Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., called on the nation’s technology companies such as Apple to release federal data on the diversity of their work forces. She was in Silicon Valley this week with two other members of the Congressional Black Caucus to push the tech industry to hire more African Americans.

“We have asked them all to release the data,” Lee told USA Today (http://tinyurl.com/nvbhgn8). “If they believe in inclusion, they have to release the data so the public knows that they are being transparent and that they are committed to doing the right thing.”

So far Apple has refused requests from the daily newspaper to make public data it routinely supplies to the U.S. Department of Labor on the demographics of their workers.