(9/20/97 Baltimore AFRO-American Newspaper)
by Congressman Elijah E. Cummings
On Wednesday, September 10, a long line of people waited outside of room 2154 of the Rayburn Building of the United States Capitol to attend a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Civil Service. Not everyone in the overflow audience was given the opportunity to testify before the committee, but many clapped and shook their heads in agreement with the men and women who did share their stories.
What the committee members heard was disturbing and upsetting. African Americans, women, Hispanics, Asian Americans, and Native Americans told of being passed over for promotions, unfairly evaluated by their supervisors, or being dismissed without cause or reason.
As the Ranking Democrat on the Civil Service subcommittee, I had called for this hearing on discrimination in the workplace not to expose the wrong doing of a multi-billion dollar private Fortune 500 corporation. It was to focus the country’s attention to the unfair and racist practices of the largest employer in the United States -- the Federal Government!
I have been increasingly disturbed by the number of minorities who have contacted my office with charges of discrimination against various government agencies. Each complaint has served as a reminder that the problem is rampant and widespread, and that no agency is without its accusers.
Within the federal government there is an appalling lack of diversity in senior management positions, and minorities are disproportionately reprimanded and fired. As of May 7th of this year, minorities accounted for 28.3 percent of the U.S. population. However, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), all minorities combined make up only 13 percent of all senior level government positions.
Data supporting the blatant bias many minority federal employees face was presented to me by Black Males for Justice at the Social Security Administration (SSA). The SSA is headquartered in the 7th Congressional District and a large number of my constituents are employed there. While African American males comprise approximately 13 percent of the civilian labor force in the Baltimore metropolitan area, they make up only 5.7 percent of the headquarters staff. This gross under representation is compounded by allegations that Black males receive unfair and negative performance appraisals, are denied promotions, and are largely concentrated in lower grade positions.
Beyond the clear problems being faced by minorities at SSA, there appears to be abundant evidence that people of color and other minorities are being pushed aside and looked over throughout the federal government.
Two clear examples of the disparity minorities are facing can be found at the U.S. Interior and Agriculture Departments. Out of 1,159 General Schedule (GS) 15 level employees, only 38 are African Americans. At the Agriculture Department there are 31 Hispanic GS 15 employees out of 1,592. General Schedule is the grade classification given to most federal employees. Depending upon the time of service and the particular job a federal employee has, they are graded between GS 1 through 15. Several groups representing minority government employees have complained that people of color rarely get past a GS 5 level.
Furthermore, an April 1995 report by the Office of Personnel Management, stated that African Americans and Native Americans are discharged at significantly higher rates than other federal employees. The report concluded that African Americans were 2.4 percent more likely to be fired than whites, Hispanics, and Asians. Even more distressing was data in the report which stated that African American professional employees were nearly nine times more likely to be discharged than non-minority professionals in the Washington area. These findings make it extremely hard to argue that African Americans have achieved parity in the federal workplace.
EEOC currently has more than 100,000 discrimination cases pending and approximately 3,000 complaints are expected to be filed before the end of this year.
There was testimony before the subcommittee that many agency supervisors were never punished for discriminating against their employees. Indeed, some witnesses claim their managers were given promotions shortly after allegations were made against them. There is something wrong with a system where racism and unfairness is rewarded and those who speak out become targets for harassment and continued discrimination. Several people also told the committee that many of their colleagues chose not to attend the hearing after being intimidated by their supervisors and threatened with reprisals.
The Members on the House Civil Service Subcommittee listened very carefully to the charges being lodged by the employees of agencies we have the responsibility to oversee. There was a unanimous call by Subcommittee members to push for a workplace where people would be rewarded for hard work and not treated unfairly because of their race, gender, or ethnic origin.
Ironically, several people in the audience approached me at the hearing to tell me that their pending discrimination cases had suddenly been processed by their employers. They believed that the pending subcommittee hearings had pushed their supervisors into action after years of stalling and foot-dragging.
However, the affects of discrimination in the federal workplace reach far beyond the employee. What people fail to realize is that when you are passed over, pushed down, and ignored because of your race, gender, or ethnicity, it doesn’t just affect you. It affects every aspect of your life. Being held back and not allowed to become the best that you can be on your job keeps food off your table and affects the choice of school you send your child to. Being denied the opportunity for advancement affects the type of car you drive, where you live, and most important of all, it affects your morale and sense of self-worth. Simply stated, such unfairness has a direct affect on your quality of life.
A day will come in America when we will, as Dr. Martin Luther King said more than 30 years ago, "be judged by the content of our character and not by the color of our skin." Unfortunately, we have a long way to go before that dream becomes reality. African Americans have endured great atrocities and I believe it my duty as a Congressman to fight discrimination wherever it rears it’s ugly head, even within the federal government.
-The Honorable Elijah E. Cummings represents the 7th Congressional District of Maryland in the United States House of Representatives.