This document presents a research proposal to study factors that affect the advancement of diverse information technology workforces. It identifies key variables like discrimination, exclusion, work-life balance, career development and mentorship through interviews and literature review. The problem statement asks how these variables impact diverse IT workforce advancement. A theoretical framework is presented with the variables as independent factors, exclusion as intervening, and advancement as the dependent variable. Hypotheses and a questionnaire are included to collect data and statistical analysis methods are outlined to test the hypotheses.