An article in today’s Washington Post says that “[t]he expected wave of federal retirements over the next few years will provide a unique opportunity for federal agencies to increase the number of minorities in senior government management positions….”
While percentages vary across agencies, about 86.2 percent of senior government managers in 2000 were white, 8.4 percent were African American, 2.5 percent were Hispanic, 1.6 percent were Asian American and 1.2 percent were Native American, the GAO reported. The general U.S. population that year was 72 percent white, 12 percent black, 11 percent Hispanic, 4 percent Asian American and 1 percent Native American, according to the U.S. census.
Query: If a Native American applicant for a Senior Executive Service position were told, “Sorry, we’re not promoting any more Native Americans into SES so long as Native Americans are overrepresented and other groups are underrepresented,” would the rejected applicant have a valid discrimination complaint?
In order to promote “diversity,” the Office of Personnel Management has created a new SES Candidate Development Program. According to Ronald P. Sanders, an OPM associate director,
OPM will recruit 25 to 50 participants from a big pool of candidates, and will reach out especially to organizations that represent the interests of women and minority federal employees, he said. Still, federal law requires the program to be race-neutral, he said.
“The best we can do is focus on creating as diverse an applicant pool as we can at all levels,” Sanders said. “We have to trust the merit process to run its course.”
Let me get this straight: the way to encourage “as diverse an applicant pool as we can” is to target organizations that represent the interests of women and minorities? “Diverse” and “neutral” sure are taking on peculiar meanings these days.
But no more peculiar than “quota,” which doesn’t seem to mean quota any more. Consider:
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said no program will work unless agency heads set diversity goals and enforce them.
Defenders of “diversity” always insist that they too abhor quotas. Perhaps one of them can explain to me what the difference is between a quota and an enforced diversity goal.
