Wednesday, May 12, 1999
Net access called civil rights issue
AOL chief urges equal racial access
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Citing figures indicating that blacks and Hispanics have less exposure to the Internet and its countless services, America Online Chairman Steve Case told an audience of civil rights advocates Tuesday that equal access to online services is “the civil rights issue of the 21st century.”
“It's a question of how we make these tools available to all Americans,” Mr. Case said at the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights lunch at the National Press Club.
Using figures from a 1998 Commerce Department study on minority access to the Internet, Mr. Case said whites are more than twice as likely to own a computer as blacks and Hispanics.
“I want the Internet to be part of the solution, not part of the problem,” he said.
Mr. Case also called for workplace diversity and said that low numbers of minority students graduating in the technical sciences concerned him. But Mr. Case said AOL will try to do the best it can with strong recruitment and outreach efforts.
Neither Mr. Case nor Corporate Relations Vice President David Eisner could provide figures of minority employees at AOL.
With 12,000 employees, AOL is the world's largest Internet access and online service provider.
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