--- title: Paul Ryan: Democratic Interns Respond With Diverse Selfie description: Democratic Party interns took a group selfie in response Speaker of the House Paul Ryan overwhelmingly white group photo posted this week. canonical: https://time.com/4415664/democrats-paul-ryan-selfie-diversity/ author: Mahita Gajanan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-07-20T20:53:24.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T23:24:40.951Z article:section: Politics og:title: Democratic Party Interns' Selfie Couldn't Be More Different Than the One Paul Ryan Posted og:description: Democrats have a significantly more diverse class of interns og:url: https://time.com/4415664/democrats-paul-ryan-selfie-diversity/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Democratic Party Interns' Selfie Couldn't Be More Different Than the One Paul Ryan Posted twitter:description: Democrats have a significantly more diverse class of interns twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Democratic Party Interns' Selfie Couldn't Be More Different Than the One Paul Ryan Posted by [Mahita Gajanan](https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Gajanan is an editor at TIME. Jul 20, 2016 8:53 PM UTC by [Mahita Gajanan](https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Gajanan is an editor at TIME. Jul 20, 2016 8:53 PM UTC Interns working for the Democratic party took a group selfie in response Speaker of the House [Paul Ryan’s](http://time.com/4414128/republican-convention-paul-ryan-speech-transcript-video/) controversial selfie of Capitol Hill interns posted this week. Ryan’s photo, captioned “I think this sets a record for the most number of #CapitolHill interns in a single selfie. #SpeakerSelfie,” [drew criticism](http://time.com/4410815/paul-ryan-intern-selfie/) after he posted it on Instagram for featuring a lack of racial diversity. Audra Jackson, an intern for Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson, gathered Democratic interns for a selfie response on Tuesday, in an effort to show a more diverse class of interns than the ones featured in Ryan’s photo. > [](https://twitter.com/RepEBJ/status/755521816408489984) Johnson herself took to Twitter to highlight the differences between the two photos. “The picture of the Democratic interns look a lot different than the #speakerselfie,” Johnson [wrote](https://twitter.com/RepEBJ/status/755519749409411077). > [](https://twitter.com/RepEBJ/status/755519749409411077) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4415664/democrats-paul-ryan-selfie-diversity/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4415664/democrats-paul-ryan-selfie-diversity/"},"headline":"Democratic Party Interns' Selfie Couldn't Be More Different Than the One Paul Ryan Posted","datePublished":"2016-07-20T20:53:24.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T23:24:40.951Z","description":"Ryan's selfie was criticized for its lack of diversity","url":"https://time.com/4415664/democrats-paul-ryan-selfie-diversity/","keywords":["Congress","Race"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mahita Gajanan","jobTitle":"Gajanan is an editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/congress/","name":"Congress"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4415664/democrats-paul-ryan-selfie-diversity/","name":"Democratic Party Interns' Selfie Couldn't Be More Different Than the One Paul Ryan Posted"}}]}] ```