[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


 
                           DIVERSITY AT DHS:
                   KEEPING PACE OR MISSING THE MARK?

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               before the

                     COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                       ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                              MAY 21, 2008

                               __________

                           Serial No. 110-116

                               __________

       Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
                                     

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                     COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

               Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi, Chairman

Loretta Sanchez, California          Peter T. King, New York
Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts      Lamar Smith, Texas
Norman D. Dicks, Washington          Christopher Shays, Connecticut
Jane Harman, California              Mark E. Souder, Indiana
Peter A. DeFazio, Oregon             Tom Davis, Virginia
Nita M. Lowey, New York              Daniel E. Lungren, California
Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of   Mike Rogers, Alabama
Columbia                             David G. Reichert, Washington
Zoe Lofgren, California              Michael T. McCaul, Texas
Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas            Charles W. Dent, Pennsylvania
Donna M. Christensen, U.S. Virgin    Ginny Brown-Waite, Florida
Islands                              Gus M. Bilirakis, Florida
Bob Etheridge, North Carolina        David Davis, Tennessee
James R. Langevin, Rhode Island      Paul C. Broun, Georgia
Henry Cuellar, Texas                 Candice S. Miller, Michigan
Christopher P. Carney, Pennsylvania
Yvette D. Clarke, New York
Al Green, Texas
Ed Perlmutter, Colorado
Bill Pascrell, Jr., New Jersey

       Jessica Herrera-Flanigan, Staff Director & General Counsel

                     Rosaline Cohen, Chief Counsel

                     Michael Twinchek, Chief Clerk

                Robert O'Connor, Minority Staff Director

                                  (II)


                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

                               Statements

The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress 
  From the State of Mississippi, and Chairman, Committee on 
  Homeland Security..............................................     1
The Honorable Mike Rogers, a Representative in Congress From the 
  State of Alabama...............................................     2
The Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative in Congress 
  From the State of Texas:
  Prepared Statement.............................................     3

                               Witnesses

Ms. Elaine C. Duke, Under Secretary for Management, Department of 
  Homeland Security:
  Oral Statement.................................................     5
  Prepared Statement.............................................     6
Mr. George H. Stalcup, Director of Strategic Issues, Government 
  Accountability Office:
  Oral Statement.................................................    10
  Prepared Statement.............................................    11
Ms. Stacey D. Stewart, Senior Vice President and Chief Diversity 
  Officer, Fannie Mae Corporation:
  Oral Statement.................................................    34
  Prepared Statement.............................................    35

                                Appendix

Questions From Chairman Bennie G. Thompson.......................    55


          DIVERSITY AT DHS: KEEPING PACE OR MISSING THE MARK?

                              ----------                              


                        Wednesday, May 21, 2008

                     U.S. House of Representatives,
                            Committee on Homeland Security,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:10 a.m., in Room 
311, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Bennie G. Thompson 
[chairman of the committee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Thompson, Dicks, Norton, Jackson 
Lee, Etheridge, Cuellar, Pascrell, Rogers, and Dent.
    Chairman Thompson. The Committee on Homeland Security will 
come to order.
    The committee is meeting today to receive testimony on 
``Diversity at DHS: Keeping Pace or Missing the Mark?''
    I am told that some people may question why this committee 
is examining the Department's workforce diversity. In response 
to those concerns, I want to read the following quote: 
``Research shows that organizations employing an effective 
diversity strategy based on the concepts of inclusion and 
respect for differences enhance their creative problem-solving, 
organizational flexibility and mission effectiveness.''
    While I agree with those words, they are not my words. The 
words were contained in a June 2007 report on the Department's 
Diversity Initiative that was issued by Marta Brito Perez, 
former chief human capital officer at the Department of 
Homeland Security. However, within 6 months after issuing the 
report, Ms. Brito Perez had left the Department.
    In March 2008, majority committee staff issued a report 
examining the diversity in the senior executive and leadership 
ranks at the Department. With few exceptions, the report found 
that the Department lagged behind other fellow agencies in its 
representation of women and minorities in the Senior Executive 
Service.
    In April 2008, the acting chief human capital officer 
testified at a joint hearing before the Senate Homeland 
Security and Government Affairs Committee and the House 
Committee on Government Oversight. He stated that, while DHS 
had formed a diversity council, it still had not issued a 
corporate diversity strategy or implemented a diversity action 
plan for the remainder of fiscal year 2008 through fiscal year 
2010.
    Since Ms. Brito Perez's report, several disturbing 
incidents have occurred at the Department. Racially offensive 
e-mails were sent among 20 supervisors at the Secret Service. A 
noose was found in the gear of an African American Coast Guard 
cadet. An ICE employee wore skin-darkening makeup and prison 
garb to a Halloween party.
    I cannot say that the inclusion of diversity in the upper 
ranks in the Department would have prevented these incidents, 
and I cannot say that the lack of diversity caused these 
incidents. But I can say there is a lack of diversity. I can 
say that these incidents happened. I can say that, with only 
one exception, those who carried out these actions were not 
disciplined.
    That leads me to believe that this Department, our newest 
Federal agency, has a long way to go toward becoming an 
organization that values inclusion and respects differences. As 
Chairman of this committee, my concern is that this lack of 
diversity, coupled with low morale, will hamper this 
Department's mission effectiveness, and that is too high a 
price to pay.
    So, today, we are meeting to examine workforce diversity at 
the Department, because, more than anything, we want the 
Department to be able to tap into the kind of creative problem-
solving, organizational flexibility and mission effectiveness 
that are hallmarks of organizations that employ effective 
diversity strategies.
    The Chair now recognizes the ranking member of the full 
committee, the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Rogers, for an 
opening statement.
    Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Let me start by thanking Elaine Duke for being back with 
the committee. I look forward to hearing from you.
    I thank the witnesses for taking time to be here with us 
today.
    As you heard the Chairman reference, we are looking at 
diversity in the Department of Homeland Security. Specifically, 
we will discuss what steps the Department is taking in this 
area, from the Senior Executive Service level right down to 
entry-level employees.
    SES employees, in particular, provide the crucial link 
between the top Presidential appointees and the rest of the 
Federal workforce. It is these folks who provide executive 
management for the Government and who will be critical in the 
transition of Federal agencies to the new administration.
    Just last month, the Department's acting personnel 
director, Mr. Bray Barnes, testified on the actions that DHS is 
taking to diversify its workforce. Mr. Barnes discussed the 
creation of the SES-level director of Recruiting and Diversity 
and the designation of the Department's DHS Diversity Council. 
These are all encouraging efforts.
    Today, we will hear from Ms. Duke about DHS efforts in this 
area, including outreach to minority-serving institutions like 
our historically black colleges and universities. In fact, in 
my district back home in Alabama, we have three HBCUs: Tuskegee 
University, Alabama State University and Talladega College. 
These institutions have a distinguished history, and their 
alumni have a strong record of contributions to Alabama and to 
our Nation.
    Through more vigorous recruiting efforts, better mentoring 
programs and the Department's SES Candidate Development 
Program, it seems like DHS is heading in the right direction in 
working to diversify its workforce.
    So, with that, I look forward to hearing from the 
witnesses. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
    Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much, Mr. Rogers.
    Other members of the committee are reminded that, under the 
rules, opening statements may be submitted for the record.
    [The statement of Hon. Jackson Lee follows:]

           Prepared Statement of the Hon. Sheila Jackson Lee

    WORKING DIVERSITY: THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY WORKFORCE

