CIVIL RIGHTS, TECHNOLOGY, AND PRIVACY:

Lessons from a Table for Cross-Sector Learning, Collaboration, and Action

January 19, 2018

By Leila Fiester InDepthInk LLC Under contract to the Ford Foundation

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Leila Fiester is an independent writer, researcher, and editor based in Frederick, MD, who specializes in social issues, initiatives, policies, and philanthropic practice. She helps foundations and organizations plan, assess, and describe their strategies; synthesize and explain research findings; frame concepts in an actionable context; analyze and improve practices and outcomes; distill lessons and implications; and share their stories. Before starting her consulting practice in 2000, Leila was a senior associate of Policy Studies Associates in Washington, DC, which conducts education research and evaluation, and a reporter for The Washington Post. She holds a B.A. in cultural anthropology from Macalester College and an M.A. in journalism from the University of Maryland.

CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ........................................................................................................................ i INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................. 1 I. THE STARTING POINT ................................................................................................................... 3

THE FIGHT OVER NET NEUTRALITY ................................................................................................................................... 3 CULTIVATING THE SEEDS OF UNDERSTANDING ................................................................................................................... 5 INITIAL GOALS AND PRIORITIES ....................................................................................................................................... 5

II. KEY FEATURES AND ACTIVITIES OF THE TABLE ............................................................................... 7

ESTABLISHING RELATIONSHIPS (2011-12) ....................................................................................................................... 7 MERGING AND EXPANDING (2013-14) ........................................................................................................................... 9 REFINING AND REDEFINING (2014-15) ......................................................................................................................... 12 APPLYING RELATIONSHIPS TO ACHIEVE GOALS (2016-17) ................................................................................................. 16

III. THE TABLE’S SUCCESSES ............................................................................................................. 17

DEVELOPMENT OF RELATIONSHIPS, CONNECTIONS, AND FAMILIARITY ACROSS ORGANIZATIONS ................................................. 18 POLICY WINS ............................................................................................................................................................ 19 IMPROVED QUALITY OF PUBLIC NARRATIVE AND DEBATE .................................................................................................... 23 INCREASED PUBLIC AWARENESS OF KEY ISSUES................................................................................................................. 25 INFLUENCE ON THE CIVIL RIGHTS AND TECHNOLOGY FIELDS ................................................................................................ 27 GROWTH IN PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS’ SKILLS AND CAPACITIES .................................................................................. 28

IV. CHALLENGES .............................................................................................................................. 30

DIFFERENCES ACROSS PARTICIPATING ENTITIES ................................................................................................................ 31 THE POWER DYNAMIC INHERENT IN THE LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE’S ROLE ............................................................................ 32 ATTRITION AND TURNOVER OF MEMBERS ....................................................................................................................... 33 DIMINISHING RACIAL DIVERSITY AT THE TABLE ................................................................................................................. 34 GROWTH IN THE TABLE’S SIZE AND “STRUCTUREDNESS” .................................................................................................... 34 LIMITED CAPACITY WITHIN MANY ORGANIZATIONS TO CONDUCT THEIR OWN RESEARCH AND COMMUNICATIONS .......................... 35 TIME AND RESOURCE COMMITMENT ............................................................................................................................. 35 AN INSIDE-THE-BELTWAY ORIENTATION ......................................................................................................................... 35 IMBALANCE IN PARTICIPANTS’ STATUS WITHIN THEIR ORGANIZATIONS .................................................................................. 35

V. THE TABLE’S VALUE .................................................................................................................... 36

VALUE TO FORD AND OTHER FUNDERS ........................................................................................................................... 36 VALUE TO THE FIELDS INVOLVED ................................................................................................................................... 36 VALUE TO PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS AND CONSTITUENCIES ....................................................................................... 37 VALUE TO PARTICIPATING INDIVIDUALS .......................................................................................................................... 38

VI. LESSONS AND IMPLICATIONS ..................................................................................................... 39

ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS AND CAPACITIES ........................................................................................................................... 39 KEY PROCESSES AND STRATEGIES .................................................................................................................................. 39 VITAL RESOURCES AND SUPPORTS ................................................................................................................................. 40 IMPLICATIONS........................................................................................................................................................... 41

VII. CONCLUDING THOUGHTS ........................................................................................................... 45 APPENDIX: ORGANIZATIONS ACTIVELY PARTICIPATING IN THE TABLE AS OF JANUARY 2018 ................ 1

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

n 2011, the Ford Foundation established a cross-sector roundtable whose members, all Ford grantees, worked in the fields of civil rights, media justice, and protecting public interests. Although the roundtable’s members shared a general commitment to improving outcomes for low-income populations and people of color, they differed sharply on priorities and strategies, especially when it

came to the issue of net neutrality. Ford leaders hoped that, by educating each other about their perspectives and by working together to address shared concerns, the organizations might find common ground and achieve some mutual policy wins rather than continuing to spend energy and resources fighting each other. Over time, the group became both a tool for change and a vehicle or network for cross-sector collaboration and learning. Now known as the Civil Rights, Technology, and Privacy Table, the group has helped to shape policies, improve public awareness and debate on key issues, influence the focus of the civil rights and technology fields, and spur growth in participating organizations’ skills and capacities. The Table serves as a place for learning, reflection, planning, and debate; for sharing and educating; and for networking within and across fields and sectors. Along the way, participants have moved from crossing the line on civility during heated debates to crossing the sectoral lines that divide organizations so they can work better together. This report tells the story of the Table’s evolution from 2011 through 2017. During its first six years, the Table grew from 10 member organizations to more than 30. The composition of organizations also changed, with the Table gaining representatives of the privacy, tech policy, and social justice fields and losing representatives from some legacy civil rights organizations. The table’s focus broadened to include privacy and algorithmic accountability issues. A working-group structure was added, and the Table’s scope shifted from discussion and relationship building to taking actions that leverage the relationships to achieve impact. Clear roles for Table members emerged, many of which involved cross-sector collaboration. Through it all, Ford provided capacity-building and consulting grants for a variety of supports that filled gaps in the member organizations’ data, research, and technical capacities, deepened the discussions, and made the Table’s outputs more effective. This report also assesses the Table’s strengths, challenges, value, and accomplishments. Strengths cited by interviewees include:

Creating trusting relationships between key players across the civil rights, technology, and privacy arenas and sometimes between organizations within a sector;

Instigating discussions about solutions to shared concerns;

Informing participants about an issue and its background in ways that broaden and deepen organizations’ skills, knowledge, and understanding of technology issues and their civil rights implications; and

Supporting cross-sector actions to address shared interests. The Table seems especially good at developing policy guidance, collecting data, and using those tools to initiate conversations with policy makers in order to shape their decisions. The Table’s impact has been less clear on issues for which there is not an obvious, time-driven opportunity for policy advocacy.

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The majority of interviewees view the Table as a success, as defined by collectively achieving positive results in the agreed-upon areas of work. Over the period featured by this study, the categories of success have included:

Development of relationships, connections, and familiarity across organizations, which have reduced tensions between some organizations, increased willingness to collaborate, spawned new coalitions outside the Table, and given some of the smaller organizations extra visibility and influence;

Regulatory and corporate policy wins, especially around lowering prison phone rates, expanding the Lifeline Assistance Program to broadband service, banning online payday loan advertisements on Google, and banning ethnic-affinity targeting on Facebook for certain types of ads;

Improved quality of the public narrative and debate on an issue, as measured by the amount of discussion and how the issue is described or perceived. Two examples are the Table’s development of (a) principles for civil rights in an era of big data and (b) principles and a policy scorecard for law enforcement’s use of body-worn cameras;

Increased public awareness of key issues—e.g., by highlighting the civil rights impact of predictive policing and surveillance technology, including facial recognition and stingray tracking devices;

Influence on the civil rights and technology fields by introducing a new focus on the disparate impact of technology on the civil rights of people of color and marginalized communities; and

Growth in participating organizations’ capacities, including the adoption of a cross-sector and cross-topic perspective, exposure to alternative tools and strategies, acquisition of knowledge that supports action, ability to communicate more effectively, ability to take on new issues, and ability to adapt quickly to changing contexts.

The challenges described by interviewees include:

Fundamental differences across participating entities not only in their areas of expertise, target constituencies, positions on issues, and approach to policy reform but also in their staff size, structure, and decision-making processes;

The power dynamic inherent in the Table facilitator’s role;

Attrition and turnover of members, especially those associated with legacy civil rights organizations;

Diminishing racial diversity at the Table;

Growth in the Table’s size and “structuredness,” which have changed the group’s dynamic;

Limited capacity within many organizations to conduct their own research and communications, which leads to a reliance on consulting organizations;

The amount of time and resources required to participate;

An “inside-the-Beltway” orientation to policy change; and

Imbalance in the relative status that Table participants hold within their own organizations.

For the fields involved, the Table’s value is its ability to foster learning and collaboration across areas of expertise. By acquiring a better understanding of facts and perceptions from another sector, participants strengthen the work in their own field. Participating organizations find the Table valuable because it enables them to reinforce and amplify their messages, network with like-minded allies for advice and support, frame issues more broadly and precisely, gain access to data and research expertise, gain leverage in negotiations with decision makers, and discuss complicated issues in a private place. For participating individuals, the Table’s value varies depending on the person’s age and experience. Younger

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participants and those with less experience in the civil rights arena find extra value in the access they gain to decision makers and the connections they forge with more established organizations, while more experienced staff appreciate being able to bring ideas back from the Table that reinforce their own points of view within their organizations. What insights and implications does the Table’s experience suggest for other cross-sector, collaborative tables? A table’s structure and capacities have a direct bearing on the table’s successes and challenges. Based on the experiences of this Table, we can say that:

Essential elements and capacities for this type of table include a well-respected convener, strong facilitation and coordination, shared authority and responsibility, and flexibility and agility in responding to emerging issues and opportunities.

Key processes and strategies include development of shared goals; member involvement in setting the agenda, priorities, and target outcomes; times and venues devoted to building relationships; working groups that are organized around an activity, not just an issue; and presentations of data and information geared to the table’s interests.

Vital resources and supports include buy-in from participating organizations’ senior leaders, consulting support on substantive topics, support on specific skills (e.g., communications and research) and funds for travel to the table’s meetings.

The lessons and insights distilled from this study hold implications for the current Table going forward. For example, to improve the Table’s results and reduce its challenges Ford might:

Articulate an explicit statement of purpose for the Table and share it with all participants, both current and future;

Provide clarity on the consultants’ roles, including how and when members of the Table can and should ask for their help;

Use technology to enhance communication and participation;

Consider setting some times when high-level organizational leaders are required to attend;

Ensure that the Table itself reflects the diversity of the communities, topics, and approaches the Table values; and

Develop a simple, standardized self-assessment process, conduct it annually, and follow up on recommended improvements.

Other implications include the importance of: organizing the table as a collaborative entity, not a formal coalition (which typically speaks with one voice); developing guidelines for the table’s structure and processes, and sharing them with participating organizations; having explicit rules for engagement and for the environment at the table, including how members will act when they disagree with each other’s positions and whether arguments will be tolerated; being prepared to step in if the table hits a roadblock; and giving participants adequate time to grow into their role as table members. What can this Table tell us about the funder’s role in relation to a cross-sector table? The funder serves as the table’s chief architect, sponsor, and advocate. Its role is to:

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Have a clear sense of the table’s goals and purpose, and communicate it to table members.

Convey the message that the table is valued, to increase members’ buy-in.

Use the table to connect highly capable individuals and institutions to each other and support them with tools, resources, and consulting services, to further enhance their capacities.

Make diversity a priority in representation at the table and in the entities that support the table.

Be willing to invest in developing knowledge without knowing exactly how or when it will pay off.

Share the broad, landscape perspective gained through other investments with the table to help reduce silos.

Use the table to disseminate research published by grantees.

Create opportunities for table members to reflect, test their assumptions, and plan for the future. Should the table be funder- or participant-driven? There are benefits and drawbacks to both approaches. The fact that Ford drove the formation of this Table underscored to grantees the foundation’s commitment to the topic, secured resources for the Table, ensured that grantees contributed their time and attention, and enabled Ford staff to bring knowledge back from the Table to their colleagues within the foundation. On the other hand, organizations that didn’t receive dedicated Ford grants to participate were less affected by Ford’s prominent role. It is possible, although not certain, that they may have been more involved if they saw the exercise as field-driven. Ideally, the entity in the driver’s seat changes over time as participants acquire ownership and responsibility. The key is to be transparent about who is driving the table and when the role is shifting from one entity to another. In conclusion, this study found a great deal of validation for decisions made in designing, implementing, and managing the Ford Foundation Table on Civil Rights, Technology, and Privacy, as well as some opportunities for improvement. The study also confirmed that this type of network can be greater than the sum of its parts, enabling both the funder and its grantees to achieve results they might not achieve on their own. In its first six years, the Table evolved from a place to address past injuries by developing relationships, trust, and capacity to a place for stress-testing the relationships by tackling new issues together. Today, if the relationships continue to grow and deepen, the Table is poised to take on new and increasingly complex concerns that have a significant impact on the most vulnerable members of society. The successes this far were wonderful wins. But the biggest success, perhaps, is that an infrastructure now exists by which organizations can assess problems, determine strategies, and work together to achieve the next win.

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INTRODUCTION

ay 1, 2014, was a busy news day. Hundreds of Nigerians marched on their capital, calling for the release of schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram militants. The embattled mayor of Toronto suspended his reelection campaign after being filmed smoking crack cocaine. And an

NBA advisory committee recommended that Donald Sterling be forced to sell his team because of the owner’s racist remarks. For many people, however, another news story was equally compelling, on that day and for some time to come: President Barack Obama’s counselor, John Podesta, had released a White House report on big data that highlighted fundamental and far-reaching concerns about technology’s impact on civil rights. The working group that wrote Podesta’s report did not originally have the civil rights ramifications of big data in mind. It took unified and persistent efforts by leaders from dozens of civil rights, social justice, media reform, technology, and privacy organizations to put civil rights principles front and center in public discourse about big data. But when they succeeded, the topic captured the attention of policy makers, advocates, researchers, technologists, and corporate leaders across the country. Numerous follow-up reports, conferences, and policy debates ensued, with the civil rights principles featured prominently. It was just the sort of victory that participants, facilitators, and funders of the Ford Foundation Civil Rights, Technology, and Privacy Table (“the Table”) have sought and frequently won during the Table’s six-year existence.

Since 2011, the Table has worked at the intersection of civil rights and technology to develop knowledge, relationships, and connections among organizations that do not always get along. It has helped to shape policies, improve public awareness and debate on key issues, influence the focus of the civil rights and technology fields, and spur growth in participating organizations’ skills and capacities. Along the way, participants have moved from crossing the line on civility during heated debates to crossing the sectoral lines that divide organizations so they can work better together. The Table’s path to success has not been linear, however; the group’s size, membership, operating structure, and scope have all evolved in ways that influence the Table’s outcomes in both positive and negative ways. Nor can the Table’s success be defined merely in terms of a policy win, however significant that may be. The Table has multiple goals and purposes, both explicit and implicit. The group serves as a place for learning, reflection, planning, and debate; for sharing and educating; and for networking within and across fields and sectors. The Table’s path has not always been easy. The fundamental differences among participating organizations and individuals present a continuing challenge, and at times they resurface (although now usually away from the table). Some of the original members have drifted away, leaving the table less diverse, racially and philosophically, than when it began. And the Table does not achieve everything it sets out to do, especially as the group’s scope and focus has broadened.

This report captures the story-behind-the-story of the Civil Rights, Technology, and Privacy Table, including the reasons for and results of changes to the Table’s characteristics, processes, focus, and activities. It assesses the Table’s strengths, limitations, value, and results from a variety of perspectives. And it offers insights and implications from this Table’s experience that may apply more broadly to cross-sector, collaborative tables addressing other topics.

