EEO Executive Council Meeting
Host: Ms. Delia L. Johnson
DELIA JOHNSON
Ms. Delia L. Johnson, Co-Chair and
Director, Office of Civil Rights for International Broadcasting Bureau, hosted
the meeting and gave a few opening remarks. Subsequently, she asked the
attendees to give their name, agency, and position.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WHITE HOUSE
Charles M. Greene, Executive Director, White House Initiative on Historically
Black Colleges and Universities, gave a historical background on the HBCU
Program.
He indicated that the average time
for African American students to graduate from college was six years. While he graduated in four years, he had
great mentors who helped him out along the way.
Mr. Ponce stated that he often
gets questions from different sources regarding whether there is still a need
for HBCUs nowadays.
Mr. Green responded that HBCUs have open
enrollment policies currently, so applicants from all races are free to apply
for admission. Another Council member
stated that HBCUs provide a special niche for African
American students that they cannot get anywhere else. Moreover, Ms. Johnson opined that there are
African Americans who are not admitted to Harvard, Yale, or
Mr. Green pointed out that funding
for HBCUs has increased by 400% since FY 2000. However, he stated that 47% of African
American students received Pell Grants when attending college, which was twice
the rate for Caucasian students.
A Council member asked if a
federal agency was not in the business of providing grants, how it could
support HBCUs. Mr. Green responded that it could
provide internships, attend job fairs, and establish faculty/employee
exchanges. In other words, Mr. Green
said that agencies should look at initiatives that were mutually beneficial to
agencies and HBCUs.
A Council member pointed out that
the best and brightest African American students attend majority
institutions. Mr. Green said that there
were less African American students attending HBCUs
now than in the past. Thus, he indicated
that the market place determines the institutions attended by African Americans
– determinative factors will be things like financial aid, SAT scores, etc.
NATIONAL DISABILITY MENTORING
DAY
Carol Dunlap, Business Development
Specialist, U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Disability Employment Policy
(ODEP), announced the issuance of the 2006 poster for the National Disability
Awareness Month, which can be viewed by clicking on http://www.dol.gov/odep/. To get free copies
of the poster, send an e-mail to ndeam@dol.gov or call 202 693-7880.
She announced that the ODEP budget for FY 06 had been reduced, and,
consequently, it could not sponsor, as in previous years, the upcoming National
Disability Mentoring Day.
Marie Campos, Policy and
Program Associate from the American Association of People with Disabilities
(AAPD), indicated that AAPD is sponsoring Disability
Mentoring Day (DMD), which will be held on Wednesday, October 18,
2006 around the country .
Ms. Campos announced that plans
are underway to hold the
Students and representatives from
agencies and companies are expected to attend this event together. At the end of the day, employers will build
a list of students that indicate an interest in their company, so that they can
find suitable mentors and schedule meetings with them at a later date.
A Council member asked whether the
Disability Mentoring Day targeted high school or college students, and Ms.
Campos responded that typically there were more high
school than college students in this initiative. Another Council member
inquired if high school students were recruited during their junior and senior
years, and Ms. Campos said that while AAPD encourages teachers to concentrate
on juniors and seniors, its staff does not reject applications from
freshmen and sophomores. She also
indicated that agencies willing to participate in this initiative will have to
pay a fee.
A Council member asked about the
representation of students with targeted disabilities during Disability
Mentoring Day. Ms. Campos responded that
AAPD does not track its students by this methodology.
For additional information
about Disability Mentoring Day, click on http://www. aapd.com.
GAO REPORT 06-214
Anthony Lofaro
and Anthony Patterson, both from GAO, indicated that GAO Report GAO-06-214,
which was prepared at the request of Senator Joseph Lieberman (Ranking Minority
Member, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs), was the
second report to address the roles of and interaction between EEOC and OPM
regarding EEO. The first report was issued in April 2005 (GAO-05-195) and
dealt with the EEO policy framework and the roles that EEOC and OPM played in
it. The latest report dealt in part with how EEOC and OPM coordinated in
carrying out and overseeing EEO-related requirements.
Mr. Lofaro
indicated that the second GAO report surveyed the top EEO and HR officials at
45 executive branch agencies with 500 or more employees, and received responses
from 83 officials (92% response rate).
