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Opinion
Leonid Bershidsky

Congress Causes Google's Diversity Problem

Google's workforce is much more diverse than it might appear from the demographics the company published today. Many of its workers are immigrants from a great variety of backgrounds.
Diversity of a sort. Photographer: Stephen Brashear/Getty Images
Diversity of a sort. Photographer: Stephen Brashear/Getty Images

Google Inc.'s admission that its almost 50,000-strong workforce is predominantly male and, in the U.S., predominantly white offers a striking statement on equality of opportunity. If other Silicon Valley tech leaders had the courage to publish their staff demographics -- Facebook Inc., for one, doesn't -- they probably wouldn't prove any more diverse.

There is, however, a relatively easy way for the U.S. government to increase diversity at such companies: Open its borders to foreign engineers.