    DHS as it exists today is anything but a model of diversity. The 
data illustrates that few members of racial minority groups rise to 
senior leadership positions within the DHS. We must ensure that women, 
ethnic and racial minorities, and disabled Americans are given the 
opportunity to fully contribute to the Department's mission. When it 
comes to fighting the war on terror, we simply do not have a person to 
waste.
    In the past few years, press accounts have relayed several 
disturbing incidents with racial overtones that have taken place at the 
Department. Most recently, in May 2008, 10 racially insensitive emails 
written by at least 20 United States Secret Service supervisors were 
released as part of an ongoing discrimination suit filed by African 
American employees against the United States Secret Service (USSC). In 
July 2007, a noose was discovered in the personal belongings of an 
African-American male cadet aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Eagle. 
In August 2007, a second noose was found in the office of a Caucasian 
officer conducting diversity training at the Coast Guard Academy. 
Shortly thereafter, in October 2007, during a Halloween party at the 
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) headquarters, an ICE employee 
was awarded a prize for his costume, which consisted of a striped 
prison suit, dreadlocks and darkened skin makeup.
    There are a number of things we can do so that we reasonably 
accomplish our goal of a diverse and socially conscious Department of 
Homeland Security. Let us consider creating a multi-cultural affairs 
office/hiring of diversity affairs officer. Conduct research, perhaps 
by hiring an independent diversity consultant, to better assess and 
understand the diversity challenges at HLS for staff, students, and 
faculty, and to formulate suggestions. Conduct research to find out 
more about the structural disadvantages at HLS for some groups, 
including students of color and women, and to determine what HLS 
administration can do to remedy these disadvantages.
    We must ensure that DHS complies with equal opportunity employment 
and I believe that there are a few provisions that must be implemented 
before we can do so. First, we must ensure that there is a diverse 
workforce at the Department of Homeland Security: This provision 
requires the Chief Human Capital Officer to report to Congress a plan, 
with performance measures and timelines, to ensure participation rates 
of employees of all races, national origins, genders, and disabilities 
are at or above their representation levels in the overall U.S. 
population in all levels of the Department. Second, we must identify 
and address obstacles to small business, minority and women-owned 
procurement: This provision requires the Chief Procurement Officer to 
report to Congress on the areas in procurement where the Department 
fails to award at least 5% of the value of its contracts (a Federal-
government-wide goal) to businesses that are small, disadvantaged, 
women-owned, or in historically underutilized zones. The report should 
identify and describe the barriers leading to this failure and set 
forth a plan, with performance measures and timelines, to achieve the 
5% goal. Third, we must bring diversity to the Centers of Excellence 
program: This provision would require the Department to select from a 
pool of Historically-Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic 
Serving Institutions, and Tribally-Controlled Colleges in the next 
round of the Centers of Excellence program. Institutions that 
participate in the Centers of Excellence program have not been 
partnering with HBCUs and other minority-serving institutions as urged 
by the program requirements.
    The diversity of the senior career leadership is of significant 
concern because members of the Federal career Senior Executive Service 
(SES) serve just below Presidential appointees and provide an important 
link between political appointees and the rest of the Federal 
workforce. The Office of Personnel Management recommended that agencies 
incorporate diversity program activities and objectives into agency 
workforce and executive succession planning, incorporate diversity into 
recruitment planning activities and use tools and techniques that are 
more likely to discover and attract a more diverse field of applicants. 
As the newest and one of the largest Federal departments, DHS should 
serve as a model of diversity for all Federal agencies. In order for 
DHS to realize its potential and become the agency Congress intended, 
DHS must actively seek to bring divergent perspectives to bear on every 
aspect of its operations.
    As of March, 2007, African-Americans comprised 14.5% of DHS's 
overall workforce. Asians represented 4.2% and other races comprised 
only 1.6% of DHS's overall workforce. African-Americans comprised 8.5% 
of the Executive Branch SES, but only 6.5% of the DHS career SES. All 
other racial groups combined together (including Native Americans, 
Pacific Islanders, and persons of several racial backgrounds) comprised 
1.7% of the Executive Branch SES, but only 0.7% of the DHS career SES. 
In addition, women comprised 28.9% of the Executive Branch SES, but 
only 25.3% of the career DHS.
    In June 2007, the Department's Chief Human Capital Officer, Marta 
Brita Perez, issued a report on the Department's Diversity Initiative 
entitled, ``Diversity Works!: Finding, Hiring, and Keeping a Qualified 
Diverse Workforce,'' which acknowledged and identified a number of 
diversity problems that the Department has faced. As a result of the 
report findings, the Department developed a diversification strategy 
with 3 key aims: developing recommendations on strategic efforts to 
recruit and hire a qualified and diverse workforce; creating 
initiatives to ensure qualified and diverse individuals are retained 
through continuous learning interventions at the entry, mid and senior 
levels; and providing specific recommendations on how DHS can ensure 
that Minority Serving Institutions are represented fully in all of the 
functional homeland security mission areas including research and 
development. Despite this positive first step in the right direction, 
only months after issuing the report, Secretary Chertoff announced the 
resignations of Ms. Perez.
    Mr. Chairman, it has been almost a year since the issuing of the 
report that Secretary Chertoff has ensured will guide the Department 
through 2009, however, there have been no tangible changes. After 
almost a year, it appears that several of the diversity initiatives 
proposed are still in the planning stages. Just last month, the Acting 
Chief Human Capital Officer testified in a joint hearing before the 
Senate Subcommittee on Oversight and Government Management and the 
House Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce that the DHS Diversity 
Council has yet to issue a Corporate Diversity Strategy or implement a 
Diversity Plan of Action for the remainder of fiscal year 2008 through 
fiscal year 2010. This is absolutely unacceptable; if the Department is 
as dedicated, as they say, to ensuring a diverse and representative 
workforce, they have done little to substantively translate dedication 
to reality. There must be some sort of accountability mechanism 
implemented to ensure that the Department transitions into a diverse 
workplace where people of all races, ethnicities, and genders, can work 
productively with one another and consequently produce a more dynamic 
Department.
    I am committed to creating an environment where all Americans can 
participate, regardless of their gender, race, ethnic origin or 
disability. This does not just happen. As members of this committee, we 
must give the Department guidance to create just such an environment 
and guarantee that all Americans can participate in efforts to secure 
our Nation. There is much more to be done to translate this goal into a 
reality, but I am confident that should we work with the Department we 
can ensure its fruition.

    Chairman Thompson. I welcome our panel of witnesses.
    Our first witness, Ms. Elaine Duke, is Under Secretary for 
Management at the Department of Homeland Security. She has been 
with the Department since 2003. As Under Secretary for 
Management, she oversees all management functions, including 
personnel and procurement.
    Our second witness is Mr. George Stalcup, director of 
strategic issues at the U.S. Government Accountability Office. 
Mr. Stalcup has been with GAO for 34 years. In his position, he 
is responsible for overseeing a range of reviews of management 
issues across government, including a variety of human capital 
issues.
    Our third witness is Ms. Stacey Stewart. Ms. Stewart is 
Fannie Mae Corporation's chief diversity officer and senior 
vice president. Ms. Stewart leads Fannie Mae's diversity and 
inclusion strategy and the overall corporate-giving strategy 
and programs. As chief diversity officer, Ms. Stewart is 
responsible for the development and implementation of 
strategies that foster a diverse and inclusive workforce and 
business environment.
    Without objection, the witnesses' full statements will be 
inserted in the record. I now ask each witness to summarize his 
or her statement for 5 minutes, beginning with Ms. Duke of DHS.

 STATEMENT OF ELAINE C. DUKE, UNDER SECRETARY FOR MANAGEMENT, 
                DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

    Ms. Duke. Good morning, Chairman Thompson, Ranking Member 
Rogers and members of the committee. It is an honor to appear 
before you again today to discuss diversity issues within the 
Department of Homeland Security.
    When the President and Congress called for the integration 
of 22 disparate agencies 5 years ago, we answered the call and 
stood up a Department that today is nearly 210,000 employees 
strong. I have had the opportunity to be with these employees, 
dedicated, working across the Department to meet our mission. I 
also have seen that, as a Department, we do have to improve our 
diversity.
    Expanding diversity such as gender, geographic, economic, 
ethnic and veteran representation of this workforce will 
increase the Department's success and bring better benefit to 
the American public, and we are committed to doing this.
    We are approaching diversity in two ways: how we recruit 
externally and how we grow our employees internally.
    On finding the right people for the right job, our external 
focus, we are casting the widest net possible in a very 
competitive labor market. We have focused resources to actively 
reach out to candidates more than ever before. We are 
recruiting for qualified applicants at career fairs; 
historically black colleges and universities such as Texas 
Southern University, Jackson State University and Tougaloo 
College; and have a robust on-campus recruiting schedule for 
this fall at other colleges and universities.
    We are expanding our internship program to include the 
Delta Regional Homeland Security Intern Partnership. We are 
providing grants to minorities-serving institutions to develop 
needed research and analysis capabilities to service our 
homeland security mission.
    We are building a partnership with the Urban League's Black 
Executive Program, where 150 DHS employees have volunteered to 
work with recruiting in this Urban League program. We are 
establishing similar partnerships with the National Association 
of Hispanic Federal Executives, the African American Federal 
Executive Association, and Asian American Executive Network, 
where DHS employees participate on panels and provide SES 
preparatory workshops on how to compete for the Federal Senior 
Executive Service.
    We are also expanding our veterans outreach strategy, which 
was launched in the fall of 2007 and cited as one of our best 
practices.
    Once we have recruited top talent from our diverse pool of 
candidates, we want to make sure we provide them with the right 
tools and environment to succeed. This is where training and 
development is important to our success.
    We are preparing qualified and diverse GS-14- and GS-15-
level employees for SES positions through new programs, such as 
the SES Candidate Development Program. Our most recent class, 
we had 23 employees selected with great diversity within that, 
including 22 percent African American, 13 percent Hispanic and 
30 percent women.
    We have our DHS Fellows Program, which focuses on training 
and rotational assignments across various organizations within 
DHS. The current Fellows Program is a cohort of 50 
participants, including 20 percent minority and 30 percent 
women.
    We are mentoring and coaching our employees to ensure that 
they are ready for the senior executive positions within the 
Department.
    As we train and develop our employees, we want to make sure 
they stay and are happy working at the Department. One such way 
we accomplish employee retention is by identifying early our 
high-potential candidates, including those from diverse groups, 
so that they can be placed in the leadership development 
programs I just mentioned. We want to create an environment 
where our employees can perform and be promoted and succeed to 
their fullest potential.
    We are also applying the best practices that mirror the 
nine GAO recommendations. We are managing diversity under a 
council I recently formed called the DHS Diversity Council. 
This council consists of senior management officials throughout 
the Department, where each member of the council signed a 
charter and pledged their commitment to diversity at DHS. The 
council is issuing a corporate diversity strategy and 
implementing a diversity action plan for the remainder of 2008, 
going out through 2010.
    We recently designated an SES-level director of recruiting 
and diversity within our Chief Human Capital Office. This 
individual is responsible for implementing strategic programs 
to recruit a more diverse talent pool for all jobs, including 
the SES corps. These efforts are critical given that 26 percent 
of our career executives are eligible to retire in 2008, 34 
percent in 2009, and 41 percent will be eligible in 2010.
    We believe this sustained and continuing focus on diversity 
will yield the results that both the Department and this 
committee need and demand.
    I have observed that our ability to achieve our mission is 
critical on having the best workforce, and we think diversity 
is one of those elements.
    I am pleased to answer your questions in this hearing. 
Thank you.
    [The statement of Ms. Duke follows:]

                  Prepared Statement of Elaine C. Duke
                              May 21, 2008

    Chairman Thompson, Ranking Member King, and Members of the 
committee, it is an honor to appear before you today to discuss 
diversity issues within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
    When the President and Congress called for the integration of 22 
disparate agencies, we answered the call and stood up an agency that 
today is nearly 210,000 employees strong. I have had the opportunity to 
meet with and observe the hard work and dedication of employees from 
across the Department. I have observed how our ability to achieve 
critical mission objectives depends upon the experience, knowledge, 
diligence, and training of our employees. Expanding diversity such as 
gender, geographic, economic, ethnic, and veteran representation of 
this workforce will increase the variety of available skills and 
knowledge that can be employed in pursuit of the Department's success, 
thereby bringing greater benefit to American public.

                               COMMITMENT

    DHS is committed to improving current diversity efforts and 
creating better solutions to areas in need of attention. The Department 
maintains this commitment with good cause as we recognize diversity as 
a management and mission imperative for success.
   Better business decisions are made when diverse points of 
        view are considered.
   Diversity improves problem solving capabilities by bringing 
        more diverse viewpoints to the table.
   Teams perform better when their members represent diverse 
        backgrounds and experiences that can expand the knowledge of 
        all participants.
   Embracing differences is vital to making DHS stronger and 
        more productive by helping it to better understand mission 
        environments and how to better serve the public.
   Creating an organizational culture of inclusion that 
        leverages diversity, leads to higher employee morale--improving 
        retention and productivity.

                               CURRENTLY

    At present, the Department of Homeland Security recognizes the need 
to achieve a qualified diverse workforce, particularly in its senior 
executive service (SES) appointments. DHS is below the Federal 
Government's percent representation of minority populations in its SES 
cadre. We also recognize the need for ensuring diversity across the DHS 
workforce. In light of our recent Human Capital survey, I wish to 
inform you today of current and future efforts within DHS to improve 
the range of skills and expertise that can be put into action in 
support of the Department's mission.
    With strong encouragement from Secretary Chertoff and Acting Deputy 
Secretary Schneider, I am leading the design and have begun the 
implementation of a new strategy to increase diversity across our 
workforce with particular attention on the leadership and executive 
ranks. This strategy includes initiatives to identify, train, and 
promote high performing employees and is coupled with external efforts 
to attract, recruit, and hire diverse applicants and potential leaders. 
This strategy incorporates a multifaceted approach to recruitment, 
training and development and retention of high performing employees. It 
is our aim that these efforts will bring diversity to the forefront of 
organizational development.

