[Board] Fwd: Important Information About Your Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion in Amateur Radio

[Michelle Thompson]

I received this email yesterday.

1) It's unsigned. Can't tell who is talking to us or who we would be
responding to. It's a red flag and feels like a trap.

2) Threatening to publicly rate organizations with what sounds like low
ratings unless that organization "take a pledge" is a tactic used by
authoritarians and bullies.

3) I suppose having a radically inclusive board of directors (40-80%
underrepresented people on our board since we were founded), being publicly
endorsed by Pride Radio Group (https://prideradio.group/club-endorsement),
enforcing an industry standard CoC with a handbook, and having a volunteer
corps more diverse than the US amateur radio population doesn't count?
Actual results not important? We'd score higher if we were all old white
men and had a panel about how we wished we were more diverse?

4) Sending this in the middle of Christmas holidays, when a lot of US orgs
are shut down until mid-January, seems like a bad idea to get cooperation.
We won't start back up until 9 January.

5) I would have been so incredibly happy to have been included in this
effort instead of feeling unfairly judged by it. We could have shared how
we achieved our demonstrated diversity and inclusion results, and how
difficult it's been for us.

The most ironic thing about receiving this email is that ham radio isn't
the focus anymore because of targeted harassment from sexists, bigots, and
racists in ham radio. We do open source digital radio. If it helps hams
then great, but our official corporate mission is being a research
institute, and not a ham entity.

Thoughts on this? I have been afraid of something like this happening,
where a couple paragraphs on a website are valued more than actual DEI
achievements and inclusive technical teams and events.

-Michelle Thompson




---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Amateur Radio Inclusivity Pledge <
AmateurRadioInclusivityPledge at proton.me>
Date: Tue, Dec 27, 2022 at 7:35 PM
Subject: Important Information About Your Commitment to Diversity and
Inclusion in Amateur Radio
To: ori at openresearch.institute <ori at openresearch.institute>


Hello,

The Amateur Radio Inclusivity Pledge (ARIP) is a newly formed organization
that is scoring amateur radio entities based on their visible commitment to
diversity and inclusion in the hobby and service. We are currently rating
your organization as a “*Bronze*” entity based on our scoring criteria.
Thank you for taking some basic steps towards Diversity and Inclusion in
the amateur radio hobby and service.


More information about our organization and scoring criteria is available
at https://amateurradioinclusivitypledge.org. For a brief overview however,
our scoring is based on whether your organization does the items listed
below, and makes these items very easy for the public to find. Generally
this is via your organization’s website, but may also be via regularly
scheduled podcasts, video channels, print magazines, over the air
bulletins, etc.


We currently have your organization in the “*Bronze*” category, based on
these items that you have in place, that we were able to confirm via your
organizations website or other public media.



Points

Items

1

Has an inclusivity statement

1

Has an inclusivity statement, specifically identifying 3 or more
disadvantaged groups

2

Has an inclusivity statement, specifically identifying 7 or more
disadvantaged groups



These are the items that we evaluate that we were not able to find via your
organization’s website or other public media. If the absence of any of
these items is incorrect, please let us know, and include links to any
information demonstrating the correction, and we will update our records


Points

Items

3

Has made the ARIP pledge

5

Endorses, supports, or funds a group that has diversity as a core part of
its mission

8

Core mission involves/targets the advancement of 1 or more disadvantaged
groups

13

Holds an annual, publicly visible event, that targets inclusivity

21

Holds a monthly, publicly visible event, that targets inclusivity

34

Holds a weekly, publicly visible event, that targets inclusivity

55

Holds a daily, publicly visible event, that targets inclusivity. Daily
items can include ‘always on’ activities, i.e. running a repeater system,
digital mode ‘rooms’, informational web sites or bulletins, etc.


Making a public statement of inclusion is a commitment that we would love
to see every entity in the ham radio community make. An excellent first
step towards making this commitment is to have an honest, well though out
statement of diversity and inclusion, and make it a visible, core component
of the mission and values of your organization.


A very simple way to to improve your diversity score, is to use our
existing framework to make the ARIP pledge – information for doing so is
available at the “Make the Pledge
<https://amateurradioinclusivitypledge.org/docs/make-the-pledge/>” section
of our website. This is a very low effort, no cost, way to make sure that
the ham radio community knows that your organization is open and welcoming
to all members of our community.


We will be publishing our findings in mid-January, so please let us know
within within 2 weeks of receiving this communication, if you have any
updates or corrections you would like to share with us.


Thank you,

The ARIP


Sent with Proton Mail <https://proton.me/> secure email.
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