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WHY UNDERSTANDING THE TABLE MATTERS The Table is both a tool for change and a vehicle (network) for cross-sector collaboration and learning. Every month, it brings representatives of emerging and established organizations involved in civil rights, social justice, technology policy, public interest advocacy, and media justice together in person or by phone to learn, discuss, and share ideas and information. And every year, the Table’s working groups tackle some of the most pressing and consequential issues at the intersections of their fields—issues that disproportionately impact communities of color and low-income communities. Functional cross-sector vehicles for change are rare. And they may be especially important in a polarized political environment that puts the civil rights of the most vulnerable populations on the line. The story of how this table’s members moved beyond arguments about their differences to working productively on shared civil rights concerns can tell us something about what it takes to do this for other issues and sectors. In addition, the Ford Foundation’s focus on inequality has prompted interest in harvesting lessons about the Table that can improve the way the network it has developed functions and how its participants address issues related to civil rights and technology, viewed through the lens of inequality. Moreover, understanding if and how the Table has worked also could help the Foundation decide whether and when to use this approach to support future interests.

We begin the Table’s story in I: The Starting Point with a description of the initial context, goals, and expectations for the Table. II: Key Features and Activities of the Table provides a narrative timeline of the Table’s design and evolution. We explore the Table’s impact, influence, and obstacles in III: Successes and IV: Challenges. A synopsis of the Table’s value to the Ford Foundation, the fields involved, the participating organizations and constituencies, and participating individuals appears in V: The Table’s Value. We offer findings based on the Table’s first six years in VI: Lessons and Implications and some takeaway observations in VII: Concluding Thoughts. The Appendix contains a list of organizations actively participating in the Table as of January 2018.

STUDY METHODS This study was conducted by social researcher Leila Fiester during the first half of 2017. Senior Ford staff provided input on the scope of the study, research questions, and potential interviewees, and they commented on the draft report. Data sources included in-depth interviews with 30 people closely affiliated with the Table, including current and past Table participants, consultants who provide substantive support, Table and workgroup facilitators, and funders; review and analysis of background documents, letters, and reports published by the Table and its participating organizations; and review of media reports on activities conducted by participating organizations.

This study was not designed to measure impact or to rate the frequency of specific responses. The interviews were ethnographic, not survey-based; while all followed a core protocol, questions were tailored to each interviewee, and not all interviews addressed every topic. The process of identifying themes and findings was an iterative one that involved reviewing interview transcripts, assessing relevance by comparing responses to the research questions and goals, and testing the value of responses (e.g., by considering the prevalence of response across interviews, interviewees’ motives for expressing a particular point of view, whether the comment was based on first- or second-hand experience and could be verified with examples, and whether it reflected a one-time or recurrent experience). The report synthesizes multiple perspectives. Unlike a survey, in which researchers can count the number of identical responses to identical questions, ethnographic research identifies similar responses and then gauges the approximate frequency of occurrence. In this study, some perspectives were more commonly expressed than others, and this is indicated in the language used to report the findings.

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I. THE STARTING POINT

combination of factors inspired the Ford Foundation to create a Civil Rights, Technology, and Privacy Table and then shaped the Table’s trajectory, including the priorities, relationships, goals, and expectations of major civil rights, media justice, and philanthropic organizations. In particular,

tensions triggered by the fight over net neutrality led Ford and other concerned observers to seek ways of improving knowledge and understanding among organizations in the civil rights and technology arenas. We start with that context as a way to understand early design decisions and the successes, challenges, and lessons they produced.

THE FIGHT OVER NET NEUTRALITY

During the first decade of the 21st century, as U.S. lawmakers established and refined telecommunications law, active conflict arose between many of the long-established civil rights organizations and the media justice and technology policy groups advocating for internet freedom. The battle was characterized as a fight over net neutrality because it centered around the question of whether internet service providers must be compelled to treat all data transferred through the internet the same—i.e., neutrally—regardless of the type of content, equipment, application, user, or platform involved in the transmission. As one interviewee put it, many people saw the outcome of this fight as a “critical, once-in-a-lifetime turning point for the open internet.” The hotly contested net neutrality effort exposed fundamental differences among organizations, many of which shared an interest and a stake in protecting the rights of low-income populations and people of color. Technology policy and media justice groups such as Free Press, Public Knowledge, and many others supported net neutrality primarily as a matter of free speech and equal opportunity and as a way to ensure internet access, competition, and affordability. For many public interest groups, net neutrality involved civil rights but not necessarily racial justice; as one interviewee observed, “The groups addressed the issue from an equality rather than an equity position.” Other groups, such as the National Hispanic Media Coalition, viewed the issue through the lens of both technology and racial justice. Meanwhile, large civil rights organizations such as the NAACP and National Urban League historically opposed net neutrality, citing concerns about potential telecom-related taxes and fees and the lack of broadband infrastructure in low-income communities; their leaders worried that net neutrality could further stifle investment in underserved areas. Unlike the internet freedom organizations, the large civil rights organizations felt obliged to tackle discriminatory policies on many fronts vital to their constituencies, including employment, education, incarceration, and immigration. In comparison, technology seemed more like an opportunity for economic growth than a vehicle for greater democratic rights or engagement—especially for organizations that predated the World Wide Web by as many as eight decades and had operated comfortably in a pre-internet era. The legacy civil rights organizations’ position on net neutrality was further strengthened by a history of working on telecommunications issues through a group called the Minority Media Telecommunications Coalition (MMTC, later renamed the Multicultural Media, Telecom, and Internet Council). MMTC initially worked with groups of color to create more diversity in the broadcast community, but as the organization began to receive substantial corporate support, it shifted to organizing civil rights groups on behalf of the telecommunications companies around net neutrality. Although many legacy civil rights organizations

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already had long-standing relationships with telecommunications companies, MMTC’s legal and policy framework made it easier for other civil rights groups to also work with the telecom firms. At the same time, a new generation of racial justice leaders and organizations was coming into power, such as Color Of Change and the Center for Media Justice. These groups viewed the open internet as a platform to advance racial justice, and they favored strong net neutrality protections. The newer groups had strong relationships with grassroots organizations, were tech-savvy, and were heavily engaged in the emerging movement against police violence. These differences exacerbated natural tensions between the old and new guard of the civil rights movement. The fact that net neutrality became an issue as these organizations were seeking broader recognition and power enabled many of the newer organizations to improve their visibility by taking a stand on net neutrality.

Before and after the FCC’s decision on net neutrality, the antagonism among organizations—many of whom were Ford grantees—flared up in ugly and public ways. Much of it centered on the long-time funding relationship between telecom service providers and the major civil rights organizations, which proponents of the policy change felt had compromised the latter’s ability to take a pro-civil rights stand on net neutrality. News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media, by Juan Gonzalez and Joseph Torres (2011), criticized legacy civil rights organizations for, among other things, their “embrace of megamedia.” Explains Torres, who became an early member of the Table, “Obviously, I was part of that infighting with certain groups…. I was outspoken because I was afraid that we—people of color—were losing the platform and our ability to communicate online.” The dispute played out in news stories and op/eds, with proponents of net neutrality charging that their opponents had been “bought off,” had “sold out,” or “don’t understand the stakes of net neutrality.” Leaders of the legacy civil rights organizations acknowledged receiving considerable funding from the telecom industry, but they pointed out that those companies were making important strides on minority hiring and providing benefits to disadvantaged communities, which warranted their support. In the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s, after all, the civil rights organizations had fought for expanding diversity in the media. The civil rights organizations had not received support for these activities from long-established media reform groups, and they resented those groups’ demand that they risk backlash from the telecomm companies for endorsing internet policies that, to them, were not organizational priorities. Communication among the organizations became tense as people crossed the line between civility and disrespect, a member of the table recalls: “The way the tech policy organizations were calling out the civil rights organizations came across as patronizing, [even though] there is some truth to it…None of it was approached in the right way.” Funders grew concerned as they observed some of their grantees actively fighting with others. Not only did the conflict create a hostile environment among grantees, it wasted resources and represented a missed opportunity to address the parties’ mutual interests, including how technology and civil rights could evolve together.

For funders, the conflict over net neutrality created a hostile environment among grantees, wasted resources, and represented a missed opportunity to address mutual interests.

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CULTIVATING THE SEEDS OF UNDERSTANDING

In 2010, several leaders saw a need to foster more understanding and collaboration among the civil rights and media justice organizations. Luis Ubiñas, who was then Ford’s president, had a personal motivation for ensuring equal access to telecommunications: growing up in the South Bronx, he had only been able to watch Spanish-language TV on the UHF channel, which in the pre-digital era had poorer-quality reception than VHF channels. Internet freedom was essential to ensure that the content sought by low-income populations and people of color didn’t end up divided between free second-tier or costly first-tier services, Ubiñas believed. It wasn’t the first or only time someone had tried to bring the civil rights and media justice organizations together. For example, the Media and Democracy Coalition was already attempting to bridge the divide among organizations by convening a broader group of organizations, including The Leadership Conference, around policy concerns. These parallel activities culminated in February, 2011 with a meeting between Ubiñas; Darren Walker, who was then Ford’s newly arrived vice president for education, creativity and free expression; Jenny Toomey, who was then Ford’s program officer for media rights and access; Maya Harris, who was then Ford’s vice president for democracy, rights, and justice; and leaders from the four most-established civil rights organizations: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Council of La Raza, National Urban League, and The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Asked whether they could find common ground on media justice issues, the civil rights leaders reportedly indicated that they didn’t fully understand the media and technology policy issues and lacked the staff expertise or capacity to become more knowledgeable. Consequently, it was hard for these issues to penetrate their organizations enough to qualify as organizational priorities. But Ubiñas persisted. “If you don’t have capacity, we’re happy to fund you to develop it,” he reportedly said. By the end of the meeting, the leaders had agreed to receive Ford Foundation resources ($150,000 annually for two years, for each of the four organizations) that would allow them to develop capacity on media justice. After the meeting, Jenny Toomey visited each organization to learn more about the capacities each organization required. During those conversations, the idea of creating an “informal coalition” emerged—a table designed for discussion, learning, and collaboration about civil rights and media justice. A few months later, the four civil rights organizations joined with six successful media justice and public interest organizations—Center for Media Justice, Media and Democracy Coalition (which has since dissolved), Public Knowledge, Free Press, New America’s Open Technology Institute (OTI), and Consumers Union—as the cross-sector Table’s first members.

INITIAL GOALS AND PRIORITIES

From Ford’s perspective, the Table’s goal was to help the traditional civil rights organizations build capacity “to understand the technical and cultural dimensions of the new digital age and the implications for civil rights and social justice work…in a world in which inequality is growing,” according to Walker, who succeeded Ubiñas as Ford Foundation president in September 2013. Walker continues:

The internet can be an enabler of justice or an accelerator of injustice. [If it’s not the former,] much of the injustice and discrimination in the analog world will be reconstructed in the digital world, because the code writers who put algorithms together are people who have biases and perceptions

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about different communities, geographies, racial groups, et cetera. Civil rights organizations need to understand the basic fundamental aspects of technology and the ecosystem and infrastructure that are being built and have already been built, [because] much of what the civil rights organizations focus on involves policy, litigation, advocacy, and translating large complex issues to their communities and constituency stakeholders. If those organizations aren’t capacitated with people who can make those translations [in tech policy], they’ll be even further behind.

Each legacy civil rights organization used the capacity-building grants to hire fellows or consultants in technology and tech policy. Toomey also urged the organizations’ leaders to use the funding creatively, hoping they would get extra value by aligning or coordinating their expenditures. “I was being very flexible…but I didn’t realize the competition among them,” Toomey recalls. “At that stage in the game, it was a challenge for them to share resources with each other.”

The Table, which at first was simply named the Civil Rights and Media Justice Table, also fit the Ford Foundation’s strategy of serving as a broker and facilitator of innovative thought and action across sectors. Walker envisioned creating “a pipeline, a conveyor belt that puts face to face the best thinkers working in the tech industry and the civil rights organizations” and spawns a network of connections among them.

The Table’s earliest members had various goals and rationales for participating. Undeniably, Ford’s grants were a prime motivator. “When a funder says you’re going to meet, grantees meet,” one interviewee stated and many others reiterated. Other motivations, depending on the speaker’s field and organizational affiliations, ranged from passive to active. They included a desire to:

Hear what others have to say about overlapping issues;

Establish or broaden relationships between civil rights and media justice organizations, addressing the rift created by the fight over net neutrality;

Achieve “a progression” in civil rights organizations’ position on telecom issues and “some learning” by digital rights organizations about how to frame the issues more deeply;

Rebuild, repair, and recast relationships between newer, grassroots racial justice organizations and the legacy civil rights organizations;

Increase all organizations’ capacity to work on policy issues that cut across the civil rights, media, and telecommunications technology sectors; and

Find convergence of interests and synergy with potential collaborators, bringing additional representation to the participating organizations’ constituencies.

Given the simmering tensions and the range of expectations, there was a good chance that the Table might become a Ford-driven effort in which grantees did not truly and honestly engage. “There was some trepidation with the initial invitation because it was funder driven. I didn’t know what it was going to be,” a Table member confides. There also was a risk that the Table would stall out over unsolvable disagreements, and several interviewees admit to having had low expectations for outcomes. Toomey visited each organization to assure its leader that the Table would be a good use of time and that other participants would work with him or her in good faith, despite recent antagonism. Nonetheless, Toomey says, awareness of the invitees’ doubts meant that “I didn’t sleep the night before the first meeting. No one but Darren had conceived that these groups could really work well together.”

“It was good to have a place where we could have conversations and ask a quick question that may make all the difference in what conclusions you draw. But that wasn’t even primary for me. I’ve always been a strong believer in coalitions. The different perspectives trying to achieve the same goal can be very helpful.”

—Interviewee from a civil rights organization

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II. KEY FEATURES AND ACTIVITIES OF THE TABLE

uring the six years between the Table’s creation and this study, 2011-2017, the Table went through many changes. The number of member organizations grew from 10 to more than 30. Membership characteristics evolved with additions, attrition, and turnover in the types of participating

organizations and in the individuals representing them; along the way, the type of knowledge and experience represented at the Table has changed. Ford increased the resources available to Table members through contracts with consulting organizations that provide additional knowledge, expertise, and support. The table’s focus broadened to include privacy issues, and its scope shifted from discussion and relationship building to actions that leverage the relationships to achieve impact. Much of the Table’s work now occurs through working groups, a structure added to increase action on chosen topics. For the purpose of examining these changes, it is useful to divide the Table’s first six years into four developmental phases: establishing relationships (2011-12), merging and expanding (2013-14), refining and redefining (2014-15), and finding balance (2016-17). The actual development was more organic and did not attempt to follow a blueprint set by Ford in advance. The phases became apparent in retrospect, however, as interviewees reflected on their experiences.

ESTABLISHING RELATIONSHIPS (2011-12)

At the Table’s first meeting, Toomey offered participants a path for action. “I said, ‘We’re all going to be in this room together for a couple years. We can either focus on the one or two things on which we really don’t agree with each other, or we can think of the areas where we have the same goals, pick one, and try to win with that,’” she recalls. Table members chose the latter option. Over the next six months, they discussed whether they thought they could work together as an informal coalition. Then they began the process of choosing what to work on. Members decided their first project should be

something that (a) was winnable within an 18-month period; (b) if won could be leveraged into other successes; (c) could be “sold” within the cultures of the civil rights organizations, where leaders determine priorities and allocate resources through bureaucratic systems; and (d) engaged the varied skill sets of participating organizations. Each organization proposed projects, and together members assessed each one according to the criteria. The first projects to gain consensus for action involved reducing the high cost of phone calls for incarcerated individuals; expanding broadband

internet access in low-income communities; and protecting low-income mobile phone users, many of whom are African American or Latino, from bill shock (sudden, unexpected increases in monthly bills that are not caused by a change in service plans). Importantly, although Jenny Toomey retained veto power over the choices, she deliberately stayed out of the room on the day the group made its final selections. “We got them in the room and held them there until they could make decisions about what they wanted to do,” Toomey explains. But Table members “had agency to make their own decisions.”

The decision to get to know each other by working on noncontroversial projects was important because it moved people off of topics for which there was no easy answer and no hope of agreements on actions. Quite a few interviewees also believe, however, that that decision had the unintended effect of

D

“In the beginning, there was a lot of feeling out each other’s positions. The initial [attitude] was, ‘Let’s find ways that come at these issues in a more collective way.’”

—Early Table member

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discouraging participants from “really digging down and talking about issues on which we don’t agree,” as one suggested—in particular, net neutrality. “Sometimes people need to talk about issues not with goal of agreeing but of really understanding the root of analysis” behind different perspectives and approaches, this interviewee said.

