Dear All,
A discussion has has come up in Council where your input would be valuable.
The IET has a diversity policy which is good. the key debate that came up was whether the IET should ask members about their sexual orientation for monitoring purposes and whether this was any of the IET's business. There is also an issue that we have international members who live in places that are less progressive and that this therefore may cause either offence or cause unnecessary stress to those involved.
I have recently been been working on an Athena Swan application that deals with diversity in STEM in academia and firmly believe from that work that if you don't measure anything you may as well not bother with diversity initiatives. At the same time I do think we have to be careful with the international aspect (not about offending people but about safeguarding those who may be vulnerable to discrimination).
Anyway, I would value your thoughts on the above. Happy to receive I've direct emails to k.sugden@aston.ac.uk if you would prefer not to post here.
Best wishes,
Kate