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Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership

2013-03-20 10:42:03
I don't think anyone is asking for strict compliance to a particular
country's laws, although, one could debate that since ISOC is the
mother organization for IETF that it might be reasonable to look at
the laws in the regions where ISOC is incorporated. My understanding,
however, is that since IETF is a non-profit, there is no requirement
for them to comply with any of these laws (at least in the US),
although one could debate the fact that the US DoD provides funds to
ISOC such might be required.

Given that folks are still debating whether this years nominees
reflected a reasonable diversity (there were 9 women out of 37
nominees), it does seem that finding a description of diversity
criteria that is considered by other professional organizations is not
a bad idea.    However, given the direction of most of these threads,
I'm beginning to be of the same mindset as John:
https://www.ietf.org/ibin/c5i?mid=6&rid=49&gid=0&k1=933&k2=68058&tid=1363793904

Regards,
Mary.

On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 9:34 AM, Richard Barnes <rlb(_at_)ipv(_dot_)sx> wrote:
I do not really think the legal angle is helpful in resolving this problem.
(Which country's laws do we need to comply with?)  Let's treat these legal
ideas as considerations that we should be thinking about, not something
where we should be striving for strict compliance.

--Richard



On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 10:27 AM, Mary Barnes 
<mary(_dot_)ietf(_dot_)barnes(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com>
wrote:

On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 9:16 AM, Jorge Contreras 
<cntreras(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com>
wrote:
On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 6:53 AM, Margaret Wasserman 
<mrw(_at_)lilacglade(_dot_)org>
wrote:


Hi Stewart,

On Mar 20, 2013, at 2:04 AM, Stewart Bryant 
<stbryant(_at_)cisco(_dot_)com> wrote:
Age
Disability
Gender reassignment
Marriage and civil partnership
Pregnancy and maternity
Race
Religion and belief
Sex
Sexual orientation

The U.S. has a similar (although not identical) list, and it may vary a
bit state-by-state.

If we are going to have an itemized list of diversity
characteristics,
we should not pick and choose, we should include the full list.


I would strongly recommend that legal counsel be consulted before any
such
"list" is produced or used by IETF/IESG/Nomcom.  (FYI, this is totally
outside my own area of legal expertise, so IAOC would need to incur some
expense to hire competent counsel in this area)
[MB] I agree 100%.  IETF is not at all qualified to define hiring
criteria or practices. Unfortunately, they do it all the time.  The
model in place IMHO would not stand up to the scrutiny of any major US
company's HR dept.  And, of course, the HR departments are the ones
responsible for ensuring the laws in a specific area are met.   [/MB]



While I certainly wouldn't suggest we start discriminating based on
_any_
of these factors, it is very difficult to measure our results in some
of
these areas, as we do not collect this information from IETF attendees,
nor
do we publish the age, disability status, gender status, marital
status,
religion or sexual orientation of our I* members.


What records *do* exist regarding the identify of IETF leadership?  Is
there
a central repository of at least names/companies of IESG members and/or
WG
leaders?