Minority Job Progress Stalls

Minority Job Progress Stalls

Whatever standard is used to measure the progress of civil rights in America today, one fact emerges: the Bush Administration has hired a staff whose views are compatible with its policy on civil rights.

According to a recent Washington Post article, "Civil Rights Focus Shift Roils Staff at Justice," nearly 20 percent of the lawyers from the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division left in fiscal year 2005. Their departure was due in part to a buyout program that some lawyers believe was aimed at pushing out those who did not share the administration's conservative views on civil rights laws. Simply put: attitudes towards civil rights determine the approach to civil rights.

According to Roger Clegg, a former civil rights deputy in the Reagan Administration who is now general counsel at the Center for Equal Opportunity, the situation is "perfectly understandable." For as Mr. Clegg puts it: "If the career people are not reflecting the policy priorities of the political appointees, then there's a problem. Elections have consequences in a democracy."

Enforcement Reduced

The fact is, according to the Justice Department data analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, civil rights enforcement has reduced precipitously over the past five years.

Indeed, the manifested indifference to civil rights (especially for blacks and other racial minorities) has deep historical roots. Consider for instance the fact that after the 1954 Supreme Court decision reversing "separate but equal" laws in the Brown vs. Board of Education, many whites resisted the court's rulings with all "deliberate speed." Literally, blacks were told to hurry up and wait for change.

Truth be told, 50 years after this landmark decision, pubic school education is still divided along racial lines.

Bunched by Title

Unfortunately, the city's workplace mirrors similar realities, albeit, the separation is revealed by job titles - 79 percent of all city managers are white compared to 69 percent blacks and Hispanics in clerical titles - and inequality is luridly seen in salaries (85 percent of all managers earning an annual salary of $85K and above are white; the remaining 15 percent are people of color).

Only within the context of the notion of "all deliberate speed" can this employee rationally explain the fact that one rarely gets the sense of righteous indignation or outrage from the Bloomberg administration over these statistics.

Granted, in February 2002, Mayor Michael Bloomberg switched gears on the policies of his predecessor by increasing the staff at the city's Human Rights Commission (HRC), the agency responsible for enforcing local civil rights law, and appointed a former criminal prosecutor in the Brooklyn District Attorney's office, Patricia Gatling, as the commissioner.

Easy Assumptions

However, I have a confession: commissioners, like administrations, come to believe whatever they must believe when they must believe it. For instance, in response to a question from a member of the Equal Employment Practices Commission (EEPC) Public Hearing in November 2003, Commissioner Gatling stated that the reduction in outstanding complaints (about 5,000 at the time) from previous administrations was a result of "hard work" complemented by her staff's background as former criminal prosecutors from the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office and asking the "appropriate questions" of complainants.

What was most disturbing to this observer about this response was the implicit assessment that by asking the "appropriate questions" a complaint of discrimination can be resolved without a costly investigation or lengthy litigation. Interpretation: In economic terms, it ain't worth it. And for the record, history loves a simple tale for no other reason than it's simpler to tell.

Not Unique to Giuliani

Of course, for me, this is curious logic. First, it suggests that the conduct of the Giuliani administration in excluding blacks constituted an unfortunate anomaly. Second, that those people who overcome the fear of perhaps being given a Siberian assignment for complaining against a supervisor for an alleged injustice were just bellyaching over sour grapes. To be blunt, some do; most don't.

According to the EEPC annual reports, complaints of unlawful employment discrimination increased an unprecedented 85 percent in a four-year period under Mayor Giuliani. This notwithstanding, the fact of the matter is, the legacy of inequality for blacks in America is not anomalous; it is systemic.

Racial Chasm

Certainly, while one of the gains of the civil right movement of the sixties was to make displays of blatant racism unacceptable (thank you Rosa Parks!) the fact is racism is subtle in the workplace.

According to a recent Princeton University study, black men with no contact with the criminal justice system fared no better in their job search than white men posing as ex-convicts. Needless to say, we have seen this B-movie before: lesserqualified whites are disproportionately promoted over more qualified blacks or minority employees.

According to the authors of the book, "Whitewashing Race," "hidden or subtle" racism is the form of racial bias that involves white individuals discriminating against blacks or other racial minorities without revealing their true motives.

This type of discrimination often requires collusion of other individuals with the perpetrator; other whites conveniently ignore acts of bias, so long as nobody verbalizes anything in racial terms.

For example, for any given Administrative Engineer position vacancy in the Department of Transportation, more than 70 percent (a guesstimate) of the applicant pool is foreign born and/or speak English as a second language. Against this applicant pool, it seems awkward to this observer that "excellent oral and written skills" is placed in this setting as "specialized knowledge" for an engineering position. Arguably, it's the banana peel of a job interview many "foreigners" have conveniently slipped on. Historically speaking, I cannot ignore the eerie similarities between this "specialized skill" and the black codes and poll taxes imposed against black Americans back in the bad old days of Jim Crow.

The bottom line, to me anyway, is that "excellence" is a subjective standard in oral communication. After all, one man's "excellent oral" skills is another man's Governor of Kal-ee-fornia!

Certainly, I am not minimizing the fact that language is the essential tool to facilitate meaningful exchange of ideas; however, the on-the-ground reality is, most engineers can pick up the differences and discern the distinctions between clear and informed engineering speech and engineering ventriloquism.

As things stand now regarding Bloomberg's civil rights thinking and practices, we are encouraged to believe that jumping up and down is progress. Unfortunately, the political adrenalin of such civil-rights-like exercises is revealed in the fact that 50 years after the "separate but equal" decision was struck down, we seem to have landed in the same place.

Brandon L. Ward is President of New York City Municipal Chapter of Blacks in Government, an employee advocacy group. He is a Mechanical Engineer with NYCDDOT. He can be reached at brandonward@nycbig.com.