HackNY’s Commitment to Racial Justice
Although Americans are now mobilizing for action in light of the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, the reality is that Black Americans have faced systemic oppression under a white supremacist culture for the past 400 years, of which police brutality and criminalization are just symptoms. Although some laws have changed, the racist system has not. The tech industry, although often offered as a solution to societal issues, still plays a part in upholding the system. It is not enough to state that Black Lives Matter, although we do affirm this and stand in solidarity with the movement.
We believe in using our privilege as tech workers to give back to Black and Indigenous communities. We believe in defunding corrupt systems such as the police and reallocating police budgets to education, healthcare, housing, and other initiatives that create a fairer system. Those of us who are white or non-Black POC believe in unlearning cultural prejudice and using our privilege to advocate for more representation of Black and Indigenous people. Tech industry and internal culture would greatly benefit from better representation of technologists who are Black and Indigenous, women of color, differently-abled, and queer, especially in leadership positions. We believe that greater representation leads to greater innovation and more diverse perspectives are absolutely necessary to address the problems-solving needs of a wider range of society. We do not believe that tech can solve every problem; instead we aspire to learn from and collaborate with non-technical leaders from other disciplines.
HackNY commits to creating fair and equitable student programs and admissions processes. We have a zero tolerance policy for discrimination among our hackNY fellows, alumni, and sponsor organizations. When selecting new board members we follow the Rooney Rule, requiring that an underrepresented minority is interviewed for every open position before a decision is made. The last 2 years in a row we have featured a talk about bias and discrimination in tech in our summer fellowship program speaker series. This year, we are updating our code of conduct to better support our BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) alumNY, including a new clause protecting the right to create events and safe spaces for underrepresented minorities in tech.
Furthermore, we make the following commitments:
- To further prioritize fellowship program outreach to BIPOC communities, collect and review data about our outreach process, and rework our application/admissions process to bring in a diverse class of qualified applicants each year.
- To find more ways to collaborate with local BIPOC-led organizations and offer our skills, time, and money; we are currently partnering with these orgs on summer social good projects.
- To offer career-advising services including resume reviews, mock interviewing, and more. We plan on offering our services free to all with active promotion of these services to aspiring BIPOC technologists.
- To uplift BIPOC-led organizations by highlighting one in our social media every month for the next year, and continue adapting our social media coverage to highlight underrepresented stories.
- To review our fellow-startup pairing process to avoid companies that create tools used by law enforcement, unless the purpose of the tool is to disrupt the current system.
As the practice of anti-racism is an everyday process, so is our commitment to justice. We will continue to refine our internal processes based on feedback from our BIPOC alumNY and our own research. We are heartened to see so many companies and organizations stepping forward to make their own commitments to anti-racism, and we are hopeful that these changes embody those of a lasting movement.
Last but not least, please consider donating or asking your company to match donations to any of these organizations that are doing amazing work in advancing the representation of BIPOC and other underrepresented groups in tech:
Pursuit (previously Coalition 4 Queens)
Note: As hackNY is primarily an organization defined by a growing class of alumNY, any declaration in this statement does not encompass all the voices in our community. However, it represents collective brainstorming from individual tech workers from across the country and around the world on how to best fight for a more just and equitable tech community.