One of the first relationships to be established was with The Leadership Conference as the Table’s host and Corrine Yu as facilitator. All of the legacy civil rights groups at the Table also belonged to The Leadership Conference, so they already knew Yu and she knew them. The Leadership Conference had a well-established track record of facilitating coalitions funded by Ford and others. And The Leadership Conference was committed to building relationships and shared understanding; its approach followed the admonition, “To have a friend you have to be a friend.” For all of those reasons, many of the people interviewed for this study viewed The Leadership Conference as a natural choice to host the Table. Corrine Yu also received high praise as the facilitator, a role that involves everything from setting meeting times and drafting agendas to soliciting discussion topics, moderating meetings, helping work groups select actions, keeping the work moving forward, and interacting with funders. Yu says her style is to avoid infighting and seek instead a win-win situation in which everyone perceives the benefit in participating. She likes to work problems out behind the scenes before meetings, and she is adamant that “dirty laundry shouldn’t be aired in the press.” Interviewees describe Yu as respectful, no-nonsense, well-organized, credible, calm and unflappable, trustworthy, and good at managing the pace of activity. Early on, however, The Leadership Conference’s selection as host caused some hard feelings among a few Table members. Some of the people representing newer social and media justice groups felt that The Leadership Conference was inherently biased against net neutrality because its members included organizations on the opposing side (as well as organizations that favored net neutrality); in reality, the Leadership Conference itself had neither supported nor opposed net neutrality. In fact, the critics saw The Leadership Conference’s very neutrality on the issue as a strike against the organization, although it did not stop them from engaging in the Table as participants. (We discuss the challenges inherent in The Leadership Conference’s facilitative role more deeply on p. 32.)

To begin building relationships around the initial topics of bill shock and prison phone rates, the Table engaged in polling, focus groups, and a group retreat. Several interviewees credited these activities with helping to forge individual connections between Table members and make the general atmosphere less awkward and distrustful.

Ford commissioned Anzalone Liszt Grove Research, a polling firm, to obtain feedback on messages designed to reach and mobilize the Table members’ constituencies on the issues of bill shock and prison phone call rate reform. The process of developing the poll involved significant input from Table participants. The ostensible goal of polling was to ensure that the Table’s messages worked as intended, but a secondary purpose was to help leaders of the member organizations bond with each other while learning together how to frame and field a poll. Few of the Table members, even those from the larger organizations, had ever participated in organizing or administering a poll. Next, Ford arranged for Table members to travel together to Atlanta, Chicago, and New York to observe professionally managed focus groups discussing the issues and messages. “If we hadn’t flown Table members out to watch the [discussions] in person, they wouldn’t have believed the poll data,” Toomey

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explains. “More importantly, they had the shared experience of seeing whether the messages they hoped would land did or didn’t.” And, again, it was a bonding experience. “That’s when I recall things starting to gel,” a participant said. Finally, in 2012 Ford convened Table members for a retreat at Point Lookout Resort and Conference Center, a rustic facility in Northpoint, Maine. The retreat, which would become a bi-annual event, was designed to make participants interact in ways that would deepen their understanding of and respect for each other. Jenny Toomey intentionally assigned people to share cabins with colleagues they didn’t know well or would not otherwise talk with, and the schedule balanced formal, facilitated events with plenty of unscheduled, unmediated time. Activities ran the gamut from group discussions about controversial topics, such as the barriers to collaboration between legacy civil rights and newer social justice organizations (or, in later years, between the tech policy and civil rights sectors) to private one-on-one conversations and relaxed evenings spent bowling or singing karaoke. Interviewees described the first and second retreats as crucial experiences for making interpersonal dynamics at the table more civil, pragmatic, and informed, as these anecdotes illustrate:

“I remember a very intense fishbowl session where we were very honest. It was a cathartic opportunity. And it was really helpful, because then people understood it’s complex and complicated for [people within legacy civil rights organizations], that there are times when we do wish we could be out there on net neutrality. The reasons we can’t support it aren’t just that we get money from the companies so we take their position; there are dynamics we have to navigate within our own organizations.”

“The executive director of a civil rights group was upset with someone from one of the policy groups, and they disagreed about tactics. They happened to be sharing a cabin, and they stayed up one night until 3 a.m. talking about love. I don’t know that it changed the way they felt about the tactical disagreement, but it meant they could actually talk about it because they liked each other more.”

The only criticism voiced by interviewees was that, post-retreat, some would have liked more follow-up on some of the tough conversations (e.g., recommended readings, informational presentations, further group discussion).

MERGING AND EXPANDING (2013-14)

The Civil Rights and Media Justice Table had expanded slightly throughout 2012 with the addition of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, the Asian American Justice Center (AAJC), National Organization for Women (NOW), Color Of Change, Common Cause, and ACLU. These groups joined the Table at Corrine Yu’s invitation. Two (AAJC and NOW) received $50,000 of Ford money sub-granted through The Leadership Coalition because they did not already have grant support from Ford and would not otherwise have been able to participate. The other organizations received Ford grants for projects unrelated to the Table but were not funded to participate in the Table. Adding these members helped to increase the range of constituencies represented at the Table and equalize the number of civil rights and media justice

“In many ways the retreat has done more to help me grow relationships with the individuals I need to collaborate with, or need to get fresh perspective from, than the table itself, because it provides space to build relationships.”

—Table member from a media justice

organization

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organizations. However, some observers say that the organizations with less or no support for participating had little incentive to fully commit to the Table for the long term. This would become an issue as the Table matured and Ford staff began to shift funding to the Table’s activities rather than to paying for participation (see p. 14). Around the same time, the Ford Foundation was considering better ways to frame, coordinate, facilitate, and communicate strategies for regulatory, policy, and legal reforms in the changing landscape of internet freedom. The topic of information privacy soon rose to the forefront: Privacy issues can seem less practical or urgent than issues involving basic human existence, yet privacy violations are especially prevalent and invasive in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color. So Ford convened a second table of grantees working on privacy to identify current and potential projects, priorities, and gaps in the privacy arena. This table was facilitated by Spitfire Strategies, a communications firm funded by Ford to support other grantees. Its goals were to map the privacy field, anticipate where important disagreements might emerge, and identify opportunities for collaboration so that Ford staff could make the case for investing in supports like those given to the civil rights organizations (e.g., polling, focus groups, and communications strategies). In 2012, Ford convened both the privacy and civil rights tables separately for Maine retreats. By 2013, Ford staff could see that some of the new privacy table’s work duplicated the efforts of other coalitions started by the ACLU and New America’s Open Technology Institute to address the legal and technical aspects of government surveillance. Ford consequently released participants from its own privacy table. Yet Ford staff realized that many people in the privacy/technology area wanted to work with members of the civil rights community, and vice versa. So they invited some members of the dissolving privacy table to join the Civil Rights and Media Justice Table. Over the next year or so, this decision added the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Center for Democracy & Technology, Common Sense Media, Demand Progress, Media Matters, and Open MIC (Open Media and Information Companies Initiative) to the roster of civil rights, media justice, and tech policy organizations in the group. (Other organizations from the privacy table, such as Mozilla, were invited to join but did not attend meetings.) The group was renamed the Ford Foundation Civil Rights, Technology, and Privacy Table to cover the expanded focus. (The name was considered fluid, however, and open to revision if the Table evolves again.) The new members increased the strategic tools available to the Table not only by adding organizations with knowledge from different fields but by linking organizations that were skilled at pushing against the telecommunications companies with those skilled at working with them. To help Table members figure out what they wanted to collaborate on during the coming year, Ford hired Robinson + Yu, a consulting firm (later rebranded as Upturn and converted into a 501(c)(3) organization), to ascertain each participating organization’s priorities. The top three mutual priorities—immigration reform, economic issues, and criminal justice—all had privacy and technology implications. Table leaders then asked Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, and Ashkan Soltani, an independent researcher and technologist specializing in privacy, security, and behavioral economics, to help contextualize those implications. This work informed the Table’s own iterative movement toward a civil rights lens. “That was a big piece of learning,” Toomey recalls. “Once we stopped talking separately about ‘privacy’ work, and saw it through a civil rights frame, people saw that something like predictive policing is actually

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a criminal justice concern. That’s when we could meaningfully work together, because there wasn’t separation between the values and the work.” Just as importantly, bringing privacy and civil rights together improved the capacities and understanding of each sector. A Table member with expertise in tech policy explains: “The privacy people understood tech and the civil rights groups didn’t. Similarly, the privacy groups weren’t great at ferreting out and explaining the harms of privacy violations but the civil rights groups were, and they could show how privacy harms really affected ordinary people. That synergy really drove engagement.”

The extra support that Ford provided to the Table and its members, through capacity-building and consulting grants, helped the group congeal. Ford funded three consulting organizations to give the Table strategic, informational, and communications support—Freedman Consulting, Anzalone Liszt Grove Research, and Spitfire Strategies, respectively—and, over a two-year period, invited four research or policy institutes to join the Table: the Center on Privacy and Technology and the Institute for Public Representation, both housed at Georgetown University’s Law Center; Upturn (formerly Robinson + Yu), a firm offering expertise on tech policy; and Data & Society, a research institute focused on the cultural issues arising from data-centric technological development. These experts provided a variety of supports, from advice on strategy, communications, or technical aspects underlying the Table’s civil rights and privacy concerns to data collection, analysis, and heavy lifting to help frame and draft the Table’s position statements and products. Over the next several years, these organizations, with the guidance, advice, and input of advocates who had deep knowledge of the political and policy environment, would produce reports on such topics as body-worn cameras, online lead generation and payday loans, facial recognition, and predictive policing; convene conferences on civil rights and big data issues, civil rights and lending issues, and civil rights and surveillance issues as well as roundtables on such topics as body-worn cameras and small-dollar lending; engage in public opinion research on a range of privacy, telecommunications, and internet issues that helped inform advocacy efforts; create a scorecard with The Leadership Conference on body-worn camera policies; and provide drafting support for comments to federal and state agencies. (See III: Successes for more detail.) The resources gained through these additions to the Table filled a gap in other members’ data, research, and technical capacities, deepened the discussions, and made the Table’s outputs more effective, as these examples from the period 2014-17 illustrate:

After researchers provided data showing that law enforcement’s uses of technology permit disproportionately high rates of arrest for people of color, the Table’s conversations about privacy shifted from general concerns about privacy invasion to the technology’s impact on civil rights. This shift ultimately enabled the Table to leverage the fact that “more people probably care about unfair arrests than about esoteric privacy matters,” an interviewee stated.

Position statements and recommendations issued by the Table became more nuanced as they incorporated knowledge of cutting-edge technology developments. For instance, after Upturn staff pointed out that video technology could identify not only faces but also an individual’s gait,

“Once we stopped talking separately about ‘privacy’ work, and saw it through a civil rights frame…we could meaningfully work together, because there wasn’t separation between the values and the work.”

—Jenny Toomey, Ford Foundation

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tattoos, and other distinguishing characteristics, Table members made sure that their suggested principles for the use of body-worn cameras included language disallowing the collection of biometric data more broadly than just facial recognition.

Public communications about the individual and collective work of Table members grew stronger. For instance, after Table member Michael Connor described a forthcoming report by his organization—a small shop without in-house public relations capacity—on how the lack of racial diversity in the tech industry undermines companies’ financial performance, staff from Spitfire offered to help him devise a communications strategy. The publication, “Breaking the Mold: Investing in Racial Diversity in Tech,” became widely discussed and reported in mainstream and special-interest media.

Joining or working with the Table also benefited the expert organizations, which were eager for the chance to connect their abstract knowledge to practical matters. (See V: The Table’s Value for more detail.)

Inevitably, the Table’s growth changed the group’s dynamics and discussions. Over time, the roster of participating organizations became more diverse, and while all were grantees of the Ford Foundation, they were not all as well-known to other funders at the table, such as the Media Democracy Fund and Open Society Foundations. Member organizations often sent more than one representative to Table meetings, and by 2017 it had become very difficult to have candid but productive discussions about controversial topics with so many people in the room (30 to 40, compared with 10 to 15 at the Table’s beginning).

Some interviewees seem to lament the changes. “The discussion has become more academic, more driven by data and social science and computer science, heavier on policy analysis,” one said:

Before, when groups like Color Of Change, the Center for Media Justice, the NAACP, or the Urban League—groups that claimed a community-based constituency—were anchoring conversations about community-based action, I felt the conversation was more balanced between inside-the-Beltway groups and community or online organizers. Now that conversation is more buried, because with so many people we can’t have one-on-one conversations at Table meetings. The tone is much more science-y….If the goal of the Table is relationship building [and] forming strategy around issues, then I think you lose by not holding community-based organizing and mobilizing at same level as data, policy, or legal analysis.

Other interviewees, however, suggest that the type of conversations held earlier in the Table’s evolution didn’t disappear, they simply moved to the working-group structure that emerged as Corrine Yu and others further refined and redefined the Table. We turn next to that stage of the Table’s evolution and its impact.

REFINING AND REDEFINING (2014-15)

During 2014 and 2015, the Table developed a more formal structure that supported action on several high-visibility fronts. Significant markers of development during this period include the creation of working groups and a process for selecting topics for action; the transfer of responsibility for the Table within the Ford Foundation from Jenny Toomey to Lori McGlinchey; and initiation of special presentations at monthly meetings as a way to encourage in-depth learning and brainstorming.

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Corrine Yu had begun to feel it was time for the Table to have a more formal mechanism for generating priority topics and acting on them, so that Table members could play a stronger leadership role instead of relying so heavily on the Table facilitator. So she introduced a structure in which Table members could suggest a topic of interest, volunteer to lead a workgroup on it, and invite others to join them—including not only fellow Table members but also non-members (e.g., an immigrant surveillance working group includes several immigrant rights organizations that are not Table members). Over the next two years, the number of working groups grew to 15. Working groups meet independently between the monthly meetings of the full Table, using an agenda developed by the organization leading the working group. Each working group operates slightly differently, but their range of potential activities includes: developing and issuing policy principles and/or joint position statements; reviewing and debating data or research findings; brainstorming strategies for policy change; advocating among colleagues for a specific position on technology issues; and bringing outside organizations to the full Table to share specialized knowledge, critique developing products, and endorse the Table’s positions and platforms. One working group also organized a mini-conference (about civil rights in the era of big data). People interviewed for this study generally value the working group structure as a way to set practical goals, encourage members to play leadership roles, and promote accountability for taking action. They also find it an effective way to mobilize colleagues. “I use the working group as an organizing platform to [elicit support] for policy positions,” one interviewee acknowledged. Working group topics are now selected every December for the coming year. Corrine Yu asks Table members for their suggestions and compiles a list. At the December meeting, members sign up to lead or join at least one working group each; many members sign up for multiple groups. A suggested topic can become the focus of a working group only if a Table member volunteers to lead it. An interviewee described this highly transparent, interactive, and collaborative process for selecting topics “a sort of cultivated bubbling up of ideas”:

You have to curate it a little bit—get a conversation going, and then settle on things people don’t just like but also have capacity to do. You need someone in charge who is strong enough to say something isn’t a good idea and also smart enough to know what is politically feasible, and then to gently drive the group in that direction. That’s what Corrine does.

In early 2014, Lori McGlinchey joined the Ford Foundation as senior program officer for internet freedom, and she inherited Jenny Toomey’s role in overseeing Ford’s support for the Table. McGlinchey had been a close funding partner of Toomey’s while responsible for the Open Society Foundations’ grantmaking in journalism and technology policy, and she had heard about the Table from OSF and Ford’s mutual grantees.

