

Apparently, actively recruiting talented women and people of color isn’t necessary because some schools get iPads. Apple’s board of directors demonstrate a systematic and fundamentally skewed understanding of the scale of racial underrepresentation in corporate leadership. The problem doesn’t solely lie with young people of color not getting into college, after all—black women are enrolling in college at a higher rate than any other group. A major factor in this issue is in not having access to positions in which they are qualified for, once they enter their chosen fields. This is especially true when we look at the ability for qualified women of color to climb the rungs of leadership, in every industry, particularly in tech.

The board’s statement come several months after C.E.O. Tim Cooke admitted that “there is a lot more work to be done,” in the way of diversity within his company.

Read Quartz’s full article here.