Black lawmakers are impatient with tech’s lack of diversity and are threatening regulation to force the issue

Leading black lawmakers are growing impatient with tech’s largely unfulfilled promises to improve employee diversity.

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., made the strongest case for regulation during a panel discussion with other members of the Congressional Black Caucus on the last day of their trip to Silicon Valley. She said she was “floored” to find out that many tech companies had only 1 percent to 2 percent black employees.

“I’m talking about some regulation,” said Waters, who was jokingly referred to by her fellow CBC members on their trip to Silicon Valley as “The Enforcer.” “I’m talking about using the power that our voters have given us to produce legislation and to talk about regulation in these industries that have not been talked about before,” she said. She later added, “I’m not urging, I’m not encouraging, I’m about to hit some people across the head with a hammer.”

Other members of Congress on the trip — Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C.; Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif.; and Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y. — also shared their frustration with the lack of improvement they’ve been seeing since the Congressional Black Caucus started a taskforce to improve diversity in tech back in 2015.

Their public talk Tuesday at Lyft’s headquarters concluded the CBC’s third trip to Silicon Valley, which included private discussions with execs like Tim Cook and Jack Dorsey at Apple, Twitter, Paypal and Square.

Waters is poised to become the chair of the House Financial Services Committee if Democrats win control of the House in the upcoming midterm elections. As a potential chair of the influential committee and a leader in passing Dodd-Frank, she could be well placed to enact regulatory action on tech.

When asked what regulatory proposals specifically they were considering, the group discussed expanding the Community Reinvestment Act — which makes sure financial institutions help meet the needs of low-income communities they operate in — to include tech, improving requirements around companies’ EEO-1 diversity reporting and negotiating partnerships with tech companies and underserved school districts to improve education for black students.

Despite the overall critical tone, the lawmakers acknowledged that tech has made some improvements around diversity since their efforts began, including Facebook hiring its first black board member and some other companies marginally increasing their percentages of black employees. Still, the Caucus was quick to say that those improvements are not enough; with an industry average of black employment around 5 percent, they will be pursuing more severe action.

Of course, these threats will only have teeth if Democrats secure control in the upcoming midterm elections, an outcome that pundits are predicting, but as we saw in the presidential election, that doesn’t necessarily mean it will happen.

You can watch a full recording of the discussion below.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple reasons that we can't rely only on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on.

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. We can’t do that if we have a paywall.

That’s why we also turn to you, our readers, to help us keep Vox free. If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today?

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via