MINUTES OF THE APRIL 2004 COUNCIL OF FEDERAL EEO AND CIVIL RIGHTS EXECUTIVES

The meeting was held on April 20, 2004, at the Smithsonian Institution. Era Marshall, EEO Director at the Smithsonian Institution, hosted the meeting.

Council Chairs Delia Johnson and Jorge Ponce welcomed everyone and outlined the agenda.

Leroy W. Warren, Jr., Chair, NAACP Federal Task Force, gave a presentation entitled EEO in the 21^st Century: Where Are We Headed?

Among the topics that Mr. Warren covered are the following:

• Although there are some EEO professionals who are not as competent and committed as they should be, the majority of EEO Directors do a very good job with limited resources and support. The latter deserve the encouragement of advocacy groups like the NAACP.
• Civil rights are under attack at the federal, state, and local levels lately.
• Offices of General Counsel generally have too much influence over EEO offices.
• He does not think that EEOC Chair Dominguez is a civil rights champion. In his opinion, Chair Dominguez has not protected the civil rights that giants like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and Fannie Lou Hammer fought for.
• The NAACP has worked closely with labor unions to fight the privatization and outsourcing of federal jobs.
• While he does not agree with other civil rights organizations on every issue, it is important to build bridges with each other to retain the civil rights that Chair Dominguez is trying to destroy.
• He fully supports the leaders of the Council of Federal EEO and Civil Rights Executives. He has worked with them in the past, and he vowed to continue working with them in the future.
• He gets angry at some EEO professionals and EEOC employees who are willing to undermine the civil rights protections of federal employees simply because they are retiring shortly or are worried about their next political appointment. Mr. Warren considered these practices despicable, as these people were bankrupting the future of our children and grandchildren.
• He believes that if the civil rights of federal employees were abolished, there would be a repeat of what happened ninety miles from Florida in Communist Cuba and Hitler’s Germany.
• The NAACP is an organization that fights for the civil rights of all groups, regardless of whether they are white males, Hispanics, African-Americans, or members of other minority groups and women. Mr. Warren believes that in order to keep one’s credibility, an organization cannot be selective in choosing to fight for the civil rights of certain groups.

Next, Jorge Ponce discussed the NAACP letters dated September 19, 2003 on MD-715 and the one dated April 10, 2004 on the MD-715 guidelines – which you can view on the What’s New directory.

A Council member complained about the continued interference of Offices of General Counsel with EEO Offices, and indicated that the MD-715 self-assessment survey would be a great tool for EEOC to monitor and address this challenge. Mr. Ponce responded that the Council had issued a position paper on this issue on March 24, 2004, which can be viewed on the What’s New directory. Moreover, Mr. Ponce indicated that the self-assessment survey (Part G of EEOC Form 715-01) was an internal document that did not have to be shared with EEOC. However, a Council member from the FBI pointed out that if agencies completed the self-assessment survey, it would automatically become releasable under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.     

A Council member from the Dept. of Veterans Affairs explained that the Dept. of the Interior had cleared its RNO applicant form through the Office of Management & Budget, and his Office of General Counsel had told him that other federal agencies could use it. Another Council member from the Dept. of Health and Human Services stated that OMB had also cleared her agency’s RNO applicant flow form. You can view both forms at http://www.doi.gov/diversity/doc/doc/di_1935.htm and at HHS Form file. There are two slight problems, however. First, OMB approved the Interior form only through January 30, 2003, and the HHS form only through August 31, 2001. Second, EEOC policy forbids federal agencies from making disability-related inquiries to applicants at the pre-offer stage. (See http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/qanda-inquiries.html). [If you have difficulty reading these forms, print them out].

Another Council member cautioned members to be careful in adopting the Dept. of the Interior and the Dept. of Health and Human Services forms because the Office of Personnel Management continued using Standard Form 256 to track the number of employees with disabilities and their types of disabilities. This Council member indicated that it would be better to get EEOC to issue a uniform form for collecting RNO and disability information, to get it approved by OMB, and to get the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to adopt it.

A Council member from the Defense Contract Management Agency noted that using the new RNO categories for new hires, while maintaining the older 1990 Census RNO categories for the current workforce, would make it impossible to compare these two workforces. In addition, he indicated that EEOC was acting contrary to the OMB guidelines by requiring federal agencies to assign an RNO/disability category to someone who declined to self-identify. The OMB example for self-identification dealt with a coroner identifying the race and ethnicity of a corpse; thus, it would be inappropriate for living persons. See page 10 at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg/re_guidance2000update.pdf.

A Council member stated that there had been a recent meeting to discuss MD-715 in which the OPM staff indicated a willingness to adopt the seven race/national origin (RNO) categories that EEOC had announced. However, numerous Council members questioned whether this information was tentative or final.

A Council member from the Dept. of Education indicated that he was sensitive to the commotion that EEOC has caused by releasing the MD-715 guidance. However, he pointed out that the stress was unwarranted when considering that EEOC lacked the authority to make agencies comply with MD-715.

Several Council members stated that the most serious problem of MD-715 dealt with the nine occupational categories, since OPM had indicated its intention to retain the PATCOB categories. For example, a Council member from the Treasury Dept. indicated that after she discussed these occupational categories with her Human Resources staff, they had an incredulous look on their faces. Council members want EEOC to convert the data dumps from the National Finance Center and the Dept. of the Interior. Otherwise, they preferred to retain the PATCOB categories to avoid coding errors and inconsistencies in government-wide and OPM data.

Several Council members concluded that it was best to wait for EEOC to find solutions to the unexpected challenges that the MD-715 guidance had brought about.

A Council member from the FBI indicated that the triage system mentioned in the March 25, 2004 memo from the EEOC Washington Field Office has been in place at EEOC since 1995. Several Council members expressed disbelief with this statement.