Liberal groups' latest report on rural electric cooperative boards shows them to be overwhelmingly white and male - Entrepreneur Generations

Percentage of women on rural electric cooperative boards, in ranges, by state. (Rural Power Project map)

Rural electric cooperatives are major economic players in their communities, and reliably one of the most effective ways to bring high-speed broadband internet to rural areas. But their elected boards are overwhelmingly white and male, leaving rural women and racial minorities under-represented, according to a new report from two liberal groups, ACORN International and the Labor Neighbor Research and Training Center. Their joint Rural Power Project has been assessing co-op boards' gender and racial equity since 2016. As of this year, women made up 12.6% of the boards and people of color, who make up 24% of the rural population, only hold 4% of board seats. 

About 30% of co-ops had no female board members, and all but six out of the 888 surveyed had male-majority boards. New Hampshire's board had the largest share of female members, 45.5%, but the next-highest, Vermont, had only 28.6%. At the other end of the spectrum, West Virginia's board had no women at all, and Nebraska had only 4.8% female board members.

Percentage of non-white members on rural electric cooperative boards in ranges by state. (Rural Power Project map)

The boards didn't fare much better in racial diversity. "Of the 6,198 REC board members across the country for whom we could make a reasonable determination about racial identity, 96% were white. Just 2.4% were Black, 0.9% Hispanic, 0.5% Native American, and 0.2% Asian American," says the report. "Of 697 cooperative boards whose racial demographics we could assess, 557 of those boards – 80% –were all white. While people of color make up majorities of 10% of rural counties, there were only 11 majority nonwhite cooperative boards (1.6%)." ACORN sees the lack of diversity as "an act of exclusion," its research director, David Thompson, told Kristi Eaton of The Daily Yonder.

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/9p7s6Gc Liberal groups' latest report on rural electric cooperative boards shows them to be overwhelmingly white and male - Entrepreneur Generations

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