WORKING GROUPS, 2018

Pretrial decisionmaking

Lifeline and other broadband and telecommunications issues

Policing technology / predictive policing

Law enforcement access to social media

Surveillance and immigrant communities

Facial recognition technologies / biometric surveillance

Digital corporate responsibility and diversity in hiring

Hate speech / online propaganda

The future of work: Intersection of worker rights and technology issues

Census and the internet

“Pre-table” research knowledge sharing

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Table members view McGlinchey, like Toomey, as a “strong personality” who is passionate about the Table and has helped it to evolve. McGlinchey viewed 2014 as “a year of listening, paying attention, and trying to understand our long-term position.” She knew that during the Table’s first few years it had been important for Ford to put money on table and for Toomey to play a central role in gathering and nudging Table members. Now that the group had matured a bit, however, McGlinchey wondered whether Ford should let the Table function more independently and restructure funding to support activities rather than participation. It especially bothered McGlinchey that some grantees received funding specifically to be at the Table while many others were there voluntarily, without grants that covered their participation. She believed that the pay-to-play approach set the wrong tone, especially when applied unequally among grantees. She wanted to equalize the experience while also ensuring that participation was driven by the Table’s value to members rather than by grant payments. McGlinchey set out to discover why individual members were at the Table and what value they saw in participation. She talked with Corrine Yu about how her relationship with Ford and the Table had evolved, and she met with individual Table members, starting with those representing the legacy civil rights organizations. “I’d like to shift the dynamic,” McGlinchey told each person she met with. “You tell me what you want to do, but it’s not going to be an automatic grant [renewal].” These were hard conversations to have, and each organization responded differently. One opted out of the table relatively quickly. Another asked for more funding to integrate technology and civil rights activities into its ongoing projects. McGlinchey suggested instead that the organization develop a plan for integration and then raise funds for it from many grantmakers, including but not limited to Ford. After considering options for a year or so this organization dropped out of the Table, but the door remains open. A third organization received its last Ford grant for internet freedom activities in 2016; staff still participate in the Table on a voluntary basis, but the organization’s involvement is sporadic. As McGlinchey held the conversations, she also slowly moved herself into the Table’s background. She began to attend some monthly meetings by phone, did not join working groups, and stayed away when the Table had to make important decisions, trying to signal that the Table was an independent body.

In 2014, Corrine Yu (often in coordination with work group leaders) began arranging for guest speakers to present and discuss data, research, and analyses during a portion of the Table’s monthly meetings. The presentations have multiple purposes: to enliven the meetings, pique Table members’ interest in emerging issues, enhance their understanding of policy nuances, advance the efforts of a working group, and establish connections with people and organizations outside the Table who may serve as resources. For example:

Jay Stanley of ACLU, who wrote one of the earliest reports on the civil rights implications of law enforcement officers’ use of body-worn cameras, presented his findings to the Table. ACLU subsequently joined the Table as an ongoing member, and body-worn cameras became a core issue for the Table.

danah boyd of Data & Society, a relatively new organization that was unknown to most Table members, made a presentation on media manipulation and disinformation that alerted Table members to the extent of the problem while also demonstrating Data & Society’s research capabilities.

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Rebecca MacKinnon, who leads New America’s work on ranking digital rights, previewed topline findings from the project’s forthcoming Corporate Accountability Index at a Table meeting. The presentation gave Table members a chance to align their advocacy efforts with the new data and question MacKinnon about its potential impact a week before the findings were publicly released.

Other presenters have included representatives of the federal government, telecommunications industry, and other non-governmental organizations. Table members describe the presentations as interesting, informative, and motivating conversations. (Harlan Yu of Upturn, for instance, credits Jay Stanley’s presentation with inspiring Upturn’s later report on body-worn camera technology.) Individual members particularly value the exposure to technological expertise and the chance to learn about issues targeted by their colleagues’ working groups. The only criticism expressed in interviews was a comment by one person that a few presentations have seemed “more like a sales pitch” than an opportunity for real learning. Although this situation doesn’t arise frequently, it is something to keep an eye on. “If organizations are thinking of the Table as a place where they can showcase what they’re working on [to impress] funders or to make other organizations see them as leaders in a particular area, that [promotes] competitiveness on the issues. And where there is competitiveness, there is less collaboration,” the interviewee said.

The changes adopted in 2014-15 shaped the Table in several ways:

Clear roles for Table members emerged, many of which involve cross-sector collaboration. The think tanks conduct research, for instance; advocacy groups use the findings to buttress their policy goals; and both parties benefit from the other’s input. Moreover, some of the newer organizations at the Table say they have gained credibility and visibility by collaborating with the better-established organizations.

The Table became more focused despite growing in size. The working groups, in particular, helped the Table become more concrete and action-oriented. As more of the substantive discussions about issues and strategy moved to the working-group level, however, it became harder to make the monthly full-Table meetings seem equally meaningful. “Corrine does a masterful job of setting the monthly agenda and trying to wrangle everyone, but the [full-Table] meetings tend to be just a little bit rote,” an interviewee said. “They’re helpful for institutional awareness and to keep everybody informed, but the lasting interactions and strong bonds occur in the working groups.”

The large number of working groups left some members concerned that the Table is spread thinly across too many topics. “I would prefer to pick three areas for collaboration a year, and if people want to do more outside the table then they can,” an interviewee stated. That sentiment was echoed by a few others, who note that many other coalitions have formed around internet and technology issues since the Table began, so organizations are taxed by the number of projects and battles they are waging on the same front. (This perception is not universal, however. Another member called for more resources so the Table could take on more projects.)

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APPLYING RELATIONSHIPS TO ACHIEVE GOALS (2016-17)

By 2016, Table members had fully shifted into a mode of leveraging relationships to achieve specific goals. “We’re at the point where we have a good idea what the menu [of topics and actions] is. It’s easier to attract people to a Table where the menu is clear…even though there’s always going to be some evolution as issues grow and expand,” said an interviewee who has been at the Table for six years. Today, Table members (rather than the facilitator) take the initiative to propose and lead working groups, identify and implement actions, and report back to their colleagues. Members describe the Table as a place where they can come together with people from different organizations that address overlapping issues and use those relationships to make things happen. Lori McGlinchey says she is proud of that outcome. “I feel it is a unique place where people are working on issues that cut across organizations and issue areas, taking on work that is really new,” she said. Just as importantly, the only member still receiving a Ford grant specifically for the Table is The Leadership Conference, to support Corrine Yu’s role as facilitator and the costs of hosting the group. Focusing on interests that member organizations share, and around which they have developed relationships, promotes synergy and facilitates concerted action. However, it also may have had the unintended effect of reducing discussion about the underlying differences among organizations. Opinions are divided on whether this indicates the Table has matured to a point where members understand the complexities their colleagues’ organizations face and thus no longer feel that confronting each other about their positions will be fruitful, or whether the Table is avoiding tough conversations that some members still want to have. On one hand, if the Table’s purpose was not to eliminate disagreement but simply to ensure that people who disagree get to know each other as human beings and grow to understand each other’s positions, it is reasonable to expect that the tensions will never disappear—especially because the groups came together at a funder’s behest, and not because they spontaneously chose to do so. On the other hand, the facilitator’s approach supports the notion that the Table is deliberately sidestepping the points of disagreement. Corrine Yu is aware of “festering tensions” among organizations on the issue of net neutrality (and, more broadly, on whether the Table will take a policy position that goes against the telecommunications companies), but she is determined that the tensions won’t emerge at the Table. “The Table is sort of like Switzerland,” she says. “You don’t have meetings where people scream at each other.”

The result is a very pragmatic ambiance at the Table. “It’s become very transactional: state your position and move on,” said one member. Observed another, “This is neither the most purposeful nor the most dysfunctional table that I sit at”:

People don’t go into [the Table] with a kumbaya spirit. They go in with a desire to do work that is purposeful but with the understanding that certain topics that are off the table. You might find yourself bumping up against an electric fence you didn’t see, and realize you have entered some turf where others will not or cannot go.

“The Table is sort of like Switzerland. You don’t have meetings where people scream at each other.”

—Table facilitator

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ver the course of the evolution described in this chapter, the Ford Foundation Civil Rights, Technology, and Privacy Table has done several things very well. Strengths cited by interviewees include: creating trusting relationships between key players across the civil rights, technology, and privacy arenas and, in some cases, between organizations within a sector;

instigating discussions about potential solutions to shared concerns; informing participants about an issue and its background in ways that encourage problem solving; and supporting cross-sector actions to address shared interests. The Table seems especially good at developing policy guidance, collecting data, and using those tools to initiate conversations with policy makers in order to shape their decisions. The Table’s impact has been less clear on issues for which there is not an obvious, time-driven opportunity for policy advocacy. We explore the Table’s successes and challenges more fully in the next two chapters.

III. THE TABLE’S SUCCESSES

n August 1, 2017, news of a dramatic change in the NAACP’s position on net neutrality sped through the Table and beyond. NAACP’s board of directors had just passed a resolution declaring that “net neutrality is fundamental to protecting a free and open internet, which has been crucial

to today’s fight for civil rights and equality,” NAACP Board Chair Leon Russell announced.1 In Russell’s statement and a subsequent op-ed by NAACP Interim President and CEO Derrick Johnson, the NAACP further expressed opposition to internet service providers’ prioritizing, blocking, or throttling services in discriminatory ways. Just as significantly, the NAACP urged FCC Chairman Ajit Pai “to protect the free flow of information and not jeopardize it by removing high-speed broadband from the equalizing framework of Title II”2 of the Telecommunications Act.

The NAACP’s decision to firmly support net neutrality and Title II classification cannot be credited solely, or perhaps even primarily, to the Table, which was one of many entities pushing NAACP to take this step. However, the Table may be able to take substantial credit for something that happened immediately after NAACP announced its resolution. Internet freedom and civil justice entities such as the Center for Media Justice, Color Of Change, and the Voices for Internet Freedom Coalition (which also comprises Free Press and the National Hispanic Media Coalition, all Table members) issued statements applauding NAACP and its leaders for supporting the creation of strong, enforceable net neutrality rules. The positive recognition given by these and other organizations, after a long history of opposing NAACP’s position, illustrated just how far all of the organizations had come in developing positive relationships with each other.

The Ford Foundation defines “success” for the Table as (1) broadening and deepening the participating organizations’ skills, knowledge, and understanding of technology issues and their civil rights implications, and (2) improving relationships among the organizations. Those developments, according to Darren Walker, are the first step toward being able to have well-informed policy discussions. The majority of interviewees view the Table as a success, as defined by collectively achieving positive results in the agreed-upon areas of work. Over the six-year period featured by this study, the categories of success have included:3

1 http://www.naacp.org/latest/naacp-announces-staunch-support-open-internet/ 2 http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/technology/346808-the-fcc-must-enforce-standards-that-keep-the-web-remain-free 3 Several of the examples provided in this chapter represent success in more than one category. For example, the Table’s work on civil rights principles in an era of big data illustrate policy influence as well as an activity that

O

O

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Development of relationships, connections, and familiarity across organizations;

Policy wins;

Improved quality of the public narrative and debate on an issue, as measured by the amount of discussion and how the issue is described or perceived;

Increased public awareness of key issues;

Influence on the civil rights and technology fields; and

Growth in participating organizations’ capacities, institutional relationships, strategies, areas of work, role in their respective field, and/or resources accessed or leveraged.

DEVELOPMENT OF RELATIONSHIPS, CONNECTIONS, AND FAMILIARITY ACROSS ORGANIZATIONS

Interviewees say the Table has fostered many ingredients necessary for collaboration, including:

Friendships, which are the building blocks for relationships between organizations. “I have friends [at the Table], and I like that,” an interviewee explained. She continued: “Building relationships with people at the organizations who appear at the table is very valuable for ensuring that the advocacy coming out of it has an impact.”

Familiarity. This is especially useful for organizational leaders who have not had repeated opportunities to get to know their counterparts in other fields or disciplines. As the executive director of a media justice organization observes, “I don’t think [the executive director of an academic center] and I would know each other if not for the Table….Leaders would be [more] siloed.”

Understanding. This is most apparent in how participants on opposite sides of the net neutrality battle have come to view each other. Although tensions definitely remain, it is noteworthy that Table members at the 2015 Maine retreat were able to hold a civil conversation about their differences on that issue. “For them to even have that conversation was unimaginable a few years ago, much less for them to have it and then enthusiastically roll up their sleeves to work on other issues together,” Toomey says.

Connections. Events such as the Color of Surveillance annual public conference series organized by the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law have connected Table members with leaders in the civil rights, social justice, criminal justice, public interest, technology, and privacy fields outside the Table. Similar connections have occurred as Table members informally link colleagues to people they know.

improved the quality of public debate on an issue. My arrangement of examples by category is designed to convey the breadth of successes, not to imply that impact is limited to the category in which an example is discussed.

“Having the opportunity to be in the same room as people representing the actual impacted communities [has] certainly changed how I think and talk about privacy and technology.”

—Table member from a think tank

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These relationships and connections have produced positive results, including:

Less tension between organizations and, for some members, more willingness to collaborate. An interviewee who has represented both large and small organizations at the Table put it this way: “We become allies together; we have been in the trenches together. So when something comes up that divides us, you’re not a faceless person. I may disagree with you, but I’m more likely to pick up the phone or to say I know where you’re coming from. It doesn’t take away [the disagreement], but it helps smooth it over.” Moreover, the interviewee added, “When you realize you can work together on things, then you go look for things to work together on.”

Broader perspectives within sectors. Interviewees in the technology sector said they had gained a better understanding of how people in the civil rights sector think about issues, and vice versa. The Table’s ability to open participants’ eyes to how people in communities of color are affected by technology and privacy issues seems especially important. This interview response from a person in the internet freedom field was typical:

I came from a civil libertarian perspective, where I’m fighting for the principle itself and a generalized fear of government overreach into areas that can give government a disproportionate power over the people. Much of the work I did was…disconnected from the communities that would be directly impacted on the street.

Individual organizations’ ability to punch above their weight. Table members from the smaller nonprofit organizations have gained access, visibility, and influence through their relationships with larger organizations at the Table. The leader of one such organization noted that she wouldn’t ordinarily be positioned to work with ACLU, the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law, or research organizations like Upturn, but because of the relationships she formed through the table she is working with them and other Table members to achieve local policy reforms. “It has broadened my toolkit,” she said.

Development of new coalitions outside the Table. Some Table members have formed coalitions to advance topics of mutual interest that the full Table decided not to pursue. One coalition continued the work on prison phone rates that the Table initiated; another involved the FCC’s Lifeline Assistance Program, which provides discounted phone service to low-income consumers. A third spin-off coalition involves organizations from the Table that are seeking ways to limit the civil rights impact of surveillance technology.

POLICY WINS

The Table has influenced several public and corporate policies that have an impact on civil rights. These successes include efforts to limit the cost of phone calls made by prisoners, expand the Lifeline Assistance Program to include broadband as well as telephone service, persuade Google to ban online advertisements for predatory payday loans, and persuade Facebook to stop using data on users’ ethnicity to target housing, employment, and credit-related ads.

“When you realize you can work together on things, then you go look for things to work together on.”

—Long-time Table member

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Prison phone rates The cost of making phone calls from prison traditionally has been exorbitant, even though data show that the prisoners who are most likely to return home successfully and stay out of prison are those who maintain strong communication with their families. The Table did not initiate efforts to reduce prison phone rates but significantly advanced the issue. For about a dozen years, Table members such as the Center for Media Justice, consultant Cheryl Leanza, and The Leadership Conference (through its Media/Telecommunications Task Force) had been working from a criminal justice perspective to lower prison phone rates. When the topic arose as a potential area for action by the Table, some Ford staff were ambivalent because it involved telephone access rather than internet rights (the ostensible domain of the Table). But in every other way the topic was perfect: It had a clear civil rights dimension, given that a disproportionately large percentage of the prison population is African American. It involved the FCC, the regulatory agency with jurisdiction over internet rights and telecommunications issues. The FCC’s leaders during the Obama era were predisposed to make the case that, even though prisons negotiate rates with private providers at the state and local level, the FCC’s role in regulating the phone system gives it authority over the cost of prison phone calls. And the policy solution was well teed up by the work that had come before; all it seemed to need was a solid push to strengthen the framing and attract national attention and support. The Table brought all that and more, including the ability to bring tech policy and civil rights organizations into the policy reform effort. As a Table member later observed, the Table’s entry into this policy battle would “further expand the reach and participation of new voices in a fight that had been going on for some time.” Toomey reached out to a colleague in charge of Ford’s criminal justice work and asked which grantees were already working on prison phone justice. The foundation paid for representatives of those organizations to meet for two days with Table members so they could develop a joint strategy. One Table member, a grassroots organization with a large network, launched a letter- and postcard-writing campaign in which prisoners wrote about the personal impact of unaffordable phone rates, and another member incorporated those messages into its organization’s blogs. Other members with tech policy expertise navigated legal questions about whether the FCC had jurisdiction to set a ceiling on rates. The Table’s communications about the issue generated supportive editorials in the New York Times and other media, which bolstered support for restricting the rates. In 2015, these efforts culminated with the FCC issuing regulations to cap the cost of intrastate prison phone calls. It was the Table’s first policy victory. Just as importantly, an observer notes, even though some of the Table members were still mad at each other over the earlier net neutrality battle, “They now knew each other as people, had worked together on an issue, and had added value” to each other’s work. Although phone service providers sued to block the rule from being implemented, and in June 2017 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit struck down the rule, Table members have not abandoned this issue. They are re-grouping to continue fighting predatory prison phone rates, and are now looking into policies that would replace in-person visits with expensive video visitation systems.

