tomr@ashtate (Tom Rombouts) (07/26/90)
Just an entirely personal opinion, but I must confess that for years I have had little sympathy for IBM, due to their history of proprietary solutions and seeming unwillingness to advocate state of the art technology. (My personal opinion - no flame wars, please!) HOWEVER, I am pleasantly surprised by IBM's recent decision to remove their sponsorship of a major golf tournament to be held at a club near Montgomery, Alabama that allegedly does not admit minorities. As one of the perhaps few remaining liberals in this post-Reagan era, I must say that I am impressed. Although I can not go so far as to say "All is forgiven," perhaps I was too quick to judge IBM too harshly. Tom Rombouts Torrance Techie tomr@ashtate.A-T.com V: (213) 538-7108 DISCLAIMER: The above opinion is my own and has no conncetion or relation to my current employment.
duncan@dduck.ctt.bellcore.com (Scott Duncan) (07/26/90)
In article <1060@ashton.UUCP> tomr@ashton.UUCP (Tom Rombouts) writes: > > IBM's recent decision to remove their >sponsorship of a major golf tournament to be held at a club >near Montgomery, Alabama that allegedly does not admit minorities. Whole not wanting to get into any lengthy discussion of the issue here, those interested in following up on this outside the Net may want to know a couple other points related to the tournament and future ones: o It is the PGA Tournament, I believe, which is one of the four major golf tournaments in the world (along with the Masters, US Open, and British Open); o The PGA in '92 (I believe that's the year) is scheduled to be close to my backyard near Phgiladelphia at Aronomink Country Club -- local news reporting on the current PGA plans and companies pulling ads from it note that Aronomink has no black members (presumably their 'official' policy does not say they do not do so); o This is the first time anyone has, to my knowledge, made any kind of national news mention of country clubs (or other kinds of sport related ones) hosting such major events and noting issues of possi- ble discrimination -- thus the power of what large companies can do to influence opinion and news reports (and probably get some people at the PGA to look into this for the future). Speaking only for myself, of course, I am... Scott P. Duncan (duncan@ctt.bellcore.com OR ...!bellcore!ctt!duncan) (Bellcore, 444 Hoes Lane RRC 1H-210, Piscataway, NJ 08854) (908-699-3910 (w) 609-737-2945 (h))
tkevans@fallst.UUCP (Tim Evans) (07/27/90)
All well and good, but the question no one has asked here is
how the PGA managed not to think of these potential problems
in booking the tournament into this club. Presumably these
things are scheduled several years in advance, giving the
PGA plenty of time to look into such obvious details and to
ensure that the participating country clubs dot all the i's.
I'd imagine these events mean BIG bucks to the local country
club; this gives the PGA a good deal of leverage when it
comes to arranging the events in advance.
Why then is the PGA unable to look ahead, particularly since
it does have at least some influential black members of its
own?
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Tim Evans 2201 Brookhaven Ct, Fallston, MD 21047duncan@dduck.ctt.bellcore.com (Scott Duncan) (07/28/90)
In article <1699@fallst.UUCP> tkevans@fallst.UUCP (Tim Evans) writes: >All well and good, but the question no one has asked here is >how the PGA managed not to think of these potential problems >in booking the tournament into this club. >Why then is the PGA unable to look ahead, particularly since >it does have at least some influential black members of its own? While the PGA needs to answer this themselves, it seems clear that this was simply not a priority of theirs in scheduling such things. It would seem that it never nothered any sponsors before enough to do anything like what IBm (and Xerox and Delta and ...) have done (and they have done different things but all mnaking the point that they'd prefer less or no association with the next PGA). By the way, the PGA claims they WILL start examining such policies in the future, though I have now heard that several of the next PGAs are at clubs where there are no black members. (Again, the policy may not explicitly state this, but the practice is that no black members exist, i.e., are in-- vited to join or approved for membership.) Again, the (somewhat) relevance here is the power that modern firms have in their influence by making a strictly personal decision without any sort of expensive campaign or resource devotion to the effort. They just chose not to be a part of the event, said why, and lots of people got the point. Once could also ask why this has never happened in the past as it is clear clubs without black members have probably been used in the past. Speaking only for myself, of course, I am... Scott P. Duncan (duncan@ctt.bellcore.com OR ...!bellcore!ctt!duncan) (Bellcore, 444 Hoes Lane RRC 1H-210, Piscataway, NJ 08854) (908-699-3910 (w) 609-737-2945 (h))