Vision or a Diverse Boston

Reprinted from the Boston Globe Editorial
Published May 11, 2007

DIVERSITY was an underlying theme as Deval Patrick took the oath outside the State House in January to become only the second black man elected governor in the nation's history. He was sworn in with the famous Mendi Bible, a gift to John Quincy Adams from a group of Africans he had saved from slavery. And Bostonians noted the powerful symbolism of the giant American flag suspended over Beacon Street , contrasting starkly with the searing photo of thugs using an American flag to attack another black man, Theodore Landsmark, on City Hall Plaza in 1976.

Patrick's elevation is one of many reasons to be optimistic that Massachusetts and especially Boston are overcoming the reputation for aloofness and even hostility that has haunted the region for decades.

With the 2000 Census, Boston became a majority minority city, a fact that Mayor Thomas Menino not only acknowledges but celebrates. African-American men chair the boards of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce and the Boston Foundation, and another runs Blue Cross Blue Shield. For the first time, women have become state attorney general and Senate president, and women are, or soon will be, presidents of several local colleges, including the two most prestigious, Harvard and MIT. In addition, the job market is increasingly open to a diverse workforce, especially at the entry levels, according to Beverly Edgehill, president of The Partnership, a group that has been working to increase minority opportunities for two decades.

Still, there is abundant evidence that progress has been slow, and that Boston has a great deal of work ahead if it hopes to wipe out not only its continuing reputation as an unwelcoming place, but the realities that -- stubbornly, tragically -- still support that reputation.

Most recent is a survey from the McCormack School at UMass-Boston, to be released today, indicating that the number of minorities on boards of directors in Massachusetts -- both corporate and nonprofit -- is dismally low. For businesses and hospitals, in particular, the numbers are alarming , but perhaps not surprising. Statewide, the non-Hispanic white population is 80 percent, according to 2005 Census estimates, but the boards of the Boston Globe top 100 Massachusetts corporations are 95 percent white and the boards of hospitals are 94 percent white.

In higher education, both public and private, boards are 86 percent white. The figures are a reliable indicator, according to Dr. Carol Hardy-Fanta, director of the School's Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy, which conducted the survey, as data were compiled from a majority of the relevant organizations.

A more selective survey of 23 cultural institutions in Greater Boston seemed to produce a better result, with whites accounting for 79 percent of board positions, but when organizations that are focused on black or Latino culture were excluded, that number jumped to 89 percent.

By gender, the numbers were also discouraging, with women holding only 13 percent of the seats on the corporate boards, 25 percent on hospitals, 36 percent in higher education, and 41 percent in cultural institutions.

A similar survey of corporate boards six years ago by The Partnership showed the members to be 95 percent white and 92 percent male. So the new survey indicates slight progress by gender and none by race.

Stephen Crosby, dean of the McCormack School, said yesterday that board membership "can be changed simply with an exercise of community will; it is long past time to exercise that will appropriately."

So there are problems in the boardrooms, and also problems on the streets. The Fair Housing Center of Greater Boston, which runs tightly controlled tests with paired couples, has found that people of color experience discrimination when seeking a home or rental apartment in just about half the cases -- slightly less for blacks, slightly more for Latinos. Bias can be a narrower choice of housing options, higher financing costs despite equal resources, or both.

The median household income in Boston is more than 50 percent higher for whites than for blacks or Latinos.

In looking at those covered by health insurance statewide, blacks have narrowed the gap substantially in recent years, but Latinos are more than twice as likely to be uninsured.

The statewide unemployment rate for blacks is double, and for Latinos nearly double, that of whites.

Minority enrollment in the University of Massachusetts and state college systems remains much lower than in the population at large.

The causes of these disparities are many and complex. Some of them have to do with the region's well-known coolness to most outside influences. As the Rev. Ray Hammond, a civic leader and board chairman of the Boston Foundation , once observed: "There is a deep clannishness here -- and it's not just racial."

Patrick, when he was campaigning for governor last September, made a similar comment at a Roxbury Community College forum. Some people leave the region, he said, "because of how hard it is to break in -- how hard it is to become a part of civic and community life here."

Another consideration is that diversity is a moving target. What was once primarily a black-white issue has long had a Latino element. Now, Boston is home to people who speak more than 100 languages. Mayor Menino's Office of New Bostonians works actively to accommodate the increasing diversity of the city's diversity. "We have developed a new understanding of the importance of this city's diversity," he said in January, "and a new recognition that Boston's vitality is a reflection of its residents -- a mirror image that manifests our many cultures, our various histories, and our shared future."

Boston's reputation for racial intolerance grew enormously 35 years ago, when busing tore the city nearly apart. Without question, progress in the last two decades has been substantial, although more so in the city than the suburbs. But obviously the gains are hard-won, and so much more needs to be done.

A potential new source of energy in this effort is the project at the McCormack School that produced the new survey on boards of directors being released today. Dean Crosby, joined by Boston Globe publisher Steven Ainsley and former Suffolk district attorney Ralph Martin, has convened a group of civic leaders with the idea of pressing for board diversity and possibly taking on other initiatives, including a coordinating function for existing efforts. UMass-Boston is a good place to locate such an effort, as the campus is the closest thing to common ground for all kinds of people in the state.

At Patrick's open-air swearing-in, Mel King, the former state representative and mayoral candidate, noted that he was really witnessing two inaugurals -- one of Patrick and one of the people. It was a trenchant comment. For while Patrick's elevation is enormously hopeful in this regard, it will not achieve real diversity by itself. Many people and many efforts are needed if Boston is to reverse its reputation for intolerance, and become a place that people of all kinds seek out.

"It's time for a change, and we are that change," Patrick said that January day as the flag blew in the breeze. In the diversity context, it was a stirring statement. But real progress will require a lot more stirring, by a lot more of the community.