As companies look for better ways to manage diversity, one of the approaches that is emerging is the use of female and minority network groups. These groups are not well understood, and there has been no quantitative analysis of their impact on minority employees. Social network theory suggests that network groups should enhance the social resources available to women and minorities and in that way enhance their chance of career success, but some critics of network groups suggest that backlash might produce greater social isolation and discrimination. In this paper, we analyze a survey of members of the National Black MBA Association to find out whether network groups have a positive impact on career optimism, what specific effects of these groups are most beneficial, and whether groups enhance isolation or discrimination. Results indicate that network groups have a positive overall impact on career optimism of Black managers, and that this occurs primarily via enhanced mentoring. Network groups have no effect on discrimination, either positive or negative. There are some indications of greater isolation, but also some indications of greater contact with Whites.

This study provides an event history analysis of the factors contributing to a social movement's ability to influence pubic policy. More specifically, the study presents a quantitative, historical examination of the influence of national, state, and local gay and lesbian movements on the decriminalization of state sodomy laws, an important goal of the movement, from 1969 to 1998. Drawing from political opportunity models, resource mobilization theory, and theories of cultural opportunity, the study explores the importance of political conditions, social movement characteristics, and the larger cultural context on the ability of the gay and lesbian movement to achieve its goals. The analyses demonstrate that all three factors have some influence on the likelihood of sodomy law decriminalization, but most importantly, political opportunity and movement characteristics work together to bring about success. During periods of political opportunity, the size and tactics of the lesbian and gay movement influenced the likelihood of success.

A key indicator of a supportive campus climate for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) college students is the existence of an LGBT student organization. This article integrates the research on high school LGBT policies and programs with social movement studies of campus activism to examine the characteristics associated with the existence of university-approved LGBT groups on North Carolina campuses. Drawing on data from the National Center for Education Statistics, campus Web sites, and other sources, logistic regression is used to examine the importance of public opinion, campus and community resources, and the institutional context in predicting the location of these student groups.

Research on urban growth and vitality suggests that gay men concentrate in high quality of life cities, indicated by high-tech development, diversity, and city amenities. The goal of this paper is to evaluate the degree to which theories of urban renewal and economic development-including Florida's creative class-can explain the neighborhood-level distribution of lesbians and gays within a city. Using 2000 U.S. Census data, tax parcel data, and other data sources, we conduct multivariate spatial regression to investigate the distribution of lesbians and gays in Columbus, Ohio, and their relationship to diversity, openness, and amenities. While the neighborhood distribution of gay men is associated with many of these characteristics, lesbian housing patterns are not. We do, however, find both lesbians and gays concentrate in tracts with other gay and lesbian households and that gay residential patterns are influenced by gay concentration in neighboring tracts suggesting that geographic clustering may also be a protective mechanism.

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