I am disturbed by Mr. Rodgers' claim of expertise over diversity issues in The Dartmouth ("Popular Trustee Candidate Responds," May 12). He claims, "With 35-percent minority employment, my company, Cypress Semiconductor, is more diverse than Dartmouth has ever been. " As opposed to us yokels, he lives in "Silicon Valley's enlightened multicultural society." But looking at Cypress Semiconductor's own corporate information does not paint a picture of much diversity at all. Nearly all of Cypress Semiconductor's "minorities" are Asian or Asian American. Mr. Rodgers has no expertise whatsoever in dealing with our national legacy of the enslavement of African Americans, the defrauding of Native American land, or the aftermath of legally sanctioned Jim Crow segregation.
As CEO of Cypress, Mr. Rodgers has been an outspoken champion of the H-1B visa program that creates special immigration quotas for skilled foreign workers (who must have a Bachelor of Arts degree or its equivalent) to work in the United States. In addition, as the United States lost 3 million jobs over the last four years, Cypress Semiconductors has aggressively pursued outsourcing, investing millions overseas -- acquiring Arcus Technology Ltd. in Bangalore, India in 1999. In 2001, Cypress announced the construction of a design center in Hyderabad, India that "will enable Cypress to tap into the city's enormous engineering talent pool," according to a company spokesman. In March of this year, Cypress announced a new investment of $5 million and a doubling of its number of engineers. Rodgers dismissed American concerns saying, "The clamor against outsourcing is low-class, a diatribe." Getting special quotas for foreign workers, outsourcing jobs during times of rising American unemployment -- what sort of example is set by Cypress Semiconductor? What can Mr. Rodgers say to graduates from Thayer when the very jobs for which they trained may not even be offered to them because of outsourcing?
I am skeptical about Mr. Rodgers' belief in the corporate model as the answer to a history of racial inequality. I grew up in California. I have friends and former students who work in Silicon Valley. At Dartmouth, we have Asian American students whose parents immigrated in the 1950s and 1960s to fulfill previous requests by businesses for Asian engineers. In case after case, the old Asian American guys will sit you down, if you ask, and tell you about the discrimination they saw or experienced first-hand, of promotions that never materialized, of job reviews that criticized them for their foreign accents or their "lack of leadership" skills. Given this history, it's fair to be skeptical about Mr. Rodgers' claims. I would be surprised if Mr. Rodgers really knew what his H-1B workers thought about him or his company. Under the H-1B program, a "temporary visitor" that loses his job and cannot find another one has committed a "status violation" and can consequently be deported. Frankly, if I had so much at stake and my boss believed he lived in a color-blind meritocratic utopia, I would agree with him too, or at least know when to stay quiet. The Cypress Semiconductor model is not so appealing if one questions the rhetoric of inclusion. It is worth noting that like every other American community with a large South Asian population, the Indian, Pakistani and Sikh immigrants in Mr. Rodgers' "prejudice-free" Silicon Valley faced racial profiling and overt acts of discrimination in the aftermath of September 11. Mr. Rodgers failed to mention that fact. But, he may have been unaware of the facts. After all, he admitted, "We rarely discuss race because it doesn't matter." In fact, it may not matter ... to him.
Affirmative Action was sanctioned by the courts to rectify a history of Americans discriminating against other Americans. Mr. Rodgers' experience with Asian immigrants, particularly those non-citizens consigned to "temporary visitor" status under the H-1B program he so vigorously championed, has no relation to policies meant to provide justice to American minorities that have been so unashamedly wronged over so many years. Regarding sensitive College policies that demand rational analysis and factual accuracy, Mr. Rodgers seems hypersensitive to criticism and prone to exaggeration and ideology.
Given his interest in diversity policy, I would suggest that Mr. Rodgers clarify his experience with underrepresented minorities by providing a breakdown of Cypress Semiconductor's workforce by race, citizenship status and gender (Silicon Valley engineering firms have a notorious reputation for a lack of women among their engineering corp). How much of his "35 percent minority employment" will be left after removing skilled Asian and non-citizen immigrants? How successful has his enlightened company been in achieving an equal-opportunity, color-blind meritocracy when the Federal Supreme Court -- under 50 consecutive years of Republican Chief Justices (Warren, Burger, Rehnquist) -- has failed to give a precise formula for implementation?
He has not been shy to criticize Dartmouth's policy. Let's get out the facts about Cypress Semiconductor and the half-dozen other companies on whose board of directors he sits. If it turns out that he's not full of hot air, that he actually has a plan and not simply an ideological agenda, that he's not hiding behind Asians and Asian Americans while advocating the end of diversity programs, let me be the first one to offer him my support.