Lifeline Assistance Program expansion to broadband service The Lifeline program is part of the FCC’s Universal Services Fund, which was established to offset the cost of telephone lines in very rural areas. Historically, Lifeline has provided discounted phone services to low-income consumers, but members of the Table also saw it as a way to improve low-income communities’ access to the internet. In 2015, Table members joined forces to persuade the FCC to expand and

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modernize the program to include broadband service. The expansion was made possible by the FCC’s decision early that year to reclassify internet service providers as common carriers under Title II of the Telecommunications Act—a central decision in the fight over net neutrality, and one on which Table members were bitterly divided. In giving the FCC more power to help broadband users and to hold companies accountable, however, the Title II decision also cleared the way for expanding Lifeline, and none of the organizations at the Table opposed the Lifeline program. Table members met with FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and other regulators to make their case. Then, when U.S. Rep. Doris Matsui and Sens. Chris Murphy and Cory Booker introduced a bill calling for the FCC to make in-home online services more affordable, they mobilized public support around the legislative effort. In March 2016, the FCC adopted comprehensive reforms to Lifeline that included a subsidy for low-income households to access broadband services. Several carriers petitioned for designation as Lifeline Broadband Providers, and nine received approval. Unfortunately, when Ajit Pai, the new FCC Chairman appointed by President Donald Trump, took office in 2017 he set aside the approvals for additional FCC consideration, a move widely seen as intended to undermine the policy win. Nonetheless, the Table’s advocacy for broadband access at the federal level is having a wider local impact. For example, in 2015, when the Philadelphia City Council was negotiating a franchise agreement with Comcast, the internet provider initially framed the agreement solely in terms of cable services. Table member Hannah Sassaman of the Philadelphia-based Media Mobilizing Project mobilized local allies to push for inclusion of broadband. She alerted other Table members to Philadelphia’s situation, and fellow Table member Joseph Torres of Free Press attended a Philadelphia City Council meeting to call for further expansion of affordable, high-speed internet access to include people eligible for programs like Lifeline. In March 2017, the Philadelphia City Council adopted a resolution calling on the FCC to reinstate the Lifeline broadband provider designations granted to the nine companies whose status Ajit Pai suspended. Sassaman credits the Media Mobilizing Project’s deep networking and participation at the Table with the “extraordinary digital inclusion wins” as part of the franchise agreement, which became the basis for wins in several other cities (most recently, Boston).

Google’s ban on online payday loan ads This success is a particularly good example of how the Table’s ability to combine members’ skill in civil rights, tech policy, media justice, and social justice makes possible a policy win that no single organization could achieve on its own. In October 2015, Upturn published Led Astray: Online Lead Generation and Payday Loans. The report revealed how payday ads were being shown online, compiled key statistics about payday lending, and offered detailed recommendations for action. Table members then formed a working group to address online advertising by payday loan companies, which target low-income consumers (often people of color) for high-rate loans that entrap them in a cycle of increasing debt to repay previous loans. With leadership from the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law, Upturn, and The Leadership Conference, the working group developed a strategy to address the problem of online payday loan ads. The Leadership Conference also invited two lending experts, the Center for Responsible Lending and Americans for Financial Reform, to join this effort. Specifics of the Table’s approach are confidential, but the strategy leveraged Table member’s professional connections, technological expertise, media awareness, and credibility in the civil rights arena. As a result, Google announced in May 2016 that the

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company would stop accepting or displaying ads promoting the most predatory payday loans, those that require repayment within 60 days and have interest rates above 35 percent. (With key leadership from Open MIC, the working group’s effort to achieve similar success with Microsoft also resulted in a successful outcome.) The Table’s work on this issue was timely because the Federal Trade Commission, which has filed numerous law enforcement actions against payday lenders, was preparing to issue a report on online advertising. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was also considering a new payday loan rule. That circumstance may have made companies like Google more open to persuasion. But the effort also benefited from the fact that it was driven not only by digital rights groups but also by powerful civil rights organizations and technology experts, says Georgetown Law’s Alvaro Bedoya. “It couldn’t have happened without the team from the Table,” Bedoya says. Furthermore, this work illustrates how the Table helped to translate individual members’ research—in this case, the findings presented in Upturn’s Led Astray report—into actual advocacy and results.

Facebook’s ban on ethnic-affinity targeting for certain types of advertisements Facebook has traditionally allowed advertisers to target ads on the basis of Facebook users’ characteristics, including “ethnic affinity” as well as age, gender, geography, and certain consumer preferences. Concerned that advertisers could use ethnic-affinity data4 to discriminate against people of color, one of the Table’s working groups joined with several state and federal policy makers in urging Facebook to ban the practice. In November 2016, after face-to-face discussions with Table members and other leaders, Facebook announced its decision to end the use of ethnic-affinity marketing for housing, employment, and credit-related ads—areas in which people of color often face discrimination—and to update its advertising policies so that advertisers must agree to not engaging in discriminatory advertising on Facebook. Although the Table was not alone in pushing for Facebook’s policy change, several interviewees observed that the Table members’ knowledge and connections played a key role in pulling together the right people at the right time. “The Table was a way for [individual organizations] to show we know the civil rights law and have enough breadth to turn up the heat on Facebook,” one said. “We had the contacts to reach out to senior people at Facebook and say, ‘You need to work on this.’ It was much more effective because we each had different pieces of the tool box.”

Indeed, Facebook’s vice president for U.S. public policy and chief privacy officer acknowledged the impact of Table members’ actions in a November 11, 2016 blog posting, stating, “We are grateful for the partnership of a number groups who have engaged in a constructive dialogue with us about these issues, including the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the National Fair Housing Alliance, the Center for Democracy & Technology, the Brookings Institution, and Upturn.”5

4 Facebook users are not allowed to identify their race but can signal affiliation with ethnic categories, such as Hispanic, African American, or Asian American. 5 https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2016/11/updates-to-ethnic-affinity-marketing/

“We had the contacts to reach out to senior people and say, ‘You need to work on this.’ It was much more effective because we each had different pieces of the tool box.”

—Facebook working group

member

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IMPROVED QUALITY OF PUBLIC NARRATIVE AND DEBATE

Interviewees identified several instances in which the Table helped to improve the quality of public narrative and debate on an issue. We discuss two here: development of principles for civil rights in an era of big data, and principles and a policy scorecard for law enforcement’s use of body-worn cameras. Other activities that involved public debate but also emphasized public awareness appear on pp. 25-27.

Principles for civil rights in an era of big data The idea for developing “high-level privacy principles [describing] how the privacy conversation should adapt to take account of civil rights” first surfaced during a breakout session at the Table’s 2013 Maine retreat, according to a participant’s notes. That fall, David Robinson of Upturn took the lead in drafting the principles. He soon came to believe that the principles should focus on civil rights rather than privacy, however. “’Privacy’ is a more abstract concept and, while it points toward many of the same issues, was a less powerful organizing frame for the Table,” Robinson says. After receiving input from a working group at the Table, Upturn and ACLU staff circulated the draft principles to all Table members for feedback. Incorporating all of the organizations’ preferences was a delicate task involving numerous discussions, but ultimately the group produced a version that every organization that was then a member of the Table could sign onto. Upturn also produced a bulleted list of 15 practical examples of civil rights challenges that arise when big data are involved. These “pithy and factual” examples helped to drive interest in the principles, a Table member recalls.

In January 2014, as the Table was finalizing its statement of principles and gathering signatures, President Obama asked John Podesta, then Counselor to the President, to direct a governmental working group in reviewing the impact of big data on American’s lives. Corrine Yu, who had worked with Podesta previously, set up a meeting with him for Table members to present the principles and discuss ways that data-driven decisions can affect communities of color. Other Table members with contacts at the Federal Trade Commission and other federal agencies set up similar meetings with senior agency staff and commissioners. The conversations help make the issues concrete for policy makers, and they demonstrated that the Table represented a broad enough constituency to be worth listening to. These actions influenced first the White House narrative and then the broader public debate as the principles helped frame the goal for new norms. Podesta’s report, released in May 2014, ultimately featured data issues involving civil rights. In the opening letter to President Barack Obama, Podesta and his co-authors wrote, “A significant finding of this report is that big data analytics have the potential to eclipse longstanding civil rights protections in how personal information is used in housing, credit, employment, health, education, and the marketplace. Americans’ relationship with data should expand, not diminish, their opportunities and potential.”6 One of the report’s six recommendations was to expand technical expertise to stop discrimination. The White House released two more reports, and the third report, which focused on data and discrimination, became the subject of a conference arranged by the Ford Foundation in collaboration with Obama Administration staff. Policy makers, advocates, and corporate leaders wanted to

6 https://www.amazon.com/Big-Data-Seizing-Opportunities-Preserving/dp/1503016447

“The principles for civil rights in an era of big data announced that the Table was here and open for business.”

—Table member

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know more about the intersection of big data and civil rights, so Upturn wrote a follow-up report, Civil Rights, Big Data, and Our Algorithmic Future, that delved deeper into the intersection of social justice and technology. Other researchers began examining ways to correct biases in big databases. And organizations that belonged to the Table received invitations to join public and private discussion about the issue, sometimes for the first time. The principles “announced that the Table was here and open for business,” an interviewee said. Releasing the principles in the midst of the White House’s review process provided a high-profile way to amplify the principles. Just as importantly, the process of taking on an issue that appealed to everyone at the Table helped to strengthen inter-organizational relationships. “It felt like the Table found its soul with the civil rights principles for the era of big data,” another interviewee recalled.

Principles and policy scorecard on body-worn cameras In 2014, after a spate of episodes across the country in which white officers fatally shot unarmed black men and boys, many law enforcement systems began to adopt (or consider adopting) body-worn cameras. Law enforcement leaders and some of the larger advocacy organizations saw the cameras as a force for good, believing they would increase transparency and accountability around community-police interactions. Many grassroots advocacy organizations, however, viewed the cameras as a tool for surveillance of the community itself, and therefore a potential tool for violating civil rights. In 2015, one of the Ford grantees that participates in the Table, Data & Society, began to conduct research on policy measures that could serve as safeguards on the use of surveillance technologies. Data & Society’s danah boyd and Harlan Yu of Upturn also asked fellow Table members what they wanted to do about the issue. First, Table members chose to create a set of civil rights principles for the use of body-worn cameras by law enforcement officers, similar to the principles they developed for big data. Upturn staff drafted and revised the document, a process that took several weeks because of the differing perspectives among organizations. Some didn’t want to appear to be endorsing the use of body-worn cameras by signing a document that spelled out guidelines for their use; others argued that since cameras were already in use, having principles would be better than not having them. Ultimately, 34 major organizations—including legacy organizations, such as the NAACP and ACLU—signed on to the principles, which The Leadership Conference published in spring 2015. The Leadership Conference and several other organizations posted the principles on their websites and released press statements touting them.

The next task was to determine the extent to which major police departments around the country comply with the principles for body-worn cameras. With feedback from other Table members, Upturn developed a policy scorecard based on the body-worn camera principles similar to one that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (another Table member) had created to assess corporate privacy policies. And with assistance from The Leadership Conference, Upturn’s Harlan Yu and other staff located and examined as many police policies for body-worn camera as they could find (initially 25, now 51) according to criteria suggested by the civil rights principles.7 They created individual scorecards for each of the cities, which they posted online in November 2015 and later updated in 2016.

7 Including whether the law enforcement department: makes the policy publicly and readily available; limits officers’ discretion on when to record data; addresses personal privacy concerns; prohibits officers from viewing the footage before filing a report;

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In spring 2016, a year after publishing a primer on police body-worn cameras, Data & Society issued a report finding that body-worn cameras were leading a trend toward greater surveillance but not toward greater police accountability. Meanwhile, the Table’s statement of principles affected public debate by helping journalists and policy makers realize that not everyone sees body-worn camera technology in a positive light and that its use raises serious civil rights concerns. And the policy scorecard, which was publicized through extensive press outreach organized by The Leadership Conference, succeeded both in educating the law enforcement leaders, policy makers, journalists, and advocates who access the data online and in initiating conversations with local leaders about how to improve their policies. “A lot of people have reached out proactively to us either because they don’t like their score and want to debate it or because their department isn’t on the scorecard but they want to know how it would fare,” explains Harlan Yu. Both scenarios open the door to broader discussions and action. For example:

After viewing Philadelphia’s scorecard on body-worn camera policies, the Policy Advisory Commission in that city called for a hearing at which a public defender highlighted the policy’s flaws. Upturn joined Philadelphia-based Table member Hannah Sassaman, who brought the power of Media Mobilizing Project’s grassroots relationships, in meeting with city council members and persuaded them that Philadelphia’s policy for body-worn cameras should be changed.

The Center for Media Justice is using the civil rights principles and scorecard on body-worn camera policies in Minnesota, California, Missouri, and other places to mobilize local campaigns either to stop the adoption of body-worn cameras or to ensure that when cameras are adopted there are policies in place to protect civil rights.

INCREASED PUBLIC AWARENESS OF KEY ISSUES

The Table has raised awareness about many issues, but one of its biggest achievements seems to have been on highlighting the civil rights impact of predictive policing and surveillance technology (i.e., facial recognition and stingray tracking devices), because of the knowledge gaps it has filled in this space.

Predictive policing report, statement, and database “Predictive policing” refers to the use of software to analyze data on past crimes and/or machine learning to forecast where crimes will occur, who will perpetrate them, and who will be victimized, so that police can be deployed most efficiently. The problem is that the data patterns on which these predictions are based tend to involve arrest reports, which reflect police actions; police will find crime in the places where they look, and they tend to look disproportionately in low-income areas and communities of color. When police use these flawed data to predict future crimes, they end up with a racially biased analysis that reinforces and perpetuates discrimination on the basis of race and socioeconomic status. After having created civil rights principles for big data and body-worn cameras, some members assumed the Table would do the same for predictive policing, and they initially began drafting principles. But several other members felt that calling the guidance “principles” would appear to give predictive policing legitimacy, something they vehemently opposed. “We felt there was no need to put out a statement at

limits retention of the footage; protects footage against tampering and misuse; and makes footage available to people who file complaints; limits the use of biometric technologies.

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all, or if we did it should just say that predictive policing is a fraught concept and not something we ought to endorse,” said an interviewee from a grassroots internet activism organization. This person was concerned that the Table was trying to take actions that might ultimately prove harmful.

So, instead, collaborators led by Upturn and The Leadership Conference decided to create a shared “statement of concern” about predictive policing. Over several months in 2016, they drafted a statement and obtained feedback, first from a larger working group and then the table at large. In the end, even the members who had opposed taking any action signed on to the statement, which the Table released in August 2016 along with Stuck in a Pattern: Early Evidence on "Predictive Policing" and Civil Rights, a report by Upturn that summarized research data. Like the Table’s work on civil rights and big data and body-worn cameras, the predictive policing statement and Upturn’s report contributed to public discussion about the issues and helped articulate a position on the key concerns. After releasing the statement and report, however Table members weren’t sure how to move forward on the issue—or how to connect predictive policing technology with a similar issue, the use of data-based risk assessments to make pre-trial sentencing decisions in the criminal justice system. While undertaking more vetting and discussions to determine a plan of action, the Table began to build a database of states and municipalities around the country that use predictive policing algorithms. This work continues to move forward, driven by one of the working groups. In the future, the Table could help these places implement standards for how to protect civil rights and ensure transparency when using these technological tools.

