I-200 Attracts Top Federal Affirmative-Action Official
I-200 Attracts Top Federal Affirmative-Action Officialby Tom Brune
Seattle Times staff reporter
Shirley Wilcher, the nation's top enforcer of affirmative action, has come to Seattle to find out just what is going on here - and to defend race- and gender-based programs.
Wilcher concedes she was caught off guard by the latest news from Washington state because she had assumed the Northwest was liberal and diverse, the kind of place where affirmative action would be safe.
But then backers of Initiative 200, which would end many affirmative-action programs, gathered more than enough signatures to put it on the November ballot. And more than 40 black employees earlier this year filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against Boeing.
"I am rather surprised to hear that was going on," said Wilcher in an interview yesterday. "But I'm learning in this job not to be surprised, and not to make any assumptions about any part of the country."
Wilcher said she is not here to discuss I-200 or the Boeing case, but to explain how affirmative action works and to learn more about the extent of discrimination in Washington state. She was scheduled to host a "town hall" meeting from 1 to 4 p.m. today at the Jackson Federal Building in Seattle.
The timing of her appearance suggests that Wilcher is the first in a string of Clinton-administration officials who will visit the state as voters spend the next five months debating, dissecting and deciding how they will vote in November on I-200.
The initiative states it would ban preferences based on race, ethnicity and gender in state and local government employment, contracting and public college admissions. If passed, it would end the way most state and local public agencies practice affirmative action.
But it would not affect the hundreds of Washington state private companies that have affirmative-action plans because they are federal contractors.
They come under Wilcher and her agency. She is deputy assistant secretary of labor for federal contract compliance. Her agency has the unwieldy name of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP). It has a staff of 745 workers and a $62 million annual budget.
Although Wilcher and her agency are little-known, she wields great influence over affirmative action nationally.
The OFCCP was established by the same 1965 presidential order that created affirmative action for federal contractors, and is responsible for writing the regulations, monitoring employment practices and enforcing the rules, with the ultimate threat of cutting off federal business.
Although she has no control or direct influence over state and local government programs, those agencies often look to Wilcher for guidance and direction.
And her agency also would provide a shield for some state and local agencies' affirmative-action programs should I-200 pass. The initiative says agencies don't have to do anything that would jeopardize federal funds - so if an agency could show it was a federal contractor, I-200 would not apply.
Ironically, Wilcher said federal regulations do not require any state or local public agency that has a federal contract to have a formal affirmative-action plan.
And Wilcher said that her office only investigates a public agency if there are complaints. In California, where voters in 1996 approved a measure that rolled back affirmative action, Wilcher's office is investigating only a few cases in which there have been complaints.
Wilcher describes herself as a "testament to affirmative action." Her grandmother had a second-grade education and her parents were jazz musicians, but Wilcher moved from Akron, Ohio, to Boston to attend the exclusive Girl's Latin School, Mount Holyoke College and Harvard Law School.
In 1994, she became head of the OFCCP, with the plan of reinvigorating an agency she thought had been neglected by 12 years of a Republican in the White House. But she had to tone down her rhetoric when the GOP took control of Congress.
She jokes she likes to be called the "CEO of EEO." Her detractors, however, call her the "Quota Cop."
In taking over the agency, Wilcher has created a carrot-and-stick approach, easing some regulations and reaching out to establish better ties with businesses - under President Clinton's edict of "mend it don't end it" - while becoming more aggressive in enforcing affirmative-action requirements.
She has increased compliance reviews of contractors, and her agency has collected more than $150 million in back-pay and other settlements in the past four years.
Under a trial program last year, the agency sent out "testers" of paired job seekers with the same qualifications, one black and one white, to apply for positions with banks in the Washington, D.C., area. The testing found a disturbing pattern: In six of 10 instances, the black applicant was treated less favorably than the white applicant.
She also cites what she calls egregious cases: a manager offering a knife from the racist Ku Klux Klan in a company raffle, a memo noting that the best hire would have such features as blonde hair and blue eyes.
Wilcher said she knew of no such complaints in Washington state.
However, earlier this year 42 black men and a Native American filed a discrimination lawsuit against Boeing. That lawsuit was totally unexpected by Wilcher and her aides. Boeing has supported affirmative action for years, taking out ads in national publications and even recently pledging $50,000 to the campaign to defeat I-200.
In the past, Wilcher said, Boeing has been "very cordial" with her. She recalled that on her last visit to Seattle, Boeing let her take a ride on the 777 flight simulator.
After learning of the lawsuit, the OFCCP immediately began investigating Boeing. The company is cooperating, Wilcher said.
Wilcher said she thinks it is important to explain better to the public just what affirmative action is, how it operates and, just as important, what it is not. "Affirmative action is not preferences," she said adamantly and repeatedly.
In the town-hall meeting this afternoon, Wilcher and her staff will be making presentations for three of the four hours. The last hour will be reserved for questions from people who registered last week to make comments.
John Carlson, co-chairman of Initiative 200, however, will not be among them. The federal agency sent out invitations to the meeting, but Carlson said he did not get one. He's sending someone to monitor the proceedings, anyway.
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Carl
Gutiérrez-Jones
Department of English
University of California, Santa Barbara
e-mail: carlgj@humanitas.ucsb.edu