The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

The second part of the survey sought to measure Leadership Conference organizations' awareness and involvement in key communications and Internet policy issues that inform the digital divide. Respondents were asked to rank the importance of a number of issues, to rate their current and anticipated involvement in those issues, and to indicate what internal changes would be necessary to make communications and Internet policy a greater priority. A number of important findings emerged:

• Civil and human rights groups understand that digital policy is important to advancing social justice;
• Concern about the digital divide is not yet translating into activism on communications and Internet policy;
• Few civil and human rights organizations currently have plans to increase involvement or devote more resources to digital issues over the next one to three years; and,
• Civil rights organizations would place higher priority on digital issues if financial resources and technical assistance were made available.

Civil And Human Rights Groups Understand That Communications And Internet Policy Issues Are Important To Promoting Social And Economic Justice

Survey respondents were asked on a scale ranging from "extremely important" to "not important" to rate a set of 15 policy issues that many consider integral to bridging the digital divide and promoting social and economic justice. Significantly, over 90% of the responding organizations ranked all but one of the issues as "extremely important," "somewhat important," or "important."

The top three issues ranked as extremely important were "ensuring the availability of education technology in classrooms in low income and underserved areas," "ensuring that the Internet and other new information technologies are accessible to all persons (i.e. physical access, language access)," and "training and hiring women and minorities into high tech careers."

The three issues that were ranked least important were the "extension of high speed Internet access (also known as broadband access) to underserved and rural communities," "the provision of opportunities for citizen groups to use radio, television and the Internet for community and educational programming," and the "increase of minority ownership of media/Internet businesses and services." Yet, even on these issues, clear majorities believe the issues important.

Table 10: Importance Of Various Communications And Internet Issues For LCCR Members

Overall, respondents gave the highest rankings to policy proposals aimed at making technology available and accessible to the community. The simpler the proposal and the closer it resembled traditional civil rights concerns, the higher the level of support.

For example, almost 75% of respondents ranked ensuring the availability of education technology in classrooms in low-income and underserved areas as "extremely important." Almost 68% of respondents believed that making the Internet accessible to all people was "extremely important." And 61% viewed training and hiring women and minorities into high tech careers as "extremely important."

Issues that required a more sophisticated understanding of communications and Internet policy were generally rated as less important.⁵ For example, only 37.3% of responding organizations ranked extension of high-speed Internet access to rural and underserved communities as extremely important. Yet, there is a clear relationship between the extension of broadband to the issue ranked most important to the civil rights community(97656e)uring the availability of education technology in the classroom. While it is possible that respondents do not yet fully understand the importance of bringing broadband to underserved communities, it is more likely that they are focused at present on policies that bring the Internet to their constituencies in any form.

Finally, the policy issues that typically rank highest in importance to Internet consumers, such as the elimination of hate speech and the protection of consumer privacy, were not as important to the civil rights respondents, with only about 45% ranking them as "extremely important." Again, it is clear that the critical issue for the civil rights community is helping to get its constituencies online. Policy questions about privacy and security are not yet on the civil rights radar screen, and are not likely to be until and unless basic access is secured.

Concern About The Digital Divide Is Not Yet Translating Into Activism On Communications And Internet Policy

There is a clear and measurable disconnect between respondents' recognition of the importance of public policy in the digital age and the respondents engagement in those issues. Although civil and human rights organizations have a nascent understanding of the issues, the community is at the earliest stages of translating that knowledge into action.

When asked to evaluate their own level of activism on the same set of policy issues they ranked in importance, the overwhelming majority of responding organizations described themselves as being either "not very active" or "not active" on most issues. The only two policy areas in which respondents reported significant engagement were "using the Internet as a means to increase civic engagement and participation in the political process" and "providing media/Internet content relevant to and/or created by minorities."

Similarly, respondents were also asked to characterize their level of activity on the policy issues from "leader" to "not involved." Here again, respondents gave themselves a significantly higher rating on civic engagement, with 17% describing themselves as leaders and 31% indicating they were actively tracking the issue.

It is not entirely clear whether the reports of higher involvement reflect an assessment of their own online activities to increase civic engagement or rather advocacy on behalf of policies toward that end (such as online voting). Nevertheless, the finding is significant and warrants further consideration. At a minimum, the strong response suggests a starting point for more robust participation in digital policies. Plainly, the civil and human rights community understands the Internet's power as a decentralized communications medium and hopes to harness it to achieve a more powerful presence for civil rights causes in public life.

Other than their reported activity on civic engagement issues, civil and human rights organizations do not report significant activity on the other communications and Internet policy issues. A significant number of respondents did not know how to characterize their involvement on digital divide policy issues, or did not answer the question.

Finally, when respondents were asked to rank their involvement in ongoing policy debates in the 106th Congress, few reported significant activity. This held true even when the respondent had previously identified the issue as "extremely important". For example, 75% of respondents believed that bringing educational technology into the classroom was "extremely important" for closing the digital divide. Yet only 29% saw the reauthorization of Title III of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act as important to their organizations and only 32% said that full funding for the E-Rate (the universal service program that helps with technology infrastructure for schools and libraries) was important.

Similarly, 68% of respondents believed that making the Internet accessible to all was extremely important to closing the digital divide. But only 36% believed that the President's plan to increase funding for community technology centers was very important to their organization.

Few Civil And Human Rights Organizations Have Plans To Increase Involvement Or Devote More Resources To Communications And Internet Policy Issues Over The Next One To Three Years

Respondents were asked to indicate whether they planned to spend more or less time and resources on the list of policy issues over the next one-to-three years. Overall, few organizations report plans for a more active role. There were a few significant exceptions, most notably almost 56% of the respondents stated that they intended to increase the time and resources they allocated to policies related to "using the Internet as a means to increase civic engagement."

In addition, some respondents reported plans to become more involved in policy related to "providing Internet content relevant to minorities" (37%), "making the Internet accessible to all people" (36%) and "ensuring the availability of education technology in low-income areas" (34%). Again, the significantly higher response to policies related to civic engagement needs to be further examined by the LCCR community.

Table 11: Expected Level Of Activity On Policy Issues In Two Years

By and large, organizations either did not have a clear picture of how time and resources would be allocated during the next one-to-three years or did not anticipate shifting their resource allocation for work on communications and Internet policy. Moreover, there appears to be no clear correlation between the percentage of organizations that identified an issue to be important for closing the digital divide and future allocation of time and resources for that issue.

For example, almost 75% of respondents stated that the availability of education technology in classrooms in low income areas was extremely important to closing the digital divide, but only 34% responded that they would be allocating more time and resources to the issue in the next one-to-three years. Similarly, 61% of respondents believed that hiring women and minorities into high tech careers was extremely important for closing the digital divide, yet just 19% stated that they intended to increase resources for that issue. Again, the only issue where ranking closely tracked future allocation of resources was civic engagement.

Civil Rights Organizations Would Place Higher Priority On Technology Policy Issues If Additional Resources And Technical Assistance Were Available

Respondents were asked to describe what would need to take place internally for their organization to make communications and Internet policy issues a greater priority. Respondents pointed to a range of help needed to increase their involvement, and identified two areas as being of greatest concern. More than 60% of respondents ranked acquiring additional financial resources and expanding staff expertise as "important," "somewhat important," or "very important." Additionally, a majority of respondents also identified other types of assistance including coalition support and senior staff education as important.

Table 12: Internal Changes Necessary To Increase Priority Of Media/Technology Policy Issues

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