Fellow Creatives,
The Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of AIGA will not be partnering with Circles Conference this year, and our members deserve to know why.
The 2019 conference speaker roster includes the Communications Director of an organization that does not meet our standards of inclusion because of openly discriminatory policies and practices towards women and the LGBTQ+ community.
We have reached out to Circles’ organizers to voice our concerns; so far they have decided not to alter their programming. We feel it would be hypocritical of us to be involved in the conference and tacitly endorse the policies of any non-inclusive organization. This would be a misallocation of our membership resources and a disservice to all members of our community against whom the organization discriminates.
The decision to cease our partnership with the conference was not made lightly, and does not reflect any personal or professional animosity between us, the conference, or its organizers. We urge the organizers of Circles Conference to reconsider including representatives of discriminatory organizations in their programming. When they do, we will be happy to reconsider our position.
Respectfully,
The AIGA DFW Board
To learn more about AIGA’s guidelines for the design community:
