Washington Post Diversity Plan for Interior Department

Ed O’Keefe reports in the Washington Post column Federal Eye: Keeping Tabs on the Government as follows:

The Interior Department is implementing new workplace rules for diversity and inclusion amid years of reports that it hasn’t done a good job hiring and promoting minorities.

A study conducted by the department’s black employees last year found that Interior was the only Cabinet-level agency falling below “relevant civilian labor force” representation for African Americans and was experiencing more departures of black employees than new hires.

The poor numbers prompted Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to call for changes and he announced a series of changes last month, including a decision to link performance evaluations and awards for senior executives to their progress on hiring diversity. He also ordered managers to file monthly diversity reports. . . .

Interior certainly is one of the most diverse and varied departments — responsible for everything from last weekend’s deadly off-road racing crash to cleaning up the Gulf Coast and managing national parks. But will monthly diversity reports, a new diversity chief and strategic hiring diversity plans help recruit and promote more minorities? Or are Salazar’s plans just window dressing that require much more?

The City Project has posted the following comment on the Washington Post web site:

Diversity in the work place at the Department of Interior (DOI) is a step in the right direction, but it is not nearly enough to ensure equal access to the benefits of the National Park Service (NPS) and other DOI resources.

A diverse and growing alliance is working to diversify access to and support for National Parks to help distribute the economic benefits of DOI and NPS. A diverse work force is important to get Americans back to work in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. DOI and NPS can learn important lessons from the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), one of the most successful New Deal programs.

The CCC created 8,000 new parks including state parks, planted 2 billion trees – more than half of all trees planted in U.S. up until that time — and created 3 million new jobs for young men — mostly men, and mostly white. CCC programs were generally off limits to most people of color and women. DOI can do better than that today in its own workforce.

Secretary Ken Salazar must do more than diversify his own work force through CCC type programs. DOI must also ensure that recipients of federal funds like the California Department of Parks and Recreation comply with civil rights and environmental laws by keeping endangered state parks open for all. DOI’s own National Trust for Historic Preservation includes state parks on the list of eleven most endangered historic places in the United States.

Yet DOI has failed to investigate an Administrative Complaint filed over a year ago that would provide a plan to distribute the benefits and burdens of state park resources fairly for all. We have personally briefed federal officials but they have failed to investigate, including Nancy Sutley, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality; Lisa Jackson, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency; and Will Shafroth, head of President Obama’s America’s Great Outdoors Campaign.

Diverse allies continue to seek equal justice to save state parks for all. These allies include California LULAC (League of Latin American Citizens), The City Project, Coastwalk California, Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles (one of the first black environmental organizations in the country), CPEHN (California Pan Ethnic Health Network), SPARC (Social and Public Art Resource Center), and Robert Bracamontes of the Acjachemen nation.

Learn more about our struggle to persuade DOI and EPA to enforce the law to save state parks for all here: http://www.cityprojectca.org/blog/archives/6059

Robert Garcia, Executive Director and Counsel
The City Project