Bill Lee: “The gentleman is doing such critical work to make college affordable and debt free and to really provide opportunities…”

“The gentleman is doing such critical work to make college affordable and debt free and to really provide opportunities for our young people and our millennials. So I thank the gentleman. We represent the east bay, as we have said. For years now, this is nothing new to us. I have my office full of cases that go back, actually, 10 years of qualified people of color who wanted to work in the tech sector and never could get in the door. Let me also say that 40, 50 percent of the jobs in the tech sector are non-tech-related. They are human resources attorneys, lawyers, jobs that many people of color qualify for and still they have been shut out from these opportunities. So this is an important issue to talk about. Tech is making a home for itself in my district and your district, and it is creating new jobs. Unfortunately, too many of my African American and Latino constituents have been locked out of these opportunities for years, which have been created by the region's booming sector. Believe you me, it is not unique to your district or my district. It is a systemic problem that we need to address across the country. When major tech firms have released workforce data--and, mind you, many have not--we have seen that, at some firms, employees that are African American can make up as much as 7 percent of the workforce. At other firms, this can be below zero percent.…”