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May 19, 2005

Jeremy Schwab

The only thing clear about the future of affirmative action in Massachusetts’ state agencies is that nothing is clear.

In the summer of 2003, Governor Mitt Romney nixed the longstanding executive orders that ensured equitable treatment of employees in state agencies, saying he would write a new diversity policy.

Following vehement protest from black and Latino activists who said Romney aimed to weaken affirmative action, the governor agreed to temporarily reinstate the old affirmative action policies while he convened the Diversity and Equal Opportunity Advisory Council to make recommendations for a new policy.

What happened next depends on whom you ask. According to then-council member Leonard Alkins, Romney suddenly stopped convening council meetings just as the council was preparing to make its final recommendations.

“The governor did not receive any final recommendations from this committee,” he said. “We were under the impression there were going to be follow-up meetings to come up with the final recommendations, but the only thing I heard was from Robert Fortes, the governor’s liaison to the committee. He called me a few months ago and told me the governor’s office had changed their position and they weren’t going to be recommending any changes to the affirmative action [policy].”

Alkins indicated he believes that Romney backed off the contentious issue because the council was preparing to incorporate suggestions from community members about how to strengthen affirmative action.

“I surmise that maybe some of his staff people did not like where we were going with this draft and decided it would be a lot easier rather than get into a confrontation with the advisory committee just to go back to the old executive orders that were previously on the books,” said Alkins.

Romney administration representatives told a very different story from Alkins. A spokesman said Romney is still considering writing a new diversity policy.

“It has not been dropped,” said the spokesman, Felix Brown. “The matter is currently under review.”

Brown would not give a time frame for when Romney might unveil a new policy, however.

“There isn’t a specific timeline for when any new executive order that could incorporate some of the recommendations of the council will be released,” he said.

Ruth Bramson, whom Romney appointed to head the council, said she felt that the recommendations the council sent to the governor following public hearings had been the body’s final recommendations, said Brown.

While it remains unclear whether Romney intends to make any changes to affirmative action, activists say that something must be done to strengthen the enforcement mechanisms.

Horace Small, director of the Union of Minority Neighborhoods, notes that Romney moved the agency that oversees affirmative action further down his chain of command. Reportedly, the head of the Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity, the agency that collects reports of hiring or promotion discrimination in the myriad executive branch departments, no longer reports directly to Romney, as its predecessor agency did, but rather to the head of the Human Resources Department.

Julie Patino, who oversaw the implementation of the affirmative action policy as deputy director of the State Office of Affirmative Action, said that there has been too little enforcement of the current affirmative action policy. She criticized council members for failing to pressure Romney to adopt their recommendations.

“They should have looked back and taken all of the community’s questions and concerns and incorporated them into a new draft, and that has not been done,” she said.

When asked why the council did not pressure Romney further to implement its recommendations, Alkins gave the impression that the matter was out of the council’s hands.

“If you read the enabling legislation, we served at the leisure of the governor, who is the chief executive officer,” he said.

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