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A Letter from The Leadership Conference’s Center for Civil Rights and Technology
Alejandra Montoya Boyer
Vice President
The Leadership Conference’s Center for Civil Rights and Technology
The role of the tech industry in our society has never been greater. It influences the information, news, and entertainment we consume, how and where we work and live, how we experience, connect, and participate in our communities, and our certainty that we can trust what we read. These companies and the products they create impact how our government interacts with us: they have an outsized influence on how people access opportunities and the promises of our nation — multiracial democracy, stable housing, dignified employment, affordable health care, fair criminal justice systems, and more.
The success of these tech companies — of any company — is based on trust, trust from consumers that what they’re being sold is safe and fair. But that trust must be earned; it can’t be freely given. It’s up to these companies to prove they can be trusted by upholding the values we all share.
The decisions companies make now will be remembered by civil rights advocates and the communities we represent.
The authors of the following essays are experts in the field. They are advocates on the frontlines of today’s civil rights movement. They hear directly from communities too often pushed to the margins. And they know the steps that companies can take to ensure that their technologies benefit all of us. They know what advocates in local communities can do and can demand of private enterprise.
Tech companies must make sure that no matter the color of our skin, our abilities, or our immigration status, that we all have equal opportunity and equal access — access to jobs, to housing, to health care, to privacy, and to due process. That’s the only way that these companies build lasting trust with their consumers and ensure that their technologies work for all of us.
It’s critical that these companies realize that civil rights are not a constraint; they’re a catalyst for growth.
In solidarity,
Alejandra Montoya-Boyer
Vice President
The Leadership Conference’s Center for Civil Rights and Technology
Table of Contents
A Letter from The Leadership Conference’s Center for Civil Rights and Technology
Alejandra Montoya-Boyer
Automated Gatekeepers: Equal Opportunity to Jobs in the Digital Age
Charlotte Burrows
Access and Independence, But at What Cost?
Maria Town
From the Interstate Highway Era to AI Data Centers: Safeguarding Housing and Health in Infrastructure Placement
Michael Akinwumi
How ICE and Big Tech are Normalizing Mass Surveillance
John C. Yang
The Digital Frontier: Protecting Latino Civil Rights in the Age of Algorithms
Juan Proaño
Why State Law is Critical to Holding Tech Companies Accountable and Protecting Civil Rights
Damon Hewitt
Bots and Ballot Boxes: What today’s technology means for our elections
Alejandra Montoya-Boyer