Gender Bias Seen in Visas for Skilled Workers - NYTimes.com: The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to hear testimony Monday afternoon arguing that the H-1B visa program, which covers highly skilled temporary foreign workers, often in high-tech fields, discriminates against women.
Karen Panetta, the vice president for communications and public awareness for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in the United States of America, will testify that “the vast majority of H-1B workers are men,” according to her prepared remarks.
Ms. Panetta’s testimony points to “a serious gender imbalance in science, technology, engineering and math” as part of the reason that these H-1B visas in high-tech fields skew disproportionately toward men. But she also adds, “If a major immigration program effectively discriminated based on race or national origin, would that be O.K.?”