Surveillance technology: facial recognition and stingray tracking devices Facial recognition software identifies a person by analyzing a digital image of his or her face. Nineteen states allow the FBI to use this technology to compare photos of suspected criminals to photos on state-issued ID cards, including driver’s licenses; other states are developing their own systems using facial recognition software. Although the technology is intended to help identify criminals, its use poses risks to the privacy and civil rights of innocent individuals. Moreover, facial recognition technology disproportionately affects African Americans, both because it is less accurate when applied to black faces and because disproportionately high rates of arrest among African Americans distort the underlying database of digital images. Within the Table, efforts to address concerns about facial recognition technology were driven by the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law, led by Alvaro Bedoya, along with some of the newer social justice organizations. The ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation were also very involved, and other Table members served as a sounding board and source of support. Beginning in 2015, Bedoya’s team conducted a year-long investigation into how police departments use facial recognition technology. They made more than 100 records requests and two in-depth site visits to police departments, culminating in a 150-page report titled The Perpetual Lineup: Unregulated Police Face Recognition in America, published in October 2016. A major finding was that more than half of all adults were in a criminal face recognition network. In addition to providing a data-based analysis of the problem, recommendations for regulatory action, and a model piece of legislation, The Perpetual Lineup contains a face recognition scorecard that evaluates 25 state and local law enforcement agencies’ use of face recognition technology and its impact on privacy, civil liberties, civil rights, transparency, and accountability. The researchers found, for instance, that

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Vermont was operating a face recognition system that likely violated state law. So Neema Singh Guliani, who represented the national ACLU at the Table, arranged for Bedoya and his colleagues to brief the Vermont ACLU’s office on the findings. That office then succeeded in getting state government to halt the use of criminal face recognition searchers on Vermont driver’s license photos. At the national level, Bedoya worked with The Leadership Conference, ACLU, and other Table members to draft a co-signed letter to the Department of Justice urging federal investigation into the core civil rights and justice issues inherent in police departments’ use of facial recognition technology. Bedoya also testified at a hearing held by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Oversight Committee in March 2017 that police departments’ use of facial-recognition technology, combined with body-worn cameras, could “redefine the nature of public spaces” in ways that threaten civil liberties.8 In addition, Spitfire Strategies did extensive media outreach to promote the report (as it does for other major Table products). Those hooks resulted in front-page coverage by major media outlets. “I’ve seen the research [Georgetown] did popping up in so many places,” a fellow Table member observes. “There’s a bigger conversation happening now…[that] is more informed by the report and even being driven by it.” Several Table members also collaborated to draw state and federal attention to civil rights violations caused by “stingray” surveillance technology. Stingrays are devices that act like cell phone towers, transmitting signals that trick nearby cell phones into sharing data on the user’s location and other identifying information. Police use stingrays to track suspects’ location and activities, and in the process they also capture data on non-suspects who happen to be nearby. Thus critics view stingrays as an invasion of privacy. With leadership from Laura Moy, then at the Georgetown Law Institute for Public Representation, Table members filed a complaint with the FCC against Baltimore City’s use of the technology and mobilized to persuade the FCC to put a moratorium on the use of stingrays. The Institute for Public Representation, Center for Media Justice, Color Of Change, and New America’s Open Technology Institute explained in the complaint, in the media, and in private meetings with policymakers that stingrays block 911 calls and violate telecommunications laws, disproportionately in communities of color where police are more likely to use the technology. In September 2015, organizations that belong to the Table, working on their own, succeeded in persuading the Department of Justice adopt a policy requiring federal law enforcement agents to obtain a search warrant supported by probable cause before using stingray technology in an investigation, and a month later the Department of Homeland Security followed suit. Negotiations with FCC leaders were progressing favorably until the November 2016 presidential election. Table members also collaborated with staff working for U.S. Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota to send a public letter pressuring the FCC to take action on the use of stingrays and with staff of Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia to introduce legislation blocking stingray technology. All of those actions generated significant press coverage and, consequently, public awareness.

INFLUENCE ON THE CIVIL RIGHTS AND TECHNOLOGY FIELDS

Behind all of the successes described in this chapter, and even the challenges raised in the next chapter, lies a positive secondary effect: establishing the Table as a legitimate space for research and reflection on issues at the intersection of technology and civil rights. The Table did not invent this space. For several years previously, for instance, people working on privacy, surveillance, and security issues had

8 https://qz.com/940979/facial-recognition-technology-will-make-life-a-perpetual-police-lineup-for-all/

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considered such questions as whether surveillance chills free speech or prevents people from being involved in political or religious activities. Those conversations mainly involved civil liberties, however. Interviewees say that the Table added an important new focus on the disparate impact of technology on the civil rights of people of color and marginalized communities. “I’m seeing a change in vocabulary and awareness happening more generally now,” observes an interviewee from an organization committed to social justice. “Groups are thinking about the issues now as part of the traditional work they’ve been doing for years or decades.” Several other interviewees made similar remarks and credited the change to the Table’s existence.

GROWTH IN PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS’ SKILLS AND CAPACITIES

Participating in the Table has helped organizations strengthen or acquire new skills and capacities. These gains include:

Adoption of a cross-sector and cross-topic perspective

Table members who previously viewed the world through the lens of a particular social concern or a single type of organization now are more likely to incorporate multiple points of view. Across the spectrum, this cross-pollination has added depth and nuance to the way people approach solutions, as comments in the box at right attest.

Exposure to alternative tools and strategies New viewpoints often come with different approaches to a shared problem and different tools for leveraging outcomes. Several interviewees credited their colleagues at the Table—especially those representing the more activist, grassroots organizations—with opening their eyes to new options for addressing issues. For instance, an interviewee with tech policy expertise said that before working with fellow Table member Michael Connor of Open MIC, he “had no idea that shareholder activism was even a thing.” The interviewee quickly learned the value of being able to pull shareholders into a conversation with corporate executives to criticize their practices. “It gives us a whole other set of tools to address problems,” the interviewee concluded. Other interviewees suggested that

GAINING A CROSS-SECTOR PERSPECTIVE Tech policy organization: “Civil rights wasn’t even an area that existed in my mind at all.…Working with civil rights groups at the Table has allowed me to take privacy and ‘tech thinking’ and apply them to pressing, real-life problems. It’s so much more important to work where technology is touching people’s lives for better or worse, as opposed to working on abstract issues.”

Legacy civil rights organization: “The diversity [in knowledge] it provided for us was very different from most other tables where we sit…To be connected with the tech people who are doing analyses and are involved in creating new services, sitting next to the guy from the ACLU and the guy from a privacy organization—it became a very rich ensemble of people with various types of expertise and experience.”

Media organization: “It has been very instructive to connect media to civil rights and understand these are all economic and racial and class issues. It was like [realizing], holy cow—the people getting screwed most on these privacy issues are the same people getting screwed all along, only more so.”

Civil liberties organization: “The intersection of privacy and civil rights at the Table has been very broadening in terms of how we’re thinking about our work, especially the cross-sectional impact of technologies. …We’re not a grassroots group, we don’t have members or chapters. So being able to work with groups that do, and learn what they’re thinking in terms of communicating [with people in communities], is important.”

Grassroots organization: “A big benefit of the Table is it forces people who are in the proverbial ‘D.C. bubble,’ inundated with wonky expertise, to broaden their horizons and be challenged….It happens because of sharing our collective skillsets. When it all comes together right, you can get a victory like the one we had with Google.”

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exposure to alternative approaches is especially important for members in the technology and privacy field, which tend to be less racially diverse than other organizations.

Acquisition of knowledge that supports action The data and analyses shared by researchers connected with the Table and by outside experts have shaped Table members’ objectives and bolstered their positions significantly. Several interviewees cited Data & Society’s 2017 special presentation on the damaging effects of media manipulation, for instance, as the type of new knowledge that not only “scares the bejesus out of us” but also provides facts needed to move policy makers and regulators to action. Interviewees find knowledge shared at the Table especially useful because many of the issues are on the cutting edge, and participating organizations don’t have many facts at their disposal as they try to frame the issue. Knowledge gained at the Table prepares organizations to collaborate across sectors on issues that are new to them. An interviewee who is very knowledgeable about traditional civil rights concerns, for instance, listed with some wonderment all he has learned from the Table about tech-related privacy matters, such as:

…how one gets a court order to monitor [social media], how government agencies intervene, how Lifeline programs work; the interconnection between government agencies and committees of jurisdiction in the Senate and House on highly technical issues; coordination between service providers and content providers; [and how] algorithms used in marketing can be discriminatory.

Moreover, knowledge shared through the Table helps members understand the history behind key civil rights and technology issues. The Color of Surveillance conference organized by the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law, for example, included presentations by David Garrow, Dr. Martin Luther King’s biographer and an expert on the FBI’s surveillance of Dr. King, as well as by people working on surveillance issues today. A subsequent event, the Color of Freedom Summit, was organized by several Table members, including the Center for Media Justice, Free Press, Color Of Change, and Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law. The summit paid attention to the historical underpinnings of technology’s impact on civil rights as it explored strategies fighting back against state surveillance technologies. Knowing and sharing the history is essential “because the history just repeats itself,” a media advocacy interviewee said.

Ability to communicate more effectively Interviewees gave numerous examples of ways in which they or their colleagues at the Table have become more adept at communicating publicly about issues at the intersection of civil rights and technology. Apparently, researchers have become “less wonky” and “more accessible” to a broader audience, while civil rights organizations have grown “more sophisticated” about the technical aspects behind issues affecting their constituencies. Interviewees from all fields say they feel able to speak more authoritatively about issues involving both technology and civil rights. Some improvement in communication stems from participants’ growing familiarity with their colleagues’ work. However, credit also belongs to the Spitfire Strategies staff who sit at the Table, provide in-depth assistance to member organizations, and meet regularly with McGlinchey to discuss issues and grantees that require communications assistance.

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Ability to take on new issues

The perspectives, knowledge, skills, and relationships that Table members gained have influenced some participating organizations’ choice of issues to pursue. According to interviewees, participation in the Table caused both a legacy civil rights organization and a grassroots activism organization to become involved in prison phone rates and expansion of the Lifeline Assistance Program, and influenced a major media advocacy organization to mobilize around the issues of online payday loan advertising, corporate responsibility, and surveillance. “Even if we were to look at those issues [without the Table] it would be in much more limited capacity,” explains an interviewee from the latter organization. “These are meaningful things that wouldn’t have been on our radar, or we wouldn’t have the resources to invest in the topic, do the research, and reach out to people to meet with.”

Ability to adapt quickly to changing contexts The working relationships and trust that Table participants developed enabled them to respond calmly and coherently in November 2016 to the unexpected outcome of the U.S. presidential election. Although individual organizations and working groups had assumed that Hillary Clinton, a friend to the civil rights community, would take office, Table members were not paralyzed by her shocking loss. Less than a month after the election, many members of the Table, along with members of the broader internet freedom field, convened for a two-day strategy session and emerged with a set of collective agreements and tactics for holding the line on policy wins and responding to the new administration’s efforts to roll back progress.

long with the successes described in this chapter have come some obstacles and frustrations, however. We turn next to the challenges.

IV. CHALLENGES

t is important to realize that challenges do not always signify problems; sometimes they simply are bumps in the road that collaborators must overcome in order to make progress. Indeed, some of these challenges described here either are inevitable in a group of this type or were, in fact, a driving force behind the Table’s creation in the first place. Other challenges do indicate situations that members

find frustrating.

The challenges described by interviewees include:

Differences across participating entities;

The power dynamic inherent in The Leadership Conference’s role as facilitator;

Attrition and turnover of members;

Diminishing racial diversity at the Table;

Growth in the Table’s size and “structuredness”;

Limited capacity within many organizations to conduct their own research and communications;

Time and resource commitments;

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“Even if we were to look at those issues without the Table, it would be in much more limited capacity. These are meaningful things that wouldn’t have been on our radar, or we wouldn’t have the resources to invest in the topic, do the research, and reach out to people to meet with.”

—Table member

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An inside-the-Beltway orientation; and

Imbalance in participants’ status within their organizations.

DIFFERENCES ACROSS PARTICIPATING ENTITIES

Member organizations vary widely, not only in their areas of expertise, target constituencies, positions on issues, and approach to policy reform but also in their staff size, structure, and decision-making processes. Typically, the newer media and social justice organizations have less bureaucratic structure; more staff are deputized to speak for the organization, and they can act quickly and nimbly to address an issue. They often are technologically savvy. And with their strong online presence and grassroots orientation, these members often favor bold efforts to block or ban something they view as controlled by a paternalistic, white-controlled system. On the other hand, these organizations tend to be fairly small and have less organizational capacity than the long-established organizations. The older and larger civil rights organizations, meanwhile, are organized around local affiliate groups; they require extensive internal deliberation and multiple levels of approval before they act. Their inclination is to work with the political and corporate systems to fix things perceived as detrimental to their cause, and their top leaders have easy access to leaders of those systems. Their attention is divided among many issues, and they may not adopt a new one quickly. And their interest in media and technology tends to be driven by other long-held concerns about discrimination (e.g., whether media ownership is racially diverse) rather than a deep understanding of technological issues (e.g., the privacy implications of surveillance). These basic differences were in full play when the Table formed, as the organizations staked out their positions on net neutrality. An interviewee who has been at the Table since its inception observes that some of the leading advocacy groups were “very aggressive” in calling out the civil rights organizations—publishing information on how much money the legacy civil rights organizations receive from telecommunications corporations and how much their CEOs earn, for instance. One of the legacy organizations, meanwhile, reportedly blind-sided fellow Table members by signing a public letter stating that net neutrality would hurt African-American communities, without discussing the action at the Table. Not surprisingly, one interviewee recalls “a lot of hostility” in those early Table meetings; another

ONE TABLE, MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES “I have to be able to justify to the president of my organization, the board, our affiliates, and even the local members of affiliates why we are so engaged in this issue when there are several others that our people are more attuned to and deem slightly more important.”

“Some organizations that work on these issues nationally are afraid to center [the work on] race, because as a short-term goal they don’t think it’s a winning strategy. [But] if you tell me my liberation depends on my being quiet… I have a problem with that.” “It was hard for me to convince people [at my organization] to worry about a very nuanced issue like Lifeline when our [constituents] weren’t even on the internet, when kids in our communities were going to McDonald’s to do their homework because it has free Wi-Fi. [For us], internet access is like food and shelter—a basic necessity.”

“There are some folks at this table who prize their relationships, not out of a sense of power but because they think that’s the way you win. But I think we have a responsibility to move as far to the left as we can.”

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describes some of the conversations as “very insulting and demeaning.” Others speak about the effort it took to distance the work-related differences from their personal interactions at the Table, or how hard it was to make colleagues understand that persuading a legacy organization to remain neutral on an issue, rather than taking a stand the Table opposed, was a major victory. Only one interviewee downplayed the challenge, maintaining that the only problem between organizations was a difference in priorities. To address this challenge at the Table’s beginning, Corrine Yu facilitated a conversation in which each Table member explained his or her organization’s decision-making process. Talking about the differences helped members unpack some of their assumptions and understand the challenges their colleagues faced (although subsequent turnover in membership diluted that effect). Yu also deliberately shifted the focus of conversation from the organizations’ differences to finding topics on which they could agree. To a certain extent, members were able to spin off into like-minded sub-groups as the working group structure emerged; interviewees note that some working groups mostly contain organizations representing people of color, for instance. And members turned to forums outside the Table, such as Voices for Internet Freedom, to address some of the more divisive topics.

The differences among organizations continue to simmer under the surface, however, re-emerging periodically as Table members debate how far to go in articulating a position. These fundamental differences make it difficult for the Table to reach consensus the goals and strategies for some projects. A worst-case example involves a letter to the FCC, written by one of the Table’s working groups after the agency reclassified broadband as a Title II service. The letter urged the agency to use the Table’s principles for civil rights in the era of big data as it developed consumer privacy rules that would apply to broadband providers. Most of the organizations at the Table signed on to the letter. Shortly after the letter was sent, however, one of the co-signers released a second letter of its own, drawing back from the Table’s position. The experience created discomfort for the organization that had to back-track and a sense of having been blind-sided for the members who developed the original sign-on letter. Still, situations like this seem to have become the exception rather than the norm, and discussions at the Table’s full meetings are civil and respectful. Some members say this is merely because the facilitator avoids contentious topics, but others say that working collaboratively over time has established good will.

