The Daily Californian remains staunchly committed to addressing and solving issues with diversity in the newsroom. As an extension of this commitment, we expect our hiring process to be equally devoted to strategies we can implement to promote the diversity of our staff. In 2018, our hiring team expanded from one hiring manager to three, including the addition of a manager specializing in diversity, equity and inclusion.

We believe it is important for our audience to know about who we are as a community. This semester, we are publicizing the demographic data of our most recent hiring efforts and comparing it with information from previous semesters.

Part of acknowledging our identity as an organization is transparency, and our hiring team has collaborated to make this a priority. We strive to make our organization a home for people from a variety of backgrounds.

This spring semester, 59.8% of our applicants identified as Asian, up from the 48% mark in spring 2018. Meanwhile, 23% of this semester’s applicants identified as white, down from the 30.1% mark of two years ago.

Furthermore, 6.5% of spring 2020 applicants identified with two or more races, 6.2% identified as Hispanic or Latinx, 1.7% identified as Black and 0.3% identified as Native American/Other Pacific. A small percentage (2.4%) of applicants did not disclose their race or ethnicity.

The majority of these numbers show slight improvement but are largely consistent with that of recent semesters, and the breakdown of accepted applicants follows a similar trend. We still have much work to do and will continue to prioritize diversity when our summer and fall applications open.