                              RECRUITMENT

    DHS has focused resources and is actively reaching out to 
candidates more than ever before. We are expanding our networks with 
local associations and universities to inform them of DHS employment 
opportunities beyond the USAjobs website. Expansion of this network 
provides us broader opportunities to introduce our new branding 
efforts, our ``Proud to Protect'' campaign. In seeking applicants with 
mission critical skills, our talent experts demonstrate the importance 
of and a respect for the benefits of diversity, while recognizing that 
all applicants will be evaluated only on their qualifications for each 
position. However, initiatives aimed at increasing DHS' diversity by 
expanding our applicant pool through targeted, out-reach efforts is 
imperative. Our efforts include:

   Recruiting for qualified applicants at career fairs, 
        historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). We 
        established relationships with ``Minority Serving 
        Institutions,'' in particular: Texas Southern University, 
        Jackson State University and Tougaloo College. In addition, we 
        also have a robust on-campus recruiting schedule for this fall 
        at other colleges and universities.
   Working with the academic community through Science and 
        Technology's (S&T) Office of University Programs to develop 
        needed research and analysis, and providing education and 
        training to enhance DHS homeland security capabilities. We are 
        supporting this initiative through three primary programmatic 
        areas including university-based system of DHS Centers of 
        Excellence, DHS Science, Technology, Engineering and 
        Mathematics Education Programs, and Minority Serving 
        Institutions, such as Historically Black Colleges and 
        Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-Serving Institutions, Tribal 
        Colleges and Universities, and Native Alaskan/Hawaiian/Pacific 
        Islander serving institutions. Homeland Security S&T is 
        striving to build a homeland security scientific community that 
        reflects the face of America and has a strong stake in 
        preserving its institutions and way of life.
   Expanding internship programs such as the Delta Region 
        Homeland Security Internship Program. The Department's mission 
        is national in scope and requires many levels of strategic 
        cooperation and communication between Federal, State, local, 
        and private interests. These multi-level partnerships have 
        become critical for coordinating and maintaining regional 
        emergency prevention and response efforts. The primary goal of 
        the Delta Region Homeland Security Internship Program is to 
        expose talented college students in southern Delta regional 
        locations to the various DHS component agencies in the area and 
        provide opportunities to learn about and support critical 
        mission efforts.
   Participating in panels on careers in Federal Government and 
        providing SES preparatory workshops hosted by minority 
        associations such as the African American Federal Executive 
        Association, the National Association of Hispanic Federal 
        Executives and the Asian American Executive Network.
   Expanding upon our robust Veterans Outreach strategy which 
        was launched in October 2007 and cited as a best practice. The 
        strategy includes a one-stop web site for Veterans seeking to 
        continue their service to America by working for DHS. The 
        establishment of a Veterans Outreach Advisory forum is composed 
        of various Veterans Services Organizations (VSOs) which advises 
        on our veterans outreach efforts. As a result of this forum's 
        input, we developed a new recruitment brochure targeted to 
        Veterans with the marketing theme of ``Proud to Protect. 
        Continue Your Service to America with DHS.'' Currently, 40,468 
        veterans are employed at DHS or 24.2 percent of the total 
        permanent civilian workforce. Of this veteran population at 
        DHS, 6,407 are disabled. Later this year, we plan to establish 
        a DHS speakers cadre that will train veterans working in DHS to 
        speak to veterans groups. This will greatly expand our capacity 
        for outreach.

                          TRAINING/DEVELOPMENT

    A crucial factor in the recruitment and retention of a diverse 
workforce is the development of current supervisors within the 
Department who have the skills to manage and mentor diverse 
populations. We are increasing our efforts to develop a qualified and 
diverse pool of applicants that focuses on preparing current GS-14 and 
GS-15 for our SES positions through new programs, such as:

   The SES Candidate Development Program (CDP).--Of the 23 DHS 
        employees recently selected for the next SES Candidate 
        Development Program which is approved by Office of Personnel 
        Management (OPM), 22 percent are African American, 13 percent 
        are Hispanic, and 30 percent are women.
   The DHS Fellows Program and Follow on Rotational 
        Assignments.--Managing diversity within the workplace means 
        creating an environment where each employee is empowered to 
        contribute to the work of the unit, being sensitive and alert 
        to the interactions among and between leadership and staff. Our 
        DHS Fellows program highlights the value of rotational 
        assignments to learning important skills for managing a diverse 
        workforce across various organizational environments. The 
        current Fellows cohort of 50 participants ending next October 
        is 20 percent minority and 30 percent women. Rotational 
        assignments are key elements of the Fellows and CDP programs. 
        In addition, more than 200 employees are currently on ad hoc 
        rotational assignments beyond these two programs.
   Career Development for Women.--In April 2008, DHS 
        headquarters held a forum on career development for women. This 
        forum consisted of panel discussions, and speakers focused on 
        mentoring current DHS employees interested in SES positions.
   Growth of Mentoring and Coaching Initiatives.--An important 
        part of our development programs is to offer mentoring and 
        coaching. Effective mentoring in a multicultural setting means 
        understanding diverse learning styles and approaches to 
        problem-solving. Most important, mentoring in a diverse 
        workplace requires providing appropriate feedback by 
        supervisors to employees of their contributions to 
        accomplishing the mission. Our mentoring and coaching 
        initiatives emphasize the practice and teaching of these 
        skills.
    Other elements of career development include:
   Career Pathing Program. This program seeks to ensure that 
        DHS employees have the opportunities to advance within the 
        Department. For example, this past year, 480 Transportation 
        Security Officers applied for and were hired into positions 
        with Customs and Border Protection.
   Identifying critical jobs within the Department where 
        success qualifies employees for promotion and encouraging 
        minorities to compete for such positions thereby further 
        developing the leadership pipeline.
   Offering on-line training via our web-enabled learning 
        management system to continue development of personal, 
        professional and technical skills related to the numerous 
        homeland security positions within the Department.
   Prototyping diversity management training for managers and 
        executives and diversity awareness training for all DHS 
        employees.

                               RETENTION

    Early identification of high-potential employees, including those 
from diverse groups such as minorities, women, and people with 
disabilities, is critical to their retention. Early identification 
allows them to be placed in leadership development programs, which can 
lead to continued performance and the potential for promotion to their 
next job. Our other strategies to retain high-performing employees 
include:

   Continuing to use Human Capital employee surveys to study 
        what makes employees stay, to try to understand work-life 
        issues, and what can be done to enhance retention and attract 
        new talent.
   Continuing to sponsor Human Capital focus groups allowing 
        for responses and the submission of ideas for improvement to 
        occur on a confidential basis.
   Work to broadly announce job opportunities internally to 
        allow individuals to consider lateral/upward moves across 
        business units, thereby expanding their background and 
        experience and increasing overall employee satisfaction and 
        retention.
   Establishing an external Diversity Outreach Advisory Forum 
        of interested stakeholders to assist in DHS' diversity outreach 
        plans and efforts;
   Analyzing departure of employees for weaknesses in diversity 
        strategy through exit interviews. We have begun this within the 
        headquarter components and plan to expand it throughout the 
        Department.
    These efforts will contribute to be proactive, strategic approach 
to recruiting, developing, retaining and promoting a high-performing 
and diverse workforce and we will continue to adapt best practice 
recommendations that are applicable to DHS' military and civilian 
workforce.

                    ACCOUNTABILITY AND LOOKING AHEAD

    I look forward to reporting improvements in diversity to our 
employees, and the Committee that result from increasing accountability 
in substantial ways. Recent developments demonstrating our commitment 
include:
   I recently formed the DHS Diversity Council which consists 
        of senior management officials from the major operating 
        components and headquarter offices. Each member of the council 
        signed the charter pledging their commitment to diversity at 
        DHS. Among the Council's most pressing actions will be issuing 
        a DHS Corporate Diversity Strategy and implementing a Diversity 
        Action Plan for the remainder of fiscal year 2008 through 
        fiscal year 2010.
   DHS has one of the largest law enforcement populations with 
        the Federal agencies and as such created the Law Enforcement 
        Council. To further recruit and retain a diverse workforce, 
        this Council meets to discuss three things: (1) Best 
        practices--the Council is an open forum for the different law 
        enforcement components to share information; (2) Discuss 
        quality of life issues; and (3) Training opportunities. With 
        respect to training, DHS is currently developing a Law 
        Enforcement Professional program. The program identifies 
        eligible participants to take certain training courses as well 
        as complete rotations and meet with a mentor to further help 
        them prepare for other law enforcement positions throughout the 
        Department.
   We recently created a SES-level Director of Recruiting and 
        Diversity within our Chief Human Capital Office. This position 
        is responsible for implementing strategic programs to recruit a 
        more diverse talent pool for all jobs within DHS, including the 
        SES corps. These efforts are critical given that 26 percent of 
        our career executives are eligible to retire in 2008, 34 
        percent in 2009, and 41 percent will be eligible for retirement 
        in 2010.
   We are reviewing our SES hiring procedures to identify 
        potential best practices that would integrate attention to 
        diversity in our current processes.
   Issuing specific guidance to hold executives accountable for 
        the ``Diversity Advocate'' competency in their performance 
        plans.
   Determining the feasibility and return on investment in 
        using the services of an executive search firm with a proven 
        record in attracting high caliber diverse candidates for 
        executive positions.
    In the very near future DHS will execute other elements of our 
diversity strategy such as:
   Continuing our formal partnership with the Urban League's 
        Black Executive Program (BEEP) whereby 150 DHS employees have 
        volunteered, with management endorsement, to serve as 
        presenters and speakers at BEEP events at HBCUs. Since entering 
        into this vital partnership this year, DHS speakers have 
        participated at 11 events at such HBCUs as Mississippi Valley 
        State University, Tennessee State University, Florida A&M 
        University, Hampton University, and others.
   Establishing similar partnerships with the National 
        Association of Hispanic Federal Executives and the African 
        American Federal Executive Association, and the Asian American 
        Executive Network. We will be providing our SES vacancy 
        listings to these organizations for distributing amongst their 
        memberships, and we will provide them with speakers, 
        presenters, and other similar support.
    We are pleased with your interest and support in ensuring that DHS 
continues to increase the diversity of its workforce and we look 
forward to collaborations that will ensure success.