THE POWER DYNAMIC INHERENT IN THE LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE’S ROLE

No matter how fair and balanced a facilitator tries to be, the host organization brings its own perspective and authority to the table. In The Leadership Conference’s case, that perspective is informed by being one of the nation’s major civil rights organizations and by having long-held relationships with other legacy organizations. Members unanimously praised Corrine Yu’s sensitivity to organizations’ level of comfort at the Table and her efforts to stimulate broad participation. Nonetheless, several expressed some concern about either the potential for bias in favor of civil rights organizations that belong to both The Leadership Conference and the Table, or the amount of power The Leadership Conference holds in relation to the Table. The former concern is based on a perception that the facilitator is very sympathetic toward the larger civil rights organizations when other Table members raise questions about their positions. “Depending on where you sit in that room, you may feel you don’t have an ally there,” an interviewee stated. A few interviewees also interpreted the Table’s shift away from contentious topics as a sign that the facilitator

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might be trying to protect the legacy organizations. In these cases, the perception of possible bias seems to be as important as any actual evidence of bias. Comments about the amount of power The Leadership Conference holds reflected dissatisfaction among a few Table members that public communications, media coverage, and conference presentations about the Table’s efforts often feature the host organization in general, and Corrine Yu in particular, more prominently than some of the other participating organizations. The Leadership Conference “has not given individuals at the table a chance to shine,” an interviewee said. “The ideas come from other individuals and their organizations, but it can give the appearance that [we] aren’t as engaged in the issue.” This is by no means a universal perception, however. In fact, one interviewee said that his organization was “actually pushed front and center in the media, at [Yu’s] organization’s expense,” on an issue he championed. “To whatever degree Corrine receives attention, it is because she is the coalition’s coordinator and convener,” this interviewee said. Yu says she has not made any press statements about the Table’s efforts, although The Leadership Conference’s former president, Wade Henderson, did—“often at the request of Table members.” She suggests that the perceived imbalance might be inevitable because the host organization’s communications department did all of the Table’s press outreach (a role that The Leadership Conference assumes for all of its significant projects). In the end, the challenge here may be more about managing Table members’ expectations and aspirations rather than a power issue per se.

ATTRITION AND TURNOVER OF MEMBERS

Many of the legacy civil rights organizations that sat at the Table originally or joined during the early years no longer participate, including the Media and Democracy Coalition (which ceased to exist) and the National Urban League (NUL), National Council of La Raza, Asian Americans Advancing Justice-AAJC (formerly the Asian American Justice Center), and National Organization for Women. Some attrition is normal for any coalition, and the causes vary by organization (as noted on p. 14). The civil rights organizations that have left the Table are members of The Leadership Conference, but the host organization is not in a position to represent them at the Table—both because The Leadership Conference takes a neutral stand on many issues and because the purpose for the Table was to engage the organizations directly. Many interviewees, including facilitator Corrine Yu, therefore describe the attrition of legacy civil rights organizations as a major loss. They express these concerns about the potential effects:

It is hard to build bridges among organizations if the necessary parties are absent.

There is a perception that tech policy organizations now outnumber the civil rights and internet freedom organizations, which makes some members uncomfortable.

The legacy civil rights organizations that aren’t able to attend regularly will not find their perspective balanced by other points of view, thereby losing an opportunity to better understand opposing viewpoints (e.g., on issues such as net neutrality).

The Table’s membership becomes less racially and ethnically diverse.

The conversation becomes narrower; people are less challenged to think differently.

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A second challenge is turnover among the individuals representing organizations at the Table. Data on the turnover rate for people who are no longer at the table were not available, but an informal scan of interviewees found that nearly one-third (9 of 30) had changed employers over the last six years. There is a benefit to bringing new members and fresh perspectives into the group, although the consistency with which individuals have chosen to stay at the Table and represent their new organizations there also is impressive. It could mean, however, that the knowledge, connections, and relationships gained through participating in the Table travel with participants as they change jobs and do not become embedded in the organizations themselves.

DIMINISHING RACIAL DIVERSITY AT THE TABLE

The Table’s racial composition has changed as most of the legacy civil rights organizations stopped attending and less-diverse tech policy organizations joined. Several Table members said they are disappointed that there are so few people and organizations of color at the Table now. “A lot of the people who are looked at as experts frankly don’t represent people of color,” a representative of a racial justice organization said. “If they are truly interested in having this be a space that has leadership by folks of color, and not just by the usual suspects…they need to make it more diverse.” Interviewees at Ford agree that racial equity is an ongoing concern and that the observation that there are fewer membership groups representing communities of color at the Table is critically important—and one that the Table, with support from Ford, must address.

GROWTH IN THE TABLE’S SIZE AND “STRUCTUREDNESS”

As the Table grew, its structure became more formalized through working groups and a tightly managed agenda for monthly meetings. Members praise the facilitator’s skill at managing the flow of work, but they also wonder whether the current table is as productive as it was when it was smaller and they question whether continued expansion may dilute the Table’s impact and effectiveness. The most critical expression of this challenge came from a member who joined the Table midway through its existence:

I’ve rarely found the full Table to be the venue for a really interesting discussion, debate, or frank airing of views, in part because it is so large and the tone of the meeting is very structured. There’s not a lot of room for more informal relationship building or conversation. In many instances, a lot of what’s happening is the internet groups are giving updates on stuff that’s going on, to inform the civil rights groups. For the [other] internet groups [at the Table], that’s wholly duplicative of what they’ve heard in other meetings, and it sometimes leads to a feeling of frustration.

Some redundancy in updates may be unavoidable for a group whose members participate in many of the same forums outside this Table, but other participants echoed the frustration about limited time for informal conversations, which they viewed as important for building and maintaining relationships. A few interviewees also suggested that the large number of working groups may be holding back progress, because participants are spread so thinly among them.

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LIMITED CAPACITY WITHIN MANY ORGANIZATIONS TO CONDUCT THEIR OWN RESEARCH AND COMMUNICATIONS

Many of the organizations that sit at the Table lack the time, financial resources, and/or human capital needed to conduct their own research and communications efforts. The Ford Foundation resolved this challenge by contracting with consulting organizations to support the Table (or, in the case of grantees like Spitfire Strategies, to also sit at the Table). If the foundation had not filled the gap with consultants, Table members would have been challenged to invest enough time and energy to obtaining the facts and information that enabled Table projects to succeed.

TIME AND RESOURCE COMMITMENT

Active, consistent participation in the Table requires organizations to commit a significant amount of staff time and travel resources to attending monthly meetings of the full group, leading or participating in the meetings of one or more working groups, drafting and/or reading and commenting on documents, and so on. This is challenging for small organizations, those that participate in many other coalitions with overlapping concerns, and those that are based far from Washington, DC. Several interviewees said wished they could participate more actively or on more working groups but were limited by time and resource constraints. Although The Leadership Conference provides technological capacity enabling members can call in via telephone, some interviewees say it’s hard to follow the conversation without also having video coverage, and there is no way for them to raise their hands to join the conversation. One interviewee said these challenges prevent her from participating in as many working groups as she would like to.

AN INSIDE-THE-BELTWAY ORIENTATION

Interviewees from several organizations located outside Washington, DC, especially those that focus on grassroots mobilization, expressed some frustration that the Table is so focused on inside-the-Beltway politics, legal intricacies, and extended policy analysis. While agreeing that many of the decision makers the Table seeks to influence are in Washington, interviewees said the DC focus makes the Table less diverse (“more male and more white,” one interviewee said) and prone to getting deep in the weeds on the activities of Congressional subcommittees rather than circumstances on the ground.

IMBALANCE IN PARTICIPANTS’ STATUS WITHIN THEIR ORGANIZATIONS

When the Table began, organizations sent different types of staff to represent their interests. The media justice and public interest organizations typically sent their executive director or a senior staffer, while the legacy civil rights organizations sent representatives closer to the middle-management level. The less-senior representatives did not always have authority to speak for their organizations or make decisions on their behalf, which frustrated some of the other participants. The status imbalance, while challenging, is not always a problem, however. Several interviewees who head their own organizations observed that participating in the table gives junior staff an important opportunity to develop skills and experience, which builds the organizations’ overall capacity. In fact, two of them intentionally bring (or send) junior staff to the Table so they can learn to connect with groups in

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other fields. And in situations in which an organization’s designated representative seemed too junior, the Table facilitator has intervened to request a more senior participant.

ith the Table’s successes and challenges as context, this study examined the Table’s value from multiple perspectives. We explore those findings in the next chapter.

V. THE TABLE’S VALUE

nterviews revealed strong agreement that this Table has significant value to the Ford Foundation and other funders, to the fields involved, to the participating organizations and their constituencies, and to participating individuals.

VALUE TO FORD AND OTHER FUNDERS

Ford interviewees value the Table as a forum that enables civil society organizations to work together in a cohesive, aligned, and engaged manner on shared objectives—even if the rift caused by the fight over net neutrality does not fully heal. They appreciate the breadth of “credible, authentic voices and institutions” at the Table and the group’s track record of issuing wake-up calls about “the very pernicious ways in which technology is being used in harmful ways.” They particularly value the cross-sector aspect of the Table for its potential to help civil rights organizations understand the implications of technology in the digital era. They see those qualities as making an important contribution to the energy and momentum around progress on tech-driven issues affecting individuals and communities of color. A non-Ford funder at the Table highlights its value as place for people who are caught up in current aspects of fast-changing technology to learn about and plan for new issues coming down the line. “There’s a forward-looking aspect that is important. [It’s about] not just resolving the disputes of the past but heading off the ones that could come in the future,” he notes.

VALUE TO THE FIELDS INVOLVED

Participating organizations value the Table’s contribution to their respective fields of civil rights, civil justice, technology, privacy, and media advocacy and its ability to foster learning and collaboration across fields. In some ways, the two benefits are connected: by acquiring a better understanding of facts and perceptions from another sector, participants strengthen the work in their own field. For example:

A Table member in the communications and technology field has begun bringing policy fellows from his office to the Table so they become familiar with perspectives held in other fields that operate in the same arena. “It’s one way we build the field of public-interest advocates,” he said.

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“There’s a forward-looking aspect that is important. It’s about not just resolving the disputes of the past but heading off the ones that could come in the future.”

—Table funder/participant

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A member from the internet freedom field recommended the Table’s work on surveillance and privacy to a non-Table organization in her field that is beginning to track and address violations of press rights. “I cited the Table as something they might want to think about as a way to bring a range of like-minded groups together that are addressing overlapping but slightly different niches,” she said.

A member from the civil liberties field observes that most traditional privacy groups do not focus on the disproportionate impact surveillance technology has on communities of color, including immigrants and incarcerated individuals. “In bringing the two sides together, the Table [ensures that] when we talk about privacy issues it’s with an eye toward how different communities are affected,” this interviewee said.

VALUE TO PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS AND CONSTITUENCIES

Members find that participating in the Table helps their organizations do the following:

Reinforce and amplify the message. It’s one thing for a tech policy organization to produce a report recommending policies on body-worn cameras, for example, but when a well-established civil rights organization like the NAACP also supports the recommendations they make an even bigger splash. When multiple organizations lend support and credence—either by signing on to a statement of principles or by forming a mini-coalition to address a shared concern—the splash can turn into a powerful surge.

Connect with hard-to-reach decision makers. Interviewees at several of the smaller and newer organizations, in particular, mentioned the value of collaborating with colleagues at the Table who could arrange meetings with members of Congress, corporate executives, and chief regulators to discuss concerns about prison phone rates, stingray devices, Lifeline program expansion, and other topics. The Leadership Conference, in particular, has made connecting members to power holders one of its responsibilities as Table facilitator.

Network with like-minded allies for advice, feedback, and support. The Table provides a trusted way to connect with collaborators and advisors. For example, a few interviewees said they had forged productive ties to local advocates through the Center for Media Justice’s Media Action Grassroots Network (MAG-Net), a connection made at the Table. Other interviewees have asked colleagues at other organizations involved in the Table to read and comment on draft reports or research methodologies and to identify potential new developments they might not be aware of.

Frame issues more broadly and precisely. Several interviewees noted that thinking about issues as a group helped them incorporate more viewpoints into their work and/or target their message more precisely, especially when their organizations have a relatively narrow focus. “Just going to the table and having this monthly forum where you are forced to think about your issues and articulate them as civil rights issues—if you don’t primarily think of yourself as civil rights organization—is very helpful and, with the right level of preparation in advance and reflection afterwards, can impact your organization,” one said.

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Gain access to data and research expertise. Every interviewee noted that the Table fills a knowledge gap that would be difficult and expensive for member organizations to address on their own.

Gain leverage in negotiations with decision makers. The knowledge and relationships gained

through the Table add extra value when negotiations have stalled, a member explained: “It helps when I can say, ‘It isn’t just [me] telling you this is important. The ACLU, National Hispanic Media Coalition, Public Knowledge, and Free Press are all going to be raising a ruckus in three months,’” or drop hints about more oppositional colleagues getting involved if the problem isn’t resolved. For that reason, in fact, this interviewee chooses carefully which of the Table’s joint statements and letters he co-signs, even when he agrees with the content. He says he wants to be able to point to the statements as an outsider and say, “‘If we don’t [reach an agreement], I guarantee in a year this group of activists is going to come after you and eat your lunch.’”

Discuss complicated issues in a private place. A good example is the group’s 2016 discussion about whether online advertisers should ever be allowed to target recipients on the basis of race. The Table offered a rare setting in which to candidly explore the differences and commonalities among members’ positions and to calibrate the group’s policy recommendations around ideas that were both philosophically acceptable to Table members and technically feasible.

VALUE TO PARTICIPATING INDIVIDUALS

The Table’s value to individual members varies depending on the person’s age and experience. Younger participants and those with less experience in the civil rights arena seem to particularly value the access they gain to decision makers and connections to more established organizations. This comment seemed especially telling:

“The Table has provided an incubation environment for folks who don’t have the right mentorship in their organizations to grow their understanding and ability to work on those issues. That has been the case for me; at times, I have felt the Table is more my organization than the one I worked for. The Table felt like my home.”

The Table also appears to be a valued source of support for more experienced staff of the legacy civil rights organizations who are trying to temper their organizations’ position on an issue, and for staff of non-diverse tech policy organizations who are pushing for more racial and programmatic diversity in-house. Both types of members appreciate being able to bring ideas back from the Table that reinforce their own points of view within their organizations.

he high value that interviewees ascribe to the Table suggests that the Table’s successes far outweigh its challenges. Nonetheless, both the upsides and the

downsides can offer lessons for this and other cross-sector tables. We summarize those lessons in the next chapter.

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“I look forward to the Table meeting every month. I prepare for it. I try to use it strategically.” “Participating in the Table turned out to be one of the best things I chose to do.”

“We need war rooms like this—tables for regular discussion, rapid response, and long-range planning.”

—Table members

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VI. LESSONS AND IMPLICATIONS

hat can the Ford Foundation Civil Rights, Technology, and Privacy Table tell us about how, why, and when cross-field collaborative tables work well—on the topic civil of rights and technology and, potentially, on other topics? We present some lessons about the essential elements and

capacities, key processes and strategies, and vital resources and supports that shaped this table’s successes and challenges, before turning to the implications of those lessons going forward. This is not a comprehensive listing of lessons; rather, it reflects the topics of greatest concern to interviewees included in this study.

ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS AND CAPACITIES The way in which a table is structured and the capacities it possesses to inspire and manage participants have a direct bearing on the table’s successes and challenges. According to interviewees, the following elements and capacities are especially crucial to a cross-sector table’s success:

A well-respected convener—a host that provides structure without allowing its point of view to dominate and is intentional about lifting up alternate viewpoints. This is especially important if the convener also is a member of the table.

Strong facilitation and coordination. A capable facilitator creates a safe space for discussion and keeps the conversation moving, within each meeting and between meetings. The facilitator helps members identify shared goals and outcomes and seeks and shares information about situations in which collaboration is the key to achieving targets. The facilitator encourages members to see the benefits of building alliances and minimizes opportunities for them to undermine each other; contentious issues are addressed but not allowed to consume or derail the table’s work. Capable coordination involves: communicating clearly about roles and expectations (for members, funders, and consultants); helping members prioritize projects; keeping members on task so that goals lead to actions and outcomes; and forging connections between members who work on different aspects of the same issue, especially across sectors.

Shared authority and responsibility. When table members have leadership authority over projects, they are more eager to take action and more inclined to participate in the table. Sharing responsibility among participants encourages collaboration and expands the number of projects the group can take on.

Flexibility and agility in responding to emerging issues. This capacity is reflected in what projects the table undertakes, how members use the forum, and how the organizations that support the table are funded, and it is especially important for a table designed to address rapidly changing fields such as technology. When a new issue or opportunity for action arises suddenly, the table should be able to respond instead of getting thrown off track.

