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Judge backs Reveal’s suit to end secrecy around Silicon Valley’s diversity

Reveal: “A federal judge on Tuesday struck down attempts by the U.S. Department of Labor and several major Silicon Valley firms to keep companies’ staff diversity numbers secret, siding with the argument made by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting that the records are not confidential business information.  Magistrate Judge Kandis A. Westmore of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ordered the federal agency to disclose the diversity reports filed with the government by 10 tech companies in response to Reveal’s Freedom of Information Act request.  Reveal filed suit in federal court after the Labor Department denied the FOIA request. The judge found that government attorneys failed to show that the diversity reports, called EEO-1s, are commercial confidential information. They also failed to show the records being released would result in financial harm that was foreseeable. The tech companies seeking to keep their diversity reports secret are Oracle America Inc., Box Inc., Fitbit Inc., Applied Materials Inc., Equinix Inc., Gilead Sciences Inc., Synopsys Inc., DocuSign Inc., Agilent Technologies Inc. and Xilinx Inc…”

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