[N7UJJ]

One of the missunderstaning about or diversifyijng affirmative action is that standards or performance expectations have to be lowered. If an organization is trying to attact more people and applicants are not qualified, the organization expands their search area. e.g. If my community is 95% male Anglos, to increase the female applicants, we would not lowere the standards to qualify the few females in the community, but rather recruit outside our nieghborhood for qualified females.

In a school setting, where are there a lot of minorities or females. (calculus class? Tennis team? MECHA club?) Talk to their leaders and find out what aspect of the robot club would especially appeal to them and adjust your recruiting to appeal to that group. New members should be admitted because they are fully qualified.

Another aspect is to honestly evaluate your club behaviors and be especially sensitive to unintended discrimination. It happens all the time and no one really notices it, but some groups feel there is a subtle message that they do not really belong. It's difficult to identify (hopfully) but it is important to try.

Team 842 is mostly minorities and about 50% female. We are always amazed at the stupid things we do without meaning to make someone feel uncomfortable. Our "Leave the Boys at home" experiment last year really opened our eyes to the subtle and almost constant message girls receive every day. As a result we make sure prospective girls are encouraged to work on electrical, mechanical, and driving positions, not just scrapbook, buttons, fund raising and "gofor" positions.

Anyway, don't insult anyone by lowering your standards, rather increase the recruiting pool. Find the highly qualified females and minorities and recruit them. It may take a few years before there is any really significant gains because you are really "changing the culture", not filling a quota.