Editorial

The continued need for civil rights efforts

There are two excellent conference reports in this issue. C. Douglas Johnson reported on the sessions during the Gender and Diversity in Organizations Division (GDO) program of the 66th annual Academy of Management meeting, held in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Many important activities in the US civil rights movement were conceived in Atlanta, making the setting ideal for discussion of GDO research. Johnson examined several of the 93 GDO sessions that, among other things, included sessions on teaching diversity, efforts to improve faculty diversity, diversity resistance, and younger age and sexual orientation discrimination (neither of which is currently prohibited by US law).

As of 2003, employment-based sexual orientation discrimination is prohibited in the UK, and the effects of this legislation are the focus of Fiona Colgan,Tessa Wright, Chris Creegan, and Aidan McKearney's report. The conference was the culmination of a two-year research project investigating the experiences of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) workers after the legislation went into effect. Sessions on the law, "good practice" and work environments were included.

Both the Johnson and Colgan et al. reports reiterate the continued need for civil rights efforts in the USA and the UK and for continued research in the field. Decades of legislation and activism have improved equality and inclusion in the USA, but stigmatization and discrimination against non-dominant group members persist. New legislation in the UK is a positive step toward improving employment equity for LGB workers, but many obstacles remain. Onward.

Myrtle Bell