The unsettling truth about the tech sector’s meritocracy myth

[Commentary] It is no secret that the tech sector has a diversity problem. According to Google’s most recent employment data, just 1 percent of the company’s tech staff is black, 2 percent are Hispanic, and 82 percent of its tech workers worldwide are male. Over the past few years, companies like Google have faced pressure to confront their lack of diversity, but the myth that the sector is a true meritocracy — where hard work and the best ideas are rewarded — seems to endure.

In a piece for Forbes (which was later deleted) tech writer Brian S. Hall declared, “If you aren’t able to make it [in Silicon Valley], it’s almost certainly not because of any bias.” Instead, he asserted it is due to a “refusal to put in the hard work.” Similarly, many companies claim that they simply don’t have a diverse pool of qualified applicants to choose from. While it is true that white and Asian men, who are overrepresented in the tech industry, have greater access to — and take advantage of — technical education, this is just part of the story. The tech sector makes the “American Dream” seem like a possibility, even if it fails to recognize the level of privilege needed to dream in the first place. Despite the sector’s shortcomings, technology really can change the world. At a time when Black Lives Matter activists are utilizing Twitter as an organizing tool, the power of technology to support social change is on full display. Yet the sector remains bound by its biases.

[Tracey Ross is an associate director of the Poverty to Prosperity Program at the Center for American Progress]