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MSPB:
Women Attaining GS-15...
The Merit Systems Protection Board finds that women are attaining GS-15 and
Senior Executive Service positions more rapidly than the Board had forecast
in its 1992 "Glass Ceiling" report. At the same time, the MSPB cites
continuning, although reduced, misuse of the Outstanding scholar hiring authority
created to help overcome Black and Hispanic underrepresentation in the federal
workforce. Both topics are discussed in the November issue of the MSPB's Issues
of Merit. To see the latest Issues of Merit newsletter, visit
the FPMI web site at http://www.fpmi.com/fedlabor/reps.html.
The 1992 Glass Ceiling report examined the recruitment and advancement of women
since 1978 and projected that by 2017 women would occupy slightly more than
a third of GS-13-15 white collar jobs and less than a third of SES positions.
However, at the beginning of fiscal year 2000, women already accounted for
24 percent of GS-15's and 23.4 percent of SES jobs. These figures were three
and eight years ahead of the Board's projections, respectively.
MSPB hailed the better-than-expected progress as evidence that "organized
effort and commitment can make a difference." It cautioned,
however, that challenging assignements, good training, and other
opportunities had to be provided fairly to ensure that promotion
statistics accurately reflected treatment of all employees.
In a more controversial finding, the Board reiterated objections
that it raised almost two years ago to "misuse" of the
Outstanding Scholar hiring authority. That authority enables agencies
to appoint candidates with college grade point averages of 3.5
or higher to entry level positions in more than 100 professional
and administrative occupations without competition and without
regard to veterans preference. It was created as a part of the
1981 Luevano consent decree's requirement for a replacement for
the PACE examination.
Echoing a 1998 Office of Personnel Management memo, the Board
holds that the Outstanding Scholar authority was designed for identifiable
instances of underrepresentation and was not "to become the
primary method of hiring into the specified occupations at these
grades." Now that African-Americans and Hispanics are no longer
underrepresented in entry-level hiring in the occupations covered
by the consent decree, OPM data show that the use of this authority
has fallen from 46 percent of relevant hires in 1993 to 27 percent
in 2000.
However, Outstanding Scholar remains the authority of choice for
certain agencies and occupations. The MSPB cites a number of examples:
- In seven occupations for which the authority was the primary
hiring method, Outstanding Scholar hires outnumbered competitive
hires by 1,448 to 1,037.
- In one department, of 304 hires into
an occupation, 284 were under the Outstanding Scholar authority
and only 20 were competitive.
- There were 1,134 Outstanding
Scholar appointments to 743 competitive appointments in the
five occupations with the greatest combined number of competitive
and Outstanding Scholar hires.
The Board's position is that frequent use of the authority is
no longer appropriate or necessary. Underrepresented covered by
the consent decree has been eliminate, and it was accomplished
primarily through competitive hiring rather than through the Outstanding
Scholar authority. Representatives of the EEO community who took
issue with the MSPB's 2000 report on this issue are expected to
continue to disagree.
The EEO Update, 2002 FPMI Communications, Inc., Vol. 10, No. 1,
01/2002
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