    Chairman Thompson. Thank you for your testimony.
    I now recognize Mr. Stalcup to summarize his statement for 
5 minutes.

 STATEMENT OF GEORGE H. STALCUP, DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC ISSUES, 
                GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

    Mr. Stalcup. Chairman Thompson, Ranking Member King and 
members of the committee, I, too, appreciate the opportunity to 
be here today to provide the committee with information on 
diversity in the Federal workforce and at DHS.
    The Federal Government is facing new and more complex 
challenges in the 21st century, and Federal agencies must 
transform their organizations to meet these challenges. Given 
the significant challenges related to protecting the Nation 
while organizing 22 predecessor agencies into a coherent and 
integrated department, GAO designated the implementation and 
transformation of DHS as a high-risk area in 2003.
    From its inception in 2003, one key challenge DHS has faced 
is managing its sizable workforce. Strategic human capital 
management must be the centerpiece of any serious change in 
management strategy. Given the changing demographics of our 
society, diversity management is a key ingredient.
    Today, as requested, my remarks will focus on the workforce 
demographic data for career employees, both Government-wide and 
at DHS, including the changes between 2003 and 2007.
    Over that span, there were slight increases in 
representation for nearly all of the minority groups within 
DHS. Comparing Government-wide data to DHS data, the biggest 
differences were among Hispanic men. In both 2003 and 2007, 
their representation within DHS was more than 10 percentage 
points higher than representation Government-wide. For white 
women, in both years of their representation within DHS, it was 
nearly 10 points lower. For both 2003 and 2007, the 
representation of women in all DHS minority groups, with the 
exception of Hispanic women, was below the Government level.
    My full statement also provides data on career 
representation within DHS by pay plan and grade and by 
organizational component, again, for 2003 and 2007.
    We also focused on career representation within the SES. 
Generally the most experienced segment of the Federal 
workforce, these leadership positions are critical. Having a 
diverse SES corps can be an organizational strength by bringing 
a wider variety of perspectives and approaches to bear on 
policy development and implementation, strategic planning, 
problem-solving and decision-making.
    Representation of nearly all minority groups within the 
career SES Government-wide increased slightly between 2003 and 
2007. The exception was for African American males, whose 
representation declined from 5.6 to 5.0 percent.
    At DHS, changes in representation within the SES over the 
same time were generally greater than those Government-wide. 
The percentage of white women was 23.1 percent in 2007, 5.8 
percent points above the 2003 rate of 17.3. The percentage of 
white men dropped by 3.1 points--66.8 to 63.7--while the 
percentage of African American men dropped by 2.3 points--6.3 
to 4.0. Overall, minorities within the SES decreased by 2.7 
points--15.9 to 13.2.
    My full statement also provides demographic data on GS-14 
and GS-15 levels, considered the developmental pool for the SES 
over the same 4-year span. While Government-wide developmental 
pool numbers declined slightly between 2003 and 2007, the 
number in DHS's developmental pool increased by about 55 
percent, from 6,500 to over 10,000. Both Government-wide and at 
DHS, the minority representation within the developmental pool 
is generally higher than within the SES.
    We did not analyze the factors that contributed to these 
changes in representation within the DHS workforce over that 4-
year span. However, OPM and EEOC, in their oversight roles, 
require Federal agencies, including DHS, to analyze their 
workforces and report annually. Both the EEOC and OPM, in turn, 
report annually on Government-wide representation levels.
    An agency's human capital planning should address 
demographic trends that the agency faces with its workforce, 
especially anticipated turnover. We recently reported that 
about 20 percent of DHS's career workforce will be retirement-
eligible by 2012, and overall rates for other attrition of 
permanent DHS employees are nearly twice the average rates for 
other agencies.
    Although most employees do not retire immediately upon 
becoming eligible, turnover resulting from retirements and from 
other attrition presents both a need for effective planning and 
an opportunity to effect workforce diversity.
    DHS officials have cited several actions taken, under way 
to create and to manage a diverse workforce. We have not 
assessed these efforts. However, the actions as described by 
Department officials are consistent with some of the leading 
diversity management practices in areas such as recruitment and 
succession planning identified in an earlier study we 
conducted.
    That concludes my remarks, and I would be happy to answer 
any questions.
    [The statement of Mr. Stalcup follows:]

                Prepared Statement of George H. Stalcup
                              May 21, 2008

                             GAO HIGHLIGHTS

    Highlights of GAO-08-815T, a testimony before the Committee on 
Homeland Security, House of Representatives.
Why GAO Did This Study
    The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was created from a 
disparate group of agencies with multiple missions, values, and 
cultures into a cabinet department whose goals are to, among other 
things, protect U.S. borders and infrastructure, improve intelligence 
and information sharing, and prevent and respond to potential terrorist 
attacks. GAO designated the implementation and transformation of DHS as 
a high-risk area in 2003, and it remains so. While DHS has made 
progress, it continues to face challenges in transforming into an 
effective, integrated organization.
    In response to a request to provide information on diversity in DHS 
and steps DHS is taking to create and manage a diverse workforce, GAO 
is providing demographic data related to the Federal Government as a 
whole and DHS's workforce. GAO obtained these data from the Office of 
Personnel Management's (OPM) Central Personnel Data File (CPDF). GAO 
used its past work on leading diversity management practices (GAO-05-
90) and reviewed data from DHS on its diversity management practices.

     HUMAN CAPITAL.--WORKFORCE DIVERSITY GOVERNMENTWIDE AND AT THE 
                    DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

What GAO Found
    Data in OPM's CPDF show that as of September 2007, the overall 
percentages of women and minorities have increased in the career SES 
governmentwide, the highest nonpolitically appointed leaders in the 
Federal workforce, and the SES developmental pool for potential 
successors since September 2003.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                       September 2003                    September 2007
                                             -------------------------------------------------------------------
               Governmentwide                                   Percent                           Percent
                                                Number  -----------------------   Number  ----------------------
                                                           Women    Minorities               Women    Minorities
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SES.........................................      6,221       26.4        15.2      6,555       29.1        15.8
SES potential developmental pool (GS-15s and    152,123       30.4        18.8    149,149       34.3        22.5
 GS-14s)....................................
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: GAO analysis of OPM's CPDF.

    As part of GAO's recent analysis of the diversity of the SES and 
the SES developmental pool, GAO reviewed career, or permanent, SES 
appointments at DHS and DHS's SES developmental pool.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                       September 2003                    September 2007
                                             -------------------------------------------------------------------
                     DHS                                        Percent                           Percent
                                                Number  -----------------------   Number  ----------------------
                                                           Women    Minorities               Women    Minorities
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SES.........................................        208       21.2        15.9        325       26.2        13.2
SES potential developmental pool (GS-15s and      6,525       30.2        19.5     10,107       32.5        24.1
 GS-14s)....................................
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: GAO analysis of OPM's CPDF.

    During this 4-year period, the total number of career SES and those 
in the SES developmental pool for potential successors increased at 
DHS. The percentage of women in the SES increased, while the percentage 
of minorities decreased. For the SES developmental pool, the percentage 
of women and minorities increased. While GAO did not analyze the 
factors that contributed to changes in DHS's workforce for this period, 
OPM and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in their oversight 
roles require Federal agencies, including DHS, to analyze their 
workforces.
    As part of a strategic human capital planning approach, agencies 
need to develop long-term strategies for acquiring, developing, 
motivating, and retaining a diverse workforce. An agency's human 
capital planning should address the demographic trends that the agency 
faces with its workforce, especially retirements, which provide 
opportunities for agencies to affect the diversity of their workforces. 
DHS reported taking steps to affect the diversity of its workforce. 
These steps are consistent with several leading diversity management 
practices: (1) A diversity strategy as part of its strategic plan; (2) 
recruitment; (3) employee involvement; and (4) succession planning. For 
example, DHS cited its use of intern programs for recruiting and its 
implementation of two leadership development programs for managing 
succession. GAO has not conducted a review of DHS's diversity 
management efforts; therefore, it cannot comment on the effectiveness 
of DHS's implementation of these practices.
    Chairman Thompson, Ranking Member King, and Members of the 
committee: I am pleased to be here today to provide the committee with 
information on diversity of the Federal workforce and at the Department 
of Homeland Security (DHS), which was created from a disparate group of 
22 agencies with multiple missions, values, and cultures into a cabinet 
department whose goals are to, among other things, protect U.S. borders 
and infrastructure, improve intelligence and information sharing, and 
prevent and respond to potential terrorist attacks. Since its inception 
in March 2003, DHS has faced enormous challenges related to protecting 
the Nation from terrorism while organizing its predecessor agencies--
several with existing program and management challenges--into a 
coherent and integrated department.
    Because these challenges could have serious consequences for the 
security of our country, we designated the Department's implementation 
and transformation a high-risk area in 2003 and reiterated our concerns 
in January 2005 and again in January 2007.\1\ One key challenge DHS has 
faced is effectively and strategically managing its sizable workforce 
of nearly 167,000 employees in order to respond to current and emerging 
21st century challenges.\2\ Strategic human capital management must be 
the centerpiece of any serious change management strategy. Also, given 
the changing demographics of our society, diversity management is a key 
aspect of strategic human capital management. Developing a workforce 
that reflects all segments of society and our Nation's diversity is a 
significant part of an agency's transformation of its organization to 
meet the challenges of the 21st century.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ GAO, High Risk Series: An Update, GAO-07-310 (Washington, DC: 
Jan. 31, 2007).
    \2\ The 167,000 employees include those that are permanent, or 
career, and nonpermanent, or noncareer, as of September 2007. In this 
testimony, we only provide information on career employees.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Today, as requested, my remarks will focus on demographic data 
related to career positions in the Federal Government as a whole and 
DHS's workforce as well as actions the Department has reported taking 
to create and manage a diverse workforce. For our analyses of 
governmentwide career and DHS career demographic data, we extracted 
data from the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) Central Personnel 
Data File (CPDF) and analyzed these data to identify the extent of 
changes in the representation of women and minorities in DHS's 
workforce between September 2003 and September 2007. However, we did 
not analyze the factors that contributed to changes identified in DHS's 
workforce over this 4-year period. We believe the CPDF is sufficiently 
reliable for the informational purpose of this testimony. We previously 
reported that governmentwide data from the CPDF for the key variables 
reported in this testimony--agency, gender, race or national origin, 
and pay plan or grade--were 96 percent or more accurate.\3\ We also 
obtained information from DHS on recruitment and other strategies used 
to develop and sustain a diverse workforce. We conducted this 
performance audit in May 2008 in accordance with generally accepted 
government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and 
perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide 
a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit 
objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable 
basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ GAO, OPM's Central Personnel Data File: Data Appear 
Sufficiently Reliable to Meet Most Customer Needs, GAO/GGD-98-199 
(Washington, DC: Sept. 30, 1998). Also, in a document dated February 
28, 2008, an OPM official confirmed that OPM continues to follow the 
CPDF data quality standards and procedures contained in our 1998 
report.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In summary, when comparing DHS-wide data to governmentwide 
representation data, the greatest differences were among Hispanic men 
and White women--in both 2003 and 2007 the representation of Hispanic 
men was more than 10 percentage points higher than the representation 
governmentwide, and for White women, the representation was nearly 10 
percentage points lower. When reviewing representation by pay plan/
grades, among the higher grades--general schedule (GS) GS-13 to GS-15, 
Senior Executive Service (SES), and Senior Level/Senior Technical (SL/
ST)--minority employees generally represented less than 10 percent of 
these career employees in 2003 and 2007. The total number of career SES 
at DHS increased by more than 50 percent between 2003 and 2007--going 
from 208 to 325. Overall minorities decreased from 15.9 percent of the 
total SES in 2003 to 13.2 percent in 2007. For the DHS developmental 
pool of potential SES successors (generally GS-15s and GS-14s), the 
total number increased by more than 50 percent--going from 6,525 to 
10,107. White men decreased by 4.2 percentage points, and minorities 
increased by 4.6 percentage points. DHS reported taking steps to affect 
the diversity of its workforce that include establishing an objective 
in its strategic plan concerning the recruitment and development, among 
other things, of a diverse workforce; partnering with minority-serving 
institutions and professional service organizations; and implementing 
an SES candidate development program. These steps are consistent with 
several leading diversity management practices.

  REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN AND MINORITIES GOVERNMENTWIDE AND AT DHS IN 
                             2003 AND 2007

    DHS, one of the 24 Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Act agencies,\4\ 
was formed from 22 agencies, including the following agencies or parts 
of agencies: the U.S. Customs Service, which was formerly located in 
the Department of the Treasury; the Federal Emergency Management 
Agency; the Coast Guard; and most of the Immigration and Naturalization 
Service, which was formerly located in the Department of Justice.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \4\ Pub. L. No. 101-576 (1990), as amended. The CFO Act agencies 
are 24 major executive agencies that are subject to the CFO Act. In 
2007, the CFO Act agencies employed 98 percent of Federal employees.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Representation of Career Employees DHS-wide and Governmentwide
    Tables 1 and 2 show the representation of career employees at DHS 
and governmentwide as of September 2003 and September 2007, 
respectively.

                               TABLE 1.--REPRESENTATION OF CAREER EMPLOYEES AT DHS AND GOVERNMENTWIDE AS OF SEPTEMBER 2003
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                            September 2003
                                             -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                              African American  American Indian/    Asian/Pacific       Hispanic            White         Unspecified/
                   Percent                   ------------------   Alaska Native       Islander     ------------------------------------       other
                                                               ------------------------------------                                    -----------------
                                                 M        W        M        W        M        W        M        W        M        W        M        W
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DHS-wide....................................      6.8      7.1      0.5      0.2      2.7      1.5     14.2      4.8     44.4     17.7      0.1      0.0
Governmentwide..............................      6.6     10.7      0.9      1.0      2.6      2.1      4.1      3.0     41.3     27.5      0.1      0.1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: GAO analysis of OPM's CPDF.
Notes: M=Men and W=Women. Governmentwide data include civilian employees of all cabinet-level departments, independent agencies, commissions, councils,
  and boards in the executive branch except the intelligence agencies, the U.S. Postal Service, and the Foreign Service (as of 2007).


                               TABLE 2.--REPRESENTATION OF CAREER EMPLOYEES AT DHS AND GOVERNMENTWIDE AS OF SEPTEMBER 2007
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                            September 2007
                                             -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                              African American  American Indian/    Asian/Pacific       Hispanic            White         Unspecified/
                   Percent                   ------------------   Alaska Native       Islander     ------------------------------------       other
                                                               ------------------------------------                                    -----------------
                                                 M        W        M        W        M        W        M        W        M        W        M        W
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DHS-wide....................................      7.1      7.8      0.5      0.3      3.1      1.6     14.6      4.9     42.5     17.6      0.1      0.0
Governmentwide..............................      6.9     11.1      0.9      1.1      2.9      2.4      3.6      3.1     40.4     27.4      0.2      0.1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: GAO analysis of OPM's CPDF.
Notes: M=Men and W=Women. Governmentwide data include civilian employees of all cabinet-level departments, independent agencies, commissions, councils,
  and boards in the executive branch except the intelligence agencies, the U.S. Postal Service, and the Foreign Service (as of 2007).

    There were slight increases in percentage points among nearly all 
minority groups DHS-wide between 2003 and 2007. The greatest change 
DHS-wide was a decrease in White men. The greatest differences between 
the governmentwide data and DHS-wide data were among Hispanic men--in 
both 2003 and 2007 the representation of Hispanic men was more than 10 
percentage points higher than the representation governmentwide, and 
for White women, the representation was nearly 10 percentage points 
lower. For both 2003 and 2007, the representation of women at DHS, with 
the exception of Hispanic women, was below the governmentwide level, 
the biggest difference being among White and African American women. 
See appendix I for a breakdown of the DHS-wide representation data by 
DHS components.
Representation at DHS by Pay Plan/Grade
    Taking a closer look at the DHS-wide data, table 3 shows the 
representation of career employees at DHS by pay plan/grade as of 
September 2003. Minority employees generally represented less than 10 
percent of career employees among all the pay plans and grades. 
Examples of the exceptions included the representation of Hispanic men 
in the blue collar pay plan, grades 5 to 8, and grades 9 to 12, where 
they ranged from 15 to over 21 percent. In grades 1 to 4, African 
American women represented over 17 percent, and Hispanic women 
represented nearly 13 percent of employees. Among the higher grades and 
pay plans--grades GS-13 to GS-15, SES, and SL/ST--the percentage of 
White women ranged from over 17 to more than 22 percent, and no 
minority group exceeded 9 percent of career employees.

                                     TABLE 3.--REPRESENTATION AT DHS BY PAY PLAN/GRADE FOR 2003 FOR CAREER EMPLOYEES
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                            September 2003
                                             -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                              African American  American Indian/    Asian/Pacific       Hispanic            White         Unspecified/
               Pay Plan/Grade                ------------------   Alaska Native       Islander     ------------------------------------       other
                                                               ------------------------------------                                    -----------------
                                                 M        W        M        W        M        W        M        W        M        W        M        W
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blue collar.................................     11.1      0.4      0.8      0.0      3.3      0.1     15.0      0.1     67.3      1.6      0.2      0.0
Grades 1 to 4...............................      6.7     17.2      0.4      0.2      1.7      4.3      9.4     12.8     18.9     28.7      0.0      0.0
Grades 5 to 8...............................      4.8     10.3      0.4      0.4      3.6      2.6     18.0      9.3     28.8     21.7      0.1      0.0
Grades 9 to 12..............................      4.4      5.8      0.4      0.2      2.8      1.5     21.4      5.3     42.7     15.4      0.1      0.0
Grade 13....................................      5.1      5.8      0.6      0.2      2.4      1.3      8.9      3.2     54.6     17.7      0.2      0.0
Grade 14....................................      3.9      5.4      0.5      0.2      1.5      0.9      6.2      2.2     57.2     22.0      0.1      0.0
Grade 15....................................      3.4      3.9      0.6      0.1      1.0      0.8      4.5      1.6     61.8     22.2      0.2      0.1
SES \1\.....................................      6.3      2.9      0.0      0.0      1.0      0.5      4.8      0.5     66.8     17.3      0.0      0.0
SL/ST \2\...................................      0.0      0.0      0.0      0.0      0.0      0.0      0.0      0.0      0.0      0.0      0.0      0.0
Other/unspecified \3\.......................     11.1      7.7      0.6      0.3      2.5      0.9      7.9      3.0     48.0     17.9      0.0      0.0
                                             -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DHS-wide....................................      6.8      7.1      0.5      0.2      2.7      1.5     14.2      4.8     44.4     17.7      0.1      0.0
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: GAO analysis of OPM's CPDF.
Notes: M=Men and W=Women.
\1\ The SES consists of permanent or career appointments, paid according to the SES pay schedule and those in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
  who have equivalent positions. These are the highest nonpolitically appointed leaders in the Federal workforce.
\2\ SL/ST includes those in the Senior Level and Senior Technical pay plans and those in FAA who have equivalent positions. These are primarily
  engineers, scientists, and other top-level professionals. They do not have the leadership role of the SES.
\3\ Other/unspecified includes those who could not be placed in one of the above pay plans or grades.

    By 2007, the representation of career employees at DHS by pay plan/
grade showed only slight increases and decreases. Exceptions, as shown 
in table 4, were in the percentage of White men in the SL/ST pay plan, 
which increased from 0 percent in 2003 to more than 65 percent in 2007, 
and White women, which during this period in the same pay plan 
increased from 0 percent to almost 28 percent. The representation of 
minorities was still less than 10 percent in grades GS-13 and above.