Respondents opined that MD-715,
Executive Order 13164 (dealing with the setting up of reasonable accommodation
provisions), and the President's Management Agenda scorecard standard on
diversity were more useful than FEORP, Executive Order 13171 (dealing with
Hispanic employment in the Federal Government), and DVAAP. In fact,
respondents indicated that there were redundancies among the various
requirements of the EEO policy framework.
Mr. Lofaro
stated that respondents thought that the disagreement regarding the PATCOB and
the nine occupational categories caused federal agencies to spend additional
resources. EEOC indicated in its comments to the GAO report that it had
adopted the nine occupational categories because they were based on the
occupational categories EEOC uses for conducting similar analyses in the
private sector. Mr. Ponce indicated that the Council had made the EEOC
staff aware in the past of its position regarding the differences between the
federal and private sectors -- whether on affirmative employment or compliance
issues, as well as the difficulty in conducting historical workforce studies,
as the retrospective information was compiled using the PATCOB categories.
Mr. Lofaro
indicated that another area of concern identified by survey respondents dealt
with the different requirements to report race and national origin (RNO)
categories. Under the MD-715 instructions, EEOC required federal agencies
to use the OMB's RNO categories beginning in FY 04 and to resurvey those
employees who had previously identified themselves as Asian/Pacific Islanders
(instead of under the new separate categories for Asians and Native
Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander). On the other hand, OPM required
agencies to use the new OMB's RNO categories for new employees only beginning
in 2006, and stated that it lacked the authority to
require agencies to resurvey their workforces.
Next, Mr. Lofaro
referred to the disagreement regarding the collection of applicant-flow
data. EEOC believes that federal agencies should collect it and cited as
justification the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (1978) (5
C.F.R. 1607), while OPM took the position that agencies were not required or
authorized to collect this information and cited the Supreme Court's Adarand decision (515 U.S. 299 (1995)).
Mr. Lofaro
stated that respondents did not see EEOC and OPM as very helpful in assisting
them to ensure EEO in the workplace or achieving EEO-related objectives.
However, EEOC scored better in this category than OPM. For example, 56.3% of
respondents said that EEOC was of some, little, or no help, while 80% said the
same of OPM. 77.1% of respondents said that EEOC and OPM should be doing
more to help agencies ensure EEO in the workplace and achieve affirmative
employment.
Nevertheless, respondents did find
some usefulness in the guidance and feedback provided by EEOC and OPM.
79% of respondents indicated that guidance from EEOC was useful or very useful
regarding EEO and affirmative employment, while 42% said the same of OPM.
Mr. Lofaro
explained that 86% of respondents indicated that increased coordination between
EEOC and OPM would benefit their agencies and facilitate the collaboration
between the EEO and HR staffs. Unfortunately, Mr. Lofaro stated that the GAO staff found little coordination
or information sharing between EEOC and OPM, particularly among the staffs
responsible for the day-to-day oversight of federal agencies. Mr. Lofaro indicated that this coordination was required by the
FEORP regulations (5 C.F.R. 720.203(f)), the Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1978,
and Executive Order 12067. In fact, Mr. Lofaro
pointed out that OMB, in a 2005 assessment of the OPM's
Merit systems Compliance Program, found a need for OPM to improve its
coordination with EEOC
Mr. Ponce indicated that, in the
GAO report, senior EEOC officials had suggested that allowing EEOC to become a
member of the Chief Human Capital Officers (CHCO) Council, which the OPM
Director chairs, may present an opportunity for closer coordination of EEO and
human capital management. Mr. Ponce said that he was glad that EEOC
senior official had seen the usefulness of this recommendation, which the
Interagency Working Group (IWG) had repeatedly made to EEOC in the
past.
Mr. Lofaro
stated that EEOC and OPM officials believed that there were various statutory
requirements that would impede the closer coordination between the two
agencies. The GAO report recommended EEOC and
OPM bring such barriers to the attention of Congress and/or the President.
Mr. Lofaro
indicated that GAO had recommended that EEOC and OPM should report annually to
Congress on the steps they had taken to improve coordination with each
other. Mr. Lofaro stated that EEOC had started
this cooperation already by including on its website various hyperlinks to the
OPM website.
A Council member asked for the
accountability measures that GAO would be adopting to enforce compliance with
the GAO's recommendations. Mr. Lofaro explained
that EEOC and OPM would have to respond within sixty days to their
Congressional oversight committees and GAO on these recommendations. Another
Council member asked whether Council members would be allowed to view the EEOC
and OPM responses, and Mr. Lofaro promised to get
back with an answer shortly.