There has been uproar in the UK over the course of the past week when it was announced that four white men were approved as board members for Channel 4 while a fifth candidate, a minority woman, was rejected.
As The Guardian reports, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport must approve Channel 4’s board members, and “in an unusual move Karen Bradley, the culture secretary, rejected the appointment of one of the candidates. The move means that just three of 13 board members will be women and that it will continue to comprise solely white executives.”
“Ofcom put forward a broad range of high-calibre candidates for the Channel 4 board,” said a spokesman for Ofcom. “It is then the responsibility of the secretary of state to decide whether to approve Ofcom’s proposed candidates.”
The Guardian pointed out how sadly ironic it was that the appointments of only the white male candidates came on the same day the government published its green paper on corporate governance “which highlighted the importance of ‘improving the diversity of boardrooms so that their composition better reflects the demographics of employees.’”
It was revealed just yesterday that the woman who was rejected is Althea Efunshile, the former deputy chief of Arts Council England. Efunshile was appointed deputy chief executive of ACE in 2012 after serving as chief operating officer since 2007, and was awarded a CBE in June in the Queen’s birthday honors for services to arts and culture.
This decision is not only a blow to diversity of ethnicity but also to gender. As The Guardian continues, “David Abraham, the chief executive of Channel 4, sent an email to staff criticizing the rejection of the fifth candidate saying it represented the latest example of the government’s ‘worrying and unprecedented’ interference.”
If Efunshile had been approved, she would have been the only non-white member of Channel 4’s board, and raise the female members from three to four. Naturally, people on Twitter were outraged.
You only have to meet Althea Efunshile for about 30 seconds to know she is highly competent and capable. This story fucking astonishes me https://t.co/LvcpiBKrzd
Baffling as Althea Efunshile is formidably capable and impressive. https://t.co/dWrbwzkq8i
Can you please explain this decision @DCMS? Althea Efunshile is extremely well qualified to be on board of @Channel4 https://t.co/HszTRB7pZp
It’s baffling that, with the number of conversations around diversity and gender equality taking place in the entertainment industry around the world, the powers that be wouldn’t see a problem with their selection. We must keep holding them accountable and continue to fight for the future.