KEY PROCESSES AND STRATEGIES The processes and strategies by which a cross-sector table operates help participants build capacities, learn about fields other than their own, and bridge cultural and organizational differences. Based on the experiences of this table, the following processes and strategies seem especially important:

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Development of shared goals. Table members are more open to collaboration when working on something they have mutually agreed on than when trying to convince each other to see or do something in a particular way.

Member involvement in setting the agenda, priorities, and target outcomes. Participants are more invested in a table and feel a greater sense of ownership if they play a significant role in setting the agenda for discussions (in collaboration with the table facilitator). Similarly, a table becomes more focused if members explicitly discuss what they hope to accomplish through a proposed project, which goals will be advanced, and how important the expected outcome is relative to others.

Time and venues devoted to building relationships. These can occur either at the table (e.g., over a meal during or before the group meeting), outside the table (e.g., at a retreat), or both. The situations that build productive relationships involve informal, unstructured time for conversation; opportunities to brainstorm ideas; and collaborative planning for future work.

Working groups that are organized around an activity, not just an issue. People develop stronger relationships by working together on actual projects—experiences that build trust and transparency—than through abstract getting-to-know-you activities. And, as several interviewees pointed out, table members resist hashing out their differences until they have functional relationships with each other.

Presentations of data and information geared to the table’s interests. Presentations provide substance for discussions, alert participants to circumstances that affect their position, suggest opportunities for collaboration, and provide a sense of forward motion.

VITAL RESOURCES AND SUPPORTS The resources and supports that a table receives can make or break the table’s accomplishments. The following resources and supports are especially important for a cross-sector table:

Buy-in from participating organizations’ senior leaders. Getting top leaders’ support may require an ongoing investment of time and effort by the table’s facilitator and/or funder.

Consulting support on substantive topics, such as (in this case) technology and privacy. Consultants who share their technical knowledge, expertise, data, findings, and awareness of context infuse the table’s work with extra power and momentum. They do things that table members don’t have the time or skills to do, they help with activities already selected for action, and they help identify new developments that warrant attention. The key is to engage consultants who have firm, well-informed opinions—who will take an active role in presenting solutions and pursuing them—but still put the table’s interests and values first.

Support on specific skills, especially communications, research, polling, and holding focus groups. This support can come either from consultants or from member organizations that have in-house capacities; in fact, drawing on member organizations’ research or communications capacity might be a way to stimulate more active involvement in the table. For some skill sets

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that require a wide array of capacities (e.g., communications), it may be useful to have more than one firm providing support. And for a cross-sector table committed to civil rights, it’s important to ensure that at least some of the organizations providing support have a racially and ethnically diverse staff.

Funds for travel to the table’s meetings. For member organizations located far from the table’s meeting site, it may be helpful for the funder to specify a travel budget separate from the organization’s main grant, if for no other reason than to clarify expectations for participation on both sides.

IMPLICATIONS The lessons and insights distilled from this study hold implications for the current Table and for future cross-sector tables. We explore those implications in four contexts: (1) what the Ford Foundation might do to improve results and reduce challenges for the Table on Civil Rights, Technology & Privacy; (2) how lessons from this Table might be applied to other cross-field endeavors; (3) what the funder’s role should be in relation to a cross-sector table like this one; and (4) what needs or emergent opportunities warrant greater attention going forward.

What might Ford do to improve results and reduce challenges for this Table?

Articulate an explicit statement of purpose for the Table and share it with all participants, both current and future. Having a short elevator pitch that explains the Table’s mission, why organizations should join, and what members will get out of it would reduce the ambiguity that some members feel, align participants’ expectations, and position the table within a broader national framework.

Provide clarity on the consultants’ roles, including how and when members of the Table can and should ask for their help. This would be especially helpful when more than one consulting organization provides a similar type of support and when the convening organization and consulting organization(s) provide similar expertise (e.g., communications capacity).

Use technology to enhance communication and participation. At its current size, the Table has

outgrown informal modes of communication such as email cc lists, which are unwieldy and run the risk of accidentally omitting some participants. Having a listserv would solve that problem. Similarly, the Table would benefit from having an online repository of information for all semi-permanent working groups and for all full-Table meetings, including discussion minutes and supporting documents. Members could use these resources to stay abreast of the Table’s many lines of activity, especially if they have to miss a meeting or are interested in a working group but unable to join it because of time constraints.

Consider setting some times when high-level organizational leaders are required to attend. Because of turnover in the organizations and individuals sitting at the Table, the Table’s messages may not always penetrate the top levels of its member organizations. Table leaders might consider having a quarterly or annual summary meeting for organizational representatives at the director level. This would have the added benefit of demonstrating to top-level staff the breadth

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of support for a particular issue or point of view, so they are less likely to dismiss messages delivered by one of their staff.

Ensure that the Table itself reflects the diversity of the communities, topics, and approaches the Table values. Community diversity is reflected in the race/ethnicity and gender of participants as well as the characteristics of constituencies their organizations represent (e.g., religions, national origin, etc.). Topical diversity is reflected in the Table’s take-up of national and local, private-sector and public-sector, and cross-disciplinary issues. Diversity of approach is reflected by including organizations with different modes of operation (e.g., providing services, conducting advocacy, mobilizing grassroots, conducting research). Of these many types of diversity, interviewees specifically suggested including more people of color; more organizations that work at the local community level and at the state policy level; organizations with expertise in international human rights and freedom; and, possibly, organizations working in the private sector.

Develop a simple, standardized self-assessment process, conduct it annually, and follow up on recommended improvements. This would encourage all Table members, including the smaller or less vocal ones, to contribute their thoughts about what is and isn’t working well, and it would reduce the chance that the most vocal subset of members will set the tone for everyone else.

How might Ford apply lessons from this Table to other cross-field endeavors? To some extent, collaborative tables have to evolve into themselves; by growing and learning together, rather than implementing a blueprint, members establish rapport and relationships along with their table’s unique structure and functions. Nonetheless, this Table’s experience offers the following insights that apply to other cross-sector tables:

Recognize that this type of table does many things well but is not the most effective instrument for every situation. The Table is good at identifying important issues and gaps that need to be addressed, finding high-level points of consensus on solutions (even if some disagreement remains at the granular level), framing why the issue matters to a broad swathe of people, and attracting public (and media) attention to the issue. This makes the Table a good place to bring multiple organizations together around a shared position or message, which it does by developing and releasing products such as principles, policy scorecards, sign-on letters, and reports. At its current size, the Table may be more successful when it amplifies the passion and focus of a subset of members (i.e., a working group) than when the entire Table tries to develop an idea or take collective action. The Table probably is not the place to address a topic that is already well served by other coalitions that have the advantages of a more limited focus and a completely unified membership. Moreover, it probably is unrealistic to expect the whole Table to undertake a campaign for policy reform, as a coalition might, given the diversity of positions among member organizations.

Organize the table as a collaborative entity, not a formal coalition. A coalition typically speaks with one voice, even when it encompasses divergent points of view, whereas a collaborative table does not face that pressure. Explicitly acknowledging that table members are expected to work together but need not agree on everything gives members a release valve for tensions that might otherwise undermine their relationships and results.

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Develop guidelines for the table’s structure and processes, and shared them with participating organizations. Having clear guidelines would increase the table’s legitimacy in members’ eyes and bolster participants’ ability to promote the table’s activities within their organizations. Relevant topics include the criteria for selecting the host organization, the roles and responsibilities of the facilitator and member organizations, and the process for developing an agenda and selecting priority activities.

Have explicit rules for engagement and the environment at the table, including how members will act when they disagree with each other’s positions and whether arguments will be tolerated. This is especially important when cultural differences exist among member organizations. For instance, if some organizations have an implicit understanding that they won’t attack each other in public (as is the case with legacy civil rights organizations), make sure that other members know and agree to that rule. Otherwise, a short-term victory for one member becomes a long-term barrier to collaboration.

Sequence activities carefully to maximize the table’s success. Holding preliminary meetings before establishing a table (as Luis Ubiñas did initially, and Jenny Toomey continued to do before the first Table meeting), allows time for potential participants to digest the concept before expectations kick in. Building relationships and alliances among organizations first, before trying to hash out their differences, lays some of the groundwork that makes collaboration possible.

Be prepared to step in if the table hits a roadblock. This could involve bringing in a neutral party to help redirect conversations or, in extreme cases, disinviting a participant. The key is to recognize when relationships are headed downhill and to be sympathetic and respectful but firm about repairing them.

Give it time. Large, multi-issue organizations may take longer than small, narrowly focused ones to ramp up their role as a table member. It may not be realistic to expect them to become full-fledged participants as quickly.

What should the funder’s role be in relation to a cross-sector table like Ford’s? The funder serves as the table’s chief architect, sponsor, and advocate. Its role is to:

Have a clear sense of the table’s goals and purpose, and communicate it to table members.

Convey the message that the table is valued, to increase members’ buy-in.

Use the table to connect highly capable individuals and institutions to each other and support them with tools, resources, and consulting services, to further enhance their capacities.

Make diversity a priority in representation at the table and in the entities that support the table.

Be willing to invest in developing knowledge without knowing exactly how or when it will pay off.

Share the broad, landscape perspective gained through other investments with the table to help reduce silos.

Use the table to disseminate research published by grantees.

Create opportunities for table members to reflect, test their assumptions, and plan for the future.

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Should funders sit at the table? Opinions diverge on this topic. Some interviewees say they welcome a funder’s presence because it signifies the table’s importance and may encourage some members to attend regularly. Others say the funder’s presence encourages “posturing and politicking” and can have a chilling effect on candid conversations, as participants don’t want to appear uninformed or contentious with their funder present. The answer may be to have the funder present sometimes but not always. Should the table be funder- or participant-driven? There are benefits and drawbacks to both approaches. The fact that Ford drove this Table underscored to grantees the foundation’s commitment to the topic, secured resources for the Table, ensured that grantees contributed their time and attention, and enabled Toomey and McGlinchey to bring knowledge back to their colleagues within the foundation. On the other hand, organizations that didn’t receive Ford grants to participate were less affected by Ford’s prominent role. It is possible, although not certain, that they may have been more involved if they saw the exercise as field-driven. Ideally, the entity in the driver’s seat changes over time as participants acquire ownership and responsibility. When the funder is trying to seed a new field or facilitate an intersectional approach in an arena where it doesn’t exist or faces barriers, some sort of external pressure is needed to break through the roadblock and create forward momentum. At those times, the funder drives the table. Over time, participants in a well-facilitated table should become empowered to define their own agenda and strategies as their relationships coalesce and they experience some successes. The key is to be transparent about who is driving the table and when the role is shifting from one entity to another.

What needs or emergent opportunities warrant greater attention going forward? Much has changed since the 2016 U.S. presidential election, in ways that affect how the Table engages with policy makers and its prospects for success. The Trump Administration has begun dismantling the Table’s wins on broadband privacy regulations, prison phone rates, and more. Tactics such as issuing principles for regulation or sign-on letters against a policy position have less teeth in a hostile administration than a supportive one. Those obstacles could give funders a reason to bring the Table to a close. On the other hand, the changed political environment has made collaborative tables more important than ever as a place for organizations to share the ideas and information needed to advance civil rights protections. Places to discuss various approaches to policy change also become more important in a combative political environment; without a place to cultivate that transparency, tensions are likely to rise between organizations as they take dramatically different approaches. With those givens as a starting point, the following ideas suggest worthwhile areas of attention for the Table, or any comparable entity, going forward:

Double down on efforts to make corporations accountable for protecting and upholding civil rights. The Table began moving in this direction with its work on payday loan advertising and Facebook affinity-group targeting. Additional opportunities exist in the work of individual members, such as Rebecca MacKinnon (New America)’s Ranking Digital Rights project.

Continue to expand the focus from national to state and local policies and practices. The Table’s access to the White House and Department of Justice, among other departments and agencies, took a hit in November 2016. But issues such as body-worn cameras do not rely on federal government policy. Those decisions involving civil rights, technology, and privacy are made at the state and local (jurisdictional) level, and the Table’s members could play a powerful role in

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influencing them. Shifting to states and localities also would give some of the Table’s smaller and more grassroots-oriented members a chance to shine.

Pick battles carefully. The member organizations will be spread thinly over many civil rights battles, and they will not be able to fight off every threat. The Table and its members will have to deploy resources strategically, and they (along with funders) may need to adjust their expectations accordingly.

Find ways to link conservative and progressive organizations around solutions to shared issues. Organizations working on surveillance have already moved in this direction, and other models may exist in the criminal justice arena.

Diversify the funding base on key issues. The work of a cross-sector table should be funded by more than one sector. Yet, many campaigns involving civil rights and technology (such as the one around body-worn cameras) do not receive funding from all of the sectors affected. This may mean reaching out to funders in fields as diverse as immigrant rights, climate change, reproductive rights, criminal justice, and the like—and that will require being able to show how media policy and legal analysis on issues such as digital security affect every sector.

Capture the Table’s collective knowledge and share it with other fields. Each of the Table’s projects produced lessons and insights that have value for other organizations and fields. By dedicating some time, attention, and resources to distilling the knowledge—including analyses of the Table’s strategies for achieving results—and packaging it for other audiences, the foundation could extend the Table’s reach and impact.

Engage Table members not only in achieving new wins but in holding the line on previous successes. Nearly every interviewee expressed concern that the current administration will try to reverse gains made for vulnerable populations under the previous administration. Working to preserve the progress already made makes practical sense. It also may offer a way to re-engage the legacy civil rights organizations, which have decades of experience in holding the line that they could share with younger organizations and with leaders from the newer field of internet freedom.

hese ideas are just the beginning of the menu of options available to the Table going forward. We end below with some additional takeaway thoughts.

VII. CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

his study found a great deal of validation for decisions made in designing, implementing, and managing the Ford Foundation Table on Civil Rights, Technology, and Privacy, as well as some opportunities for improvement. Above all, our findings reinforced the belief that a cross-sector table can be a powerful vehicle for improving relationships and knowledge—if participants

are motivated to connect with each other and have the opportunities, supports, and guidance needed to share their knowledge and expertise. The diversity in participating organizations’ cultures, perspectives, expertise, and priorities give this type of table the ability to uncover and resolve new questions, complexities, and challenges in a given area of focus.

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The study also confirmed that this type of network can be greater than the sum of its parts, enabling both the funder and its grantees to achieve results they might not achieve on their own. Despite some inevitable turnover and attrition, the core group of people who remain at the table for several years develop a sense of connection and collaboration with their peers. We can see evidence of this cohesiveness in the Table on Civil Rights, Technology, and Privacy’s resilience after the 2016 presidential election. As an interviewee pointed out, “A lot of people felt the sky was falling. [But the Table] had a structure it could use immediately to pace through the best- and worst-case scenarios and put a strategy together. They were prepared to be proactive and to turn on a dime.”

In its first six years, the Table evolved from a place to address past injuries by developing relationships, trust, and capacity to a place for stress-testing the relationships by tackling new issues together. Today, if the relationships continue to grow and deepen, the Table is poised to take on new and increasingly complex concerns that have a significant impact on the most vulnerable members of society. The civil rights principles in an era of big data, prison phone rate caps, Lifeline program extension, body-worn camera principles, and efforts to limit stingrays and facial recognition were wonderful wins. But the biggest success, perhaps, is that an infrastructure now exists by which organizations can assess problems, determine strategies, and work together to achieve the next win.

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APPENDIX: ORGANIZATIONS ACTIVELY PARTICIPATING IN THE TABLE

AS OF JANUARY 2018 * Denotes an organization actively participating *The Leadership Conference (host) 18Million Rising *ACLU Anzalone Liszt Grove Research Asian Americans Advancing Justice-AAJC *Brennan Center for Justice *Center for Democracy and Technology *Center for Media Justice Common Cause Consumers Union *Color Of Change *Data & Society *Demand Progress *Electronic Frontier Foundation *Free Press Freedman Consulting Freedom of the Press Foundation *Georgetown Center on Privacy and Technology *Media Matters *Media Mobilizing Project *NAACP *National Hispanic Media Coalition National Urban League *New America Foundation NOW *Open MIC *Open Technology Institute *Public Knowledge Spitfire Strategies UnidosUS *Upturn