Center for Employment Equity Collaboration Wins Edward R. Murrow Award

A collaborative piece produced by “Reveal,” a multiplatform outlet for the Center for Investigative Journalism won the 2019 Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Sound, using data from the Center for Employment Equity (CEE). The winning Reveal episode, "The sound of disparity: Data directed Silicon Valley diversity choir," relies on analysis of tech industry diversity by the CEE's Executive Director and UMass professor of sociology Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, along with research assistant JooHee Han. 

The Diversity Choir vocalized employment data from 177 Silicon Valley tech firms, which sounds out the underrepresentation of both women and people of color in these positions. For example, to illustrate the 73 percent of white tech executives, 31 of the 43 singers in the choir sang "white executives," while for the 1.4 percent of black executives, a single person sang "black executives." 

The CEE analyzes data from EE0-1 reports filed to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which have not been made available to the public. Aside from the “Reveal” collaboration, the CEE has been working to analyze and release these data through a series of articles and data visualizations. Current projects include reports on sexual harassment, sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination, and employment representation by state and city.