                                     TABLE 4.--REPRESENTATION AT DHS BY PAY PLAN/GRADE FOR 2007 FOR CAREER EMPLOYEES
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                            September 2007
                                             -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                              African American  American Indian/    Asian/Pacific       Hispanic            White         Unspecified/
               Pay Plan/Grade                ------------------   Alaska Native       Islander     ------------------------------------       other
                                                               ------------------------------------                                    -----------------
                                                 M        W        M        W        M        W        M        W        M        W        M        W
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blue collar.................................     10.6      0.3      0.6      0.0      2.6      0.1     14.9      0.2     67.6      2.8      0.4      0.0
Grades 1 to 4...............................      6.4     15.3      0.8      0.0      2.4      2.1      7.2      6.4     30.9     28.5      0.0      0.0
Grades 5 to 8...............................      3.5      8.8      0.4      0.3      2.8      2.4     21.0      7.8     32.1     20.8      0.2      0.1
Grades 9 to 12..............................      4.2      5.3      0.4      0.2      3.3      1.6     23.2      5.5     41.5     14.8      0.1      0.0
Grade 13....................................      5.0      5.6      0.5      0.2      2.3      1.4      9.9      3.4     54.5     17.2      0.2      0.0
Grade 14....................................      4.6      7.6      0.3      0.2      2.2      1.6      7.2      2.6     52.9     20.7      0.1      0.0
Grade 15....................................      4.6      4.8      0.4      0.1      1.5      0.9      4.4      2.0     57.0     24.2      0.0      0.0
SES \1\.....................................      4.0      2.2      0.3      0.0      0.3      0.3      5.5      0.6     63.7     23.1      0.0      0.0
SL/ST \2\...................................      0.0      0.0      0.0      0.0      3.5      3.5      0.0      0.0     65.5     27.6      0.0      0.0
Other/unspecified \3\.......................     11.4     10.4      0.7      0.5      3.5      1.5      8.6      4.6     40.3     18.7      0.0      0.0
                                             -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DHS-wide....................................      7.1      7.8      0.5      0.3      3.1      1.6     14.6      4.9     42.5     17.6      0.1      0.0
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: GAO analysis of OPM's CPDF.
Notes: M=Men and W=Women.
\1\ The SES consists of permanent or career appointments, paid according to the SES pay schedule and those in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
  who have equivalent positions. These are the highest nonpolitically appointed leaders in the Federal workforce.
\2\ SL/ST includes those in the Senior Level and Senior Technical pay plans and those in FAA who have equivalent positions. These are primarily
  engineers, scientists, and other top-level professionals. They do not have the leadership role of the SES.
\3\ Other/unspecified includes those who could not be placed in one of the above pay plans or grades.

Representation in Career SES Governmentwide and at DHS
    As we have reported, leadership in agencies across the Federal 
Government, especially at senior executive levels, is essential to 
providing accountable, committed, consistent, and sustained attention 
to human capital and related organizational transformation issues. 
Having a diverse SES corps, which generally represents the most 
experienced segment of the Federal workforce, can be an organizational 
strength that can bring a wider variety of perspectives and approaches 
to bear on policy development and implementation, strategic planning, 
problem solving, and decisionmaking.
    The members of the career SES are the highest nonpolitically 
appointed leaders in the Federal workforce, and we recently looked more 
closely at their representation governmentwide.\5\ Table 5 shows the 
total number of career SES and the percentage of women and minority SES 
in DHS and at the 23 other CFO Act agencies in 2003 and 2007. Overall 
at DHS, the total number of SES increased by more than 50 percent 
between 2003 and 2007 going from 208 to 325. Within that total, the 
percentage of women increased from 21.2 percent to 26.2 percent. In 
2003, the representation of women within individual CFO Act agencies 
ranged from 15.9 to 40.7 percent, with more than two-thirds of the 
agencies having at least 25 percent women--DHS had 21.2 percent. The 
representation of minorities within the CFO Act agencies in 2003 ranged 
from 7.2 to 42.0 percent with more than two-thirds having at least 15 
percent minorities--DHS had 15.9 percent. In 2007, the representation 
of women at these agencies ranged from 19.9 to 45.5 percent, with more 
than half of the agencies having 30 percent or more women--DHS had 26.2 
percent. For minority representation, CFO Act agency rates ranged from 
6.1 to 43.8 percent, with two-thirds having at least 15 percent or more 
minorities--DHS had 13.2 percent.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \5\ Career SES members are individuals with civil service status 
(permanent) who are appointed competitively to SES positions and serve 
in positions below the top political appointees in the executive branch 
of government.

                        TABLE 5.--CAREER SES MEMBERS BY CFO ACT AGENCY FOR 2003 AND 2007
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                       September 2003                    September 2007
                                             -------------------------------------------------------------------
               CFO Act  Agency                                  Percent                           Percent
                                              Number of ----------------------- Number of ----------------------
                                                 SES       Women    Minorities     SES       Women    Minorities
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Agriculture.................................        299       25.1        18.7        318       28.3        18.9
AID.........................................         24       25.0        25.0         22       45.5        36.4
Commerce....................................        317       28.1        16.1        317       28.4        14.5
Defense.....................................      1,066       20.1         7.2      1,123       22.6         8.3
Education...................................         61       36.1        27.9         66       36.4        15.2
Energy......................................        405       21.0        11.4        421       22.8        14.3
EPA.........................................        257       37.0        16.7        261       37.5        17.2
GSA.........................................         80       28.8        10.0         80       28.8        15.0
HHS.........................................        329       40.7        23.4        356       44.1        20.5
DHS.........................................        208       21.2        15.9        325       26.2        13.2
HUD.........................................         81       32.1        42.0         89       38.2        43.8
Interior....................................        199       31.2        22.6        221       31.7        25.8
Justice.....................................        550       20.5        16.7        645       22.2        17.8
Labor.......................................        137       29.2        21.9        133       33.1        21.1
NASA........................................        398       22.9        15.6        431       23.4        14.6
NRC.........................................        145       15.9        11.0        146       19.9        13.7
NSF.........................................         81       39.5        13.6         79       44.3        16.5
OPM.........................................         43       37.2        21.0         42       38.1        16.7
SBA.........................................         37       32.4        37.8         36       27.8        38.9
SSA.........................................        121       36.4        28.9        134       41.8        27.6
State.......................................        120       30.0         7.5        114       32.5         6.1
Transportation..............................        194       32.0        17.5        188       36.2        16.0
Treasury....................................        403       30.8        16.1        386       36.8        18.4
VA..........................................        262       18.7         9.5        236       30.9        14.8
                                             -------------------------------------------------------------------
Governmentwide \1\..........................      6,221       26.4        15.3      6,555       29.1        15.8
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: GAO analysis of OPM's CPDF.
Notes: AID is the Agency for International Development; EPA is the Environmental Protection Agency; GSA is the
  General Services Administration; HHS is the Department of Health and Human Services; DHS is the Department of
  Homeland Security; HUD is the Department of Housing and Urban Development; NASA is the National Aeronautics
  and Space Administration; NRC is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; NSF is the National Science Foundation;
  SSA is the Social Security Administration; and VA is the Department of Veterans Affairs.
\1\ Governmentwide data include civilian employees of all cabinet-level departments, independent agencies,
  commissions, councils, and boards in the executive branch except the intelligence agencies, the U.S. Postal
  Service, and the Foreign Service (as of 2007).

    Minority representation in the career SES governmentwide generally 
increased by less than 1 percentage point from September 2003 through 
September 2007 as shown in table 6. During this period, the 
representation of men in the SES decreased by 2.6 percentage points, 
and White men by 2.7 percentage points; whereas, the percentage of 
women increased by 2.7 percentage points.

                      TABLE 6.--CHANGES IN THE CAREER SES GOVERNMENTWIDE FOR 2003 AND 2007
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                   September 2003        September 2007     Change in Career SES
                                               --------------------------------------------    Governmentwide
              Career SES Profile                                                           ---------------------
                                                  Number    Percent     Number    Percent     Number    Percent
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
African American men..........................        347        5.6        328        5.0        -19       -0.6
African American women........................        211        3.4        232        3.5         21        0.1
American Indian/Alaska Native men.............         55        0.9         60        0.9          5        0.0
American Indian/Alaska Native women...........         21        0.3         28        0.4          7        0.1
Asian/Pacific Islander men....................         83        1.3         96        1.5         13        0.2
Asian/ Pacific Islander women.................         44        0.7         57        0.9         13        0.2
Hispanic men..................................        139        2.2        176        2.7         37        0.5
Hispanic women................................         48        0.8         60        0.9         12        0.1
White men.....................................      3,942       63.4      3,976       60.7         34       -2.7
White women...................................      1,319       21.2      1,526       23.3        207        2.1
Unspecified/other.............................         12        0.2         16        0.2          4        0.0
      Total \1\...............................      6,221      100.0      6,555      100.0        334        0.0
Minorities....................................        948       15.2      1,037       15.8         89        0.6
Men...........................................      4,575       73.5      4,646       70.9         71       -2.6
Minority men..................................        624       10.0        660       10.1         36        0.1
Women.........................................      1,644       26.4      1,909       29.1        265        2.7
Minority women................................        324        5.2        377        5.8         53        0.6
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: GAO analysis of OPM's CPDF.
Note: Governmentwide data include civilian employees of all cabinet-level departments, independent agencies,
  commissions, councils, and boards in the executive branch except the intelligence agencies, the U.S. Postal
  Service, and the Foreign Service (as of 2007).
\1\ Percentages may not add to 100 because of rounding. The number of men and women might not sum to the total
  SES because some employees may have been missing data for race/ethnicity but may have had valid data for
  gender or some employees may have been missing data for gender but may have had valid data for race/ethnicity.

    At DHS, the extent of change in the representation of career SES 
employees was generally greater than the change that occurred in the 
governmentwide SES from September 2003 through September 2007. For 
example, as shown in table 7, the percentage of White women in DHS's 
career SES was 23.1 percent in 2007, 5.8 percentage points above the 
2003 rate of 17.3 percent. White men and African American men 
experienced the largest decrease in their representation in the career 
SES by 2007, dropping 3.1 and 2.3 percentage points, respectively. 
Overall, minorities decreased from 15.9 to 13.2 percent.

                            TABLE 7.--CHANGES IN CAREER SES AT DHS FOR 2003 AND 2007
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                   September 2003        September 2007     Change in DHS Career
                                               --------------------------------------------          SES
            DHS Career SES Profile                                                         ---------------------
                                                  Number    Percent     Number    Percent     Number    Percent
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
African American men..........................         13        6.3         13        4.0          0       -2.3
African American women........................          6        2.9          7        2.2          1       -0.7
American Indian/ Alaska Native men............          0        0.0          1        0.3          1        0.3
American Indian/ Alaska Native women..........          0        0.0          0        0.0          0        0.0
Asian/Pacific Islander men....................          2        1.0          1        0.3         -1       -0.7
Asian/Pacific Islander women..................          1        0.5          1        0.3          0       -0.2
Hispanic men..................................         10        4.8         18        5.5          8        0.7
Hispanic women................................          1        0.5          2        0.6          1        0.1
White men.....................................        139       66.8        207       63.7         68       -3.1
White women...................................         36       17.3         75       23.1         39        5.8
Unspecified/other.............................          0        0.0          0        0.0          0        0.0
      Total \1\...............................        208      100.0        325      100.0        117        0.0
Minorities....................................         33       15.9         43       13.2         10       -2.7
Men...........................................        164       78.9        240       73.8         76       -5.1
Minority men..................................         25       12.0         33       10.2          8       -1.8
Women.........................................         44       21.2         85       26.2         41        5.0
Minority women................................          8        3.8         10        3.1          2       -0.7
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: GAO analysis of OPM's CPDF.
\1\ Percentages may not add to 100 because of rounding.

