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May 19, 2005
Gov.’s committee on affirmative action stalls
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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