October 8, 2020

To WNET viewers and members, the Board of Trustees, current and former staff, allies and friends of WNET:

We, members and supporters of the WNET Inclusion & Diversity Council (IDC), formally and strenuously object to the actions taken by The WNET Group’s leadership over the course of the last four months as we have strived to address issues related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) at the company.

In particular, as their most egregious step, Senior Management on Friday, September 25th, described to the IDC and others in attendance how it would replace the existing IDC—an officially-chartered employee group with nearly 100 active members, representing exactly the diverse, cross-departmental body leadership says they want in a diversity council—with a closed, 12-person “Inclusion, Diversity and Equity Advisory (IDEA) Council,” chosen and overseen by a secret panel chaired by the Chief Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer (CDEIO), with opacity as the only apparent governing principle.

This stunning move represents nothing less than a systematic dismantling of the IDC and the delegitimizing of all the hard work its members have undertaken over the past four months (or, for that matter, the past five years). It is the culmination of a summer full of obstruction and obfuscation that makes it clear to the IDC that WNET’s leadership sees no value in the voices of the WNET staff members—both BIPOC and otherwise—who have demonstrated they care about these issues the most.

In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder by police in late May 2020, the IDC sent a letter to WNET President & CEO Neal Shapiro—signed by over 300 current and former staff and friends of WNET—voicing our shock and dismay at WNET’s public response. That response included misleading social media posts and equivocal public statements that betrayed a lack of understanding of our current national reckoning with racism, and a troubling lack of support for our Black colleagues and viewer communities—including Neal’s initial refusal to take a stand and publicly state “Black Lives Matter.” 

Since that “Dear Neal” letter was sent on June 9th, WNET management has continued to take half-measures, while outright dismissing and suppressing the efforts of the IDC, including:

• elevating an existing WNET employee with no prior professional DEI work experience to serve as part-time CDEIO, having undertaken no formal search process;

• curtailing IDC’s ability to communicate directly with WNET staff in order to prevent additional staff members from joining IDC meetings (which, by its charter are open to all staff), while framing official company communications to wrongly  imply IDC’s involvement in and agreement with Senior Management’s plans;

• allowing IDC to host two company-wide Town Hall meetings, but negotiating the scope to be as narrow as possible, and subsequently responding with resounding silence to IDC’s many realistic, actionable proposals;

• declining to meet with or engage in any substantive dialogue with IDC on these issues, despite promising a series of small group discussions that never materialized; 

• instead, engaging an outside consulting firm, Jennifer Brown Consultants (JBC), to unilaterally dictate WNET’s actions in response to the issues raised by IDC in the Town Hall—with no IDC input—despite IDC’s request in the Dear Neal letter that WNET pause its work with JBC;

• ignoring the key takeaway of JBC’s own report that there is a fundamental disconnect between management and staff by excluding staff from participating in any of WNET’s responses to DEI issues at the company;

• taking five months to reschedule a presentation by JBC with the findings of their late 2019/early 2020 DEI assessment—data which had been repeatedly requested by IDC in the preceding months;

• providing no response to the idea of mediation led by an independent third party, proposed by the IDC to attempt to resolve underlying communication issues;

• on the morning of October 8th, continuing their pattern of exclusion by sending a company-wide DEI update in the name of “transparency,” which instead co-opted and diluted many of the IDC’s ideas, with no dialogue with the IDC;

• and, overall, doubling down in the face of any and all criticism, insisting repeatedly that Neal and his paid consultants alone know what is best for WNET on DEI issues. The message: Things will be done on their terms, or not at all.

What began as a hopeful endeavor to improve working conditions, particularly for our BIPOC coworkers, and to better serve WNET’s diverse viewership, has devolved into something that is neither inclusive nor equitable, and only perpetuates the very systems it should be dismantling. Numerous requests by the IDC to meet with Senior Management—to enter into the true, open dialogues which DEI requires—have been met with obfuscation or silence.

Four months have passed with no meaningful action, just empty gestures meant to show that WNET is “doing something.” The roadblock every step of the way is the same: Neal Shapiro. He has proven he does not have the necessary skills or the judgment to lead the company through this pivotal moment in history. We believe no leader in this moment can be successful without valuing and respecting the experiences and opinions of BIPOC staff members. Neal has shown time and again that he does not.

We, members and supporters of the IDC, hereby demand Neal Shapiro resign as President & CEO of The WNET Group and that the company immediately begin a search for a new chief executive with a proven track record of successfully addressing DEI issues, who will commit to maintaining and working with the current IDC. Only then will WNET be able to truly live up to its mission and hold its rightful place as a leader in public media.

Signed,