Representation in the Career SES Developmental Pool Governmentwide and 
        at DHS
    The vast majority of potential successors for career SES positions 
will come from the GS pay plan for grades GS-15 and GS-14, the levels 
that serve as the SES developmental pool.\6\ Table 8 shows the changes 
in the representation of the SES developmental pool governmentwide from 
September 2003 to September 2007. Governmentwide, the total number of 
employees in the SES developmental pool decreased slightly from 
September 2003 to September 2007. The greatest change in representation 
was a decrease of 5.3 percentage points in the number of White men from 
2003 to 2007. The percentage of women in the governmentwide SES 
developmental pool increased by 3.9 percentage points between 2003 and 
2007, but the percentage of men in this developmental pool decreased by 
this same amount. By 2007, the representation of each of the minority 
groups in the governmentwide SES developmental pool increased by 1.3 
percentage points or fewer, resulting in an overall increase of 3.7 
percentage points for minorities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \6\ We included GS-15, GS-14, and equivalent employees. GS-
equivalent employees are those in equivalent grades under other pay 
plans that follow the GS grade structure and job evaluation methodology 
or are equivalent by statute.

                TABLE 8.--CHANGES IN THE SES DEVELOPMENTAL POOL GOVERNMENTWIDE FOR 2003 AND 2007
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                   September 2003        September 2007         Change in SES
                                               --------------------------------------------  Developmental Pool
 Profile of SES Developmental Pool (GS-15s and                                                 Governmentwide
                    GS-14s)                       Number    Percent     Number    Percent  ---------------------
                                                                                              Number    Percent
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
African American men..........................      6,035        4.0      6,439        4.3        404        0.3
African American women........................      7,276        4.8      9,108        6.1      1,832        1.3
American Indian/Alaska Native men.............        978        0.6        938        0.6        -40        0.0
American Indian/Alaska Native women...........        489        0.3        590        0.4        101        0.1
Asian/Pacific Islander men....................      5,452        3.6      6,305        4.2        853        0.6
Asian/Pacific Islander women..................      2,546        1.7      3,503        2.3        957        0.6
Hispanic men..................................      4,051        2.7      4,418        3.0        367        0.3
Hispanic women................................      1,740        1.1      2,193        1.5        453        0.4
White men.....................................     89,333       58.7     79,718       53.4     -9,615       -5.3
White women...................................     34,081       22.4     35,650       23.9      1,569        1.5
Unspecified/other.............................        142        0.1        287        0.2        145        0.1
      Total \1\...............................    152,123      100.0    149,149      100.0     -2,974        0.0
Minorities....................................     28,567       18.8     33,494       22.5      4,927        3.7
Men...........................................    105,945       69.6     98,003       65.7     -7,942       -3.9
Minority men..................................     16,516       10.9     18,100       12.1      1,584        1.2
Women.........................................     46,178       30.4     51,146       34.3      4,968        3.9
Minority women................................     12,051        7.9     15,394       10.3      3,343        2.4
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: GAO analysis of OPM's CPDF.
Note: Governmentwide includes civilian employees of all cabinet-level departments, independent agencies,
  commissions, councils, and boards in the executive branch except the intelligence agencies, the U.S. Postal
  Service, and the Foreign Service (as of 2007). We included GS-15, GS-14, and equivalent employees. GS-
  equivalent employees are those in equivalent grades under other pay plans that follow the GS grade structure
  and job evaluation methodology or are equivalent by statute.
\1\ Percentages may not add to 100 because of rounding.

    Unlike the total number of employees in the governmentwide SES 
developmental pool, those in DHS's SES developmental pool increased by 
more than half. The two greatest changes in representation within DHS's 
career SES developmental pool from September 2003 through September 
2007 were for White men, which decreased by 4.2 percentage points, and 
minorities, which increased by 4.6 percentage points, of which African 
American women increased by 1.8 percentage points, as shown in table 9.

                 TABLE 9.--CHANGES IN THE CAREER SES DEVELOPMENTAL POOL AT DHS FOR 2003 AND 2007
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                   September 2003        September 2007     Change in DHS Career
 Profile of DHS SES Developmental Pool (GS-15s --------------------------------------------          SES
                  and GS-14s)                                                              ---------------------
                                                  Number    Percent     Number    Percent     Number    Percent
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
African American men..........................        245        3.8        467        4.6        222        0.8
African American women........................        328        5.0        683        6.8        355        1.8
American Indian/Alaska Native men.............         34        0.5         36        0.4          2       -0.1
American Indian/Alaska Native women...........         12        0.2         19        0.2          7        0.0
Asian/Pacific Islander men....................         87        1.3        204        2.0        117        0.7
Asian/Pacific Islander women..................         56        0.9        138        1.4         82       0.5.
Hispanic men..................................        375        5.8        641        6.3        266        0.5
Hispanic women................................        133        2.0        245        2.4        112        0.4
White men.....................................      3,806       58.3      5,469       54.1      1,663       -4.2
White women...................................      1,439       22.1      2,195       21.7        756       -0.4
Unspecified/other.............................         10        0.2         10        0.1          0       -0.1
      Total \1\...............................      6,525      100.0     10,107      100.0      3,582        0.0
Minorities....................................      1,270       19.5      2,433       24.1      1,163        4.6
Men...........................................      4,556       69.8      6,824       67.5      2,268       -2.3
Minority men..................................        741       11.4      1,348       13.3        607        1.9
Women.........................................      1,969       30.2      3,283       32.5      1,314        2.3
Minority women................................        529        8.1      1,085       10.7        556        2.6
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: GAO analysis of OPM's CPDF.
\1\ Percentages may not add to 100 because of rounding.

    While we did not analyze factors that contributed to changes in DHS 
workforce from September 2003 through September 2007, OPM and the Equal 
Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in their oversight roles 
require Federal agencies, including DHS, to analyze their workforces. 
Both OPM and EEOC also report on governmentwide representation levels. 
Under OPM's regulations implementing the Federal Equal Opportunity 
Recruitment Program (FEORP),\7\ agencies are required to determine 
where representation levels for covered groups are lower than the 
civilian labor force (CLF) and take steps to address those differences. 
EEOC's Management Directive 715 (MD-715) provides guidance and 
standards to Federal agencies for establishing and maintaining 
effective equal employment opportunity (EEO) programs, including a 
framework for executive branch agencies to help ensure effective 
management, accountability, and self-analysis to determine whether 
barriers to EEO exist and to identify and develop strategies to 
mitigate or eliminate the barriers to participation.\8\ Specifically 
EEOC's MD-715 states that agency personnel programs and policies should 
be evaluated regularly to ascertain whether such programs have any 
barriers that tend to limit or restrict equitable opportunities for 
open competition in the workplace. The initial step is for agencies to 
analyze their workforce data with designated benchmarks, including the 
CLF. If analysis of their workforce profiles identifies potential 
barriers, agencies are to examine all related policies, procedures, and 
practices to determine whether an actual barrier exists. EEOC requires 
agencies to report the results of their analyses annually.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \7\ 5 U.S.C. 7201 and 5 CFR Part 720, Subpart B.
    \8\ EEOC defines barriers as agency policies, principles, or 
practices that limit or tend to limit employment opportunities for 
those of a particular gender, race, or ethnic background or based on an 
individual's disability status.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
DHS HAS REPORTED TAKING STEPS TO AFFECT THE DIVERSITY OF ITS WORKFORCE 
    THAT ARE CONSISTENT WITH LEADING DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT PRACTICES

