On Wed, March 20, 2013 7:16 am, Jorge Contreras wrote: > On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 6:53 AM, Margaret Wasserman > <mrw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote: > >> >> Hi Stewart, >> >> On Mar 20, 2013, at 2:04 AM, Stewart Bryant <stbryant@xxxxxxxxx> 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) Great, now the lawyers are getting involved. A sure sign this has gone way too far. The factors listed above are those that an employer cannot discriminate on. It says nothing about diversity or the alleged benefits that diversity brings to a group. For example, a company is prohibited from not hiring someone because he or she is Catholic but it does not mean that the company must work to have some arbitrary percentage of Catholics in leadership positions or among the general workforce. Absent any evidence of discrimination there is Disparate Impact Theory which says that the mere fact that a process produces a result that does not satisfy an arbitrary goal with respect to a protected group is justification for actively discriminating in favor of that protected group to "balance" it all out. I really, really hope that is not where we are going in the IETF. It would wreck this organization if we had a committee that performed such a blatantly political activity. If that is not where the IETF is going, then the categories listed above should not have anything to do with selection of candidates for leadership positions. It doesn't matter to the IETF if the candidate is a disabled, pregnant, lesbian, Wiccan. What matters to the IETF is whether the candidate is qualified. Dan.