    A high-performance organization relies on a dynamic workforce with 
the requisite talents and up-to-date skills to ensure that it is 
equipped to accomplish its mission and achieve its goals. Such 
organizations typically foster a work environment in which people are 
enabled and motivated to contribute to continuous learning and 
improvement as well as mission accomplishment and which provides both 
accountability and fairness for all employees. In addition, the 
approach that a high-performance organization takes toward its 
workforce is inclusive and draws on the strengths of employees at all 
levels and of all backgrounds. This approach is consistent with that of 
diversity management. We have defined diversity management as a process 
intended to create and maintain a positive work environment where the 
similarities and differences of individuals are valued, so that all can 
reach their potential and maximize their contributions to an 
organization's strategic goals and objectives. In our past work, we 
identified nine leading practices in diversity management that experts 
agreed should be present in some combination for creating and managing 
diversity.\9\ The leading diversity management practices identified by 
a majority of experts were as follows:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \9\ See GAO, Diversity Management: Expert-Identified Leading 
Practices and Agency Examples, GAO-05-90 (Washington, DC: Jan. 14, 
2005).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Top leadership commitment.--A vision of diversity 
        demonstrated and communicated throughout an organization by 
        top-level management.
   Diversity as part of an organization's strategic plan.--A 
        diversity strategy and plan that are developed and aligned with 
        the organization's strategic plan.
   Diversity linked to performance.--The understanding that a 
        more diverse and inclusive work environment can yield greater 
        productivity and help improve individual and organizational 
        performance.
   Measurement.--A set of quantitative and qualitative measures 
        of the effect of various aspects of an overall diversity 
        program.
   Accountability.--The means to ensure that leaders are 
        responsible for diversity by linking their performance 
        assessment and compensation to the progress of diversity 
        initiatives.
   Succession planning.--An ongoing, strategic process for 
        identifying and developing a diverse pool of talent for an 
        organization's potential future leaders.
   Recruitment.--The process of attracting a supply of 
        qualified, diverse applicants for employment.
   Employee involvement.--The contribution of employees in 
        driving diversity throughout an organization.
   Diversity training.--Organizational efforts to inform and 
        educate management and staff about diversity.
    DHS's Acting Chief Human Capital Officer (CHCO) testified in April 
2008 on actions the Department is taking to create and manage its 
workforce.\10\ These actions are consistent with leading diversity 
management practices in four areas: (1) A diversity strategy as part of 
its strategic plan; (2) recruitment; (3) employee involvement; and (4) 
succession planning. We have not conducted a review of DHS's diversity 
management efforts; therefore, we cannot comment on the effectiveness 
of DHS's implementation of these practices. In addition, because we do 
not highlight a particular practice, it is not meant to imply success 
or lack of success by DHS in implementing other diversity management 
practices.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \10\ Statement by Bray Barnes, Acting Chief Human Capital Officer, 
Department of Homeland Security, before the House Subcommittee on the 
Federal Workforce, Postal Service and the District of Columbia and 
Senate Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal 
Workforce, and the District of Columbia (Apr. 3, 2008).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Diversity strategy as part of the strategic plan. DHS established 
an objective in its 2004 Strategic Plan to ``ensure effective 
recruitment, development, compensation, succession management and 
leadership of a diverse workforce to provide optimal service at a 
responsible cost.'' In an August 2007 progress report on implementation 
of mission and management functions,\11\ we indicated that DHS had 
taken action to satisfy most of the elements related to developing a 
results-oriented strategic human capital plan. We noted that in 
addition to the strategic human capital plan that DHS issued in October 
2004, which covers 2004 to 2008, the Department developed a fiscal year 
2007 and 2008 Human Capital Operational Plan, which provides measurable 
goals that the Department is using to gauge the effectiveness of its 
human capital efforts. DHS officials provided us with a copy of DHS's 
Corporate Diversity Strategy, issued in March 2008, and stated that the 
Department has developed a Diversity Action Plan, which it plans to 
submit to the DHS Diversity Council for approval in May 2008.\12\ The 
Diversity Strategy outlines DHS's policy of encouraging a diverse 
workforce and the value of a diverse workforce in accomplishing DHS's 
mission. Among the guiding principles is integrating diversity into the 
organization culture rather than as a stand-alone program and 
recognizing that diversity is a matter of equity and fairness. To help 
ensure accountability, among other things, the strategy calls for 
establishing a senior-level Diversity Council, which DHS officials 
reported has been done, integrating diversity strategies into DHS's 
comprehensive human resource operation, and ensuring that all DHS 
leaders have access to training, tools, and support needed to serve as 
de facto diversity champions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \11\ GAO, Department of Homeland Security: Progress Report on 
Implementation of Mission and Management Functions, GAO-07-454 
(Washington, DC: Aug. 17, 2007).
    \12\ DHS officials stated that the DHS Diversity Council is made up 
of the second- and third-highest ranking officials from each DHS 
component.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Recruitment. To achieve its strategic plan objective of a diverse 
workforce, in his April 2008 testimony, DHS's Acting CHCO stated that 
recruitment strategies have been implemented at the Department and 
component levels to improve diversity of the DHS talent pool. DHS 
officials told us that the Department partners with several minority-
serving institutions and participates in several intern, scholarship, 
and fellowship programs; officials provided a recruitment brochure. 
These officials also indicated that in October 2007, the DHS began a 
Veterans' Outreach Program as a means of recruiting a diverse 
workforce. This outreach strategy consists of: (1) A Web site for one-
stop employment and other information; (2) an advisory forum of 
external veterans as stakeholders; and (3) training in veterans' 
preference and reemployment rights for EEO and human capital 
specialists. DHS has also created an SES-level Director of Recruiting 
and Diversity within the Chief Human Capital Office.
    Employee Involvement. Employees can make valuable contributions in 
driving diversity throughout an organization. Our work on leading 
diversity management practices identified several forms these 
contributions can take, including mentoring and community outreach with 
private employers, public schools, and universities. DHS officials 
described actions the Department is taking to provide opportunities for 
employees at various levels throughout the Department to receive 
mentoring. In addition, DHS officials stated that they have developed 
formal partnerships with minority professional service organizations, 
including the Urban League's Black Executive Exchange Program, where 
DHS provides speakers that participate in outreach programs at 
historically black colleges and universities. DHS officials indicated 
they are pursuing similar partnerships with the National Association of 
Hispanic Federal Executives, the African American Federal Executive 
Association, and the Asian American Executive Network.
    Succession Planning. Succession planning is a comprehensive, 
ongoing strategic process that provides for forecasting an 
organization's senior leadership and other needs; identifying and 
developing candidates who have the potential to be future leaders; and 
selecting individuals from among a diverse pool of qualified candidates 
to meet executive resource needs. Succession planning and management 
can help an organization become what it needs to be, rather than simply 
recreate the existing organization. Leading organizations go beyond a 
``replacement'' approach that focuses on identifying particular 
individuals as possible successors for specific top-ranking positions 
and engage in broad, integrated succession planning and management 
efforts that focus on strengthening both current and future capacity. 
They anticipate the need for leaders and other key employees with the 
necessary competencies to successfully meet the complex challenges of 
the 21st century.
    For DHS, in addition to the changes that will occur as a result of 
the upcoming new administration, several factors including recent 
turnover and expected retirements provide opportunities for DHS to 
affect the diversity of its workforce and highlight the importance of 
succession planning. Recently, we reported that the overall attrition 
rates for permanent DHS employees (excluding SES and Presidential 
appointees) at 8 percent and 7 percent in 2005 and 2006, respectively, 
exceeded the 4 percent average rate for all cabinet-level agencies.\13\ 
These higher attrition rates, about 14 to 17 percent, were among 
transportation security officers in DHS's Transportation Security 
Administration. The attrition rate for SES and Presidential appointees 
was also higher than the average senior-level attrition rate for all 
cabinet-level departments. As for retirements, about 20 percent of 
career employees at DHS as of fiscal year 2007 are projected to be 
eligible to retire by 2012, and certain key occupations within the 
Department are expected to have high retirement eligibility rates, such 
as customs and border protection agents--about 51 percent.\14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \13\ GAO, Homeland Security: DHS's Action to Recruit and Retain 
Staff and Comply with the Vacancies Reform Act, GAO-07-758 (Washington, 
DC: July 16, 2007).
    \14\ GAO, Older Workers: Federal Agencies Face Challenges but Have 
Opportunities to Hire and Retain Experienced Employees, GAO-08-630T, 
(Washington, DC: Apr. 30, 2008).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In 2006, OPM reported that approximately 60 percent of the 
executive branch's 1.6 million white-collar employees and 90 percent of 
about 6,000 Federal executives will be eligible for retirement over the 
next 10 years. Considering retirement eligibility and actual retirement 
rates of the SES is important because individuals normally do not enter 
the SES until well into their careers; thus SES retirement eligibility 
is much higher than for the workforce in general. If a significant 
number of SES members were to retire, it could result in a loss of 
leadership continuity, institutional knowledge, and expertise among the 
SES corps, with the degree of loss varying among agencies and 
occupations.
    Succession planning also is tied to the Federal Government's 
opportunity to affect the diversity of the executive corps through new 
appointments. Racial, ethnic, and gender diversity in the SES is an 
important component for the effective operation of the government. In 
September 2003, we reported that agencies in other countries use 
succession planning and management to achieve a more diverse workforce, 
maintain their leadership capacity, and increase the retention of high-
potential staff.\15\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \15\ GAO, Human Capital: Insights for U.S. Agencies from Other 
Countries' Succession Planning and Management Initiatives, GAO-03-914 
(Washington, DC: Sept. 15, 2003).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    According to the Acting CHCO's April 3, 2008, testimony and 
discussion with senior level human capital officials, the Department is 
taking steps to develop a qualified and diverse pool of applicants for 
SES positions by preparing its mid-career employees through a variety 
of leadership development programs. These programs include the DHS SES 
Candidate Development Program (primarily for GS-15s) and the DHS 
Fellows Program (for GS-13s, GS-14s, and GS-15s). See appendix II for 
representation data for both programs since their inception. According 
to DHS officials, the DHS Fellows Program, initiated in 2006, is a 
competitive developmental program where participants are placed in 
high-visibility rotational assignments, receive training in such areas 
as leadership, and form small groups to work on specific projects. 
After completion of this 11-month program, participants remain in their 
current assignments but, according to DHS officials, are prepared for 
advancement when the opportunities arise. Participants in both of the 
DHS leadership programs receive mentoring and coaching and rotational 
assignments. However, according to DHS officials, employees at other 
levels of the organization can also participate in ad hoc mentoring and 
rotational assignments. Effective training and development programs can 
enhance the Federal Government's ability to prepare its workforce and 
thereby achieve results. The efforts that DHS officials described are 
consistent with these practices.
    Chairman Thompson, Ranking Member King, and Members of the 
committee, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be pleased to 
respond to any questions that you may have.

  Appendix I.--Department of Homeland Security Representation Data by 
                               Component

    Tables 10 and 11 below provide demographic data by race and gender 
on the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) career employees by DHS 
component for September 2003 and September 2007.\16\ In 2003 and 2007, 
the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (USCBP) and the U.S. Immigration 
Customs Enforcement (USICE) had the highest percentage of Hispanic men, 
while the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) had the highest 
percentage of African American men.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \16\ We did not analyze whether diversity differences between DHS 
components corresponded to differences in occupational make-up, 
educational job requirements, geographic location of jobs, or other 
relevant factors.

                           TABLE 10.--PERCENTAGE REPRESENTATION AT DHS BY COMPONENT FOR CAREER EMPLOYEES AS OF SEPTEMBER 2003
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                            September 2003
                                             -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                              African American  American Indian/    Asian/Pacific       Hispanic            White         Unspecified/
                  Component                  ------------------   Alaska Native       Islander     ------------------------------------       other
                                                               ------------------------------------                                    -----------------
                                                 M        W        M        W        M        W        M        W        M        W        M        W
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DNDO........................................      7.8     17.3      0.6      0.0      2.8      1.7      0.6      1.7     48.0     19.0      0.6      0.0
FEMA........................................      5.1     11.6      0.4      0.3      1.1      0.7      1.4      1.4     52.2     25.9      0.0      0.0
FLETC.......................................      4.1      4.7      1.2      0.3      0.7      0.7      1.0      1.2     57.0     29.2      0.0      0.0
HQ \1\......................................      4.4     16.6      0.0      0.3      1.7      1.4      2.8      1.1     42.3     29.6      0.0      0.0
IG..........................................      8.2     15.5      1.0      0.0      3.1      1.8      5.9      4.9     41.2     18.3      0.0      0.0
TSA.........................................     11.1      7.8      0.6      0.3      2.5      1.0      8.0      3.1     47.5     18.2      0.1      0.0
USCBP.......................................      4.5      6.3      0.5      0.2      3.3      1.8     14.9      6.3     43.0     19.2      0.2      0.0
USCG........................................      6.3     10.1      0.4      0.2      2.5      1.6      2.6      1.7     50.2     24.0      0.2      0.1
USCIS.......................................      \2\      \2\      \2\      \2\      \2\      \2\      \2\      \2\      \2\      \2\      \2\      \2\
USICE.......................................      4.3      5.8      0.4      0.2      2.8      1.8     24.1      6.7     39.1     14.6      0.1      0.0
USSS........................................      9.0      9.0      0.6      0.2      1.5      0.9      4.0      2.2     56.7     16.0      0.0      0.0
Other/unspecified...........................      0.0      0.0      0.0      0.0      0.0      0.0      0.0      0.0      0.0      0.0      0.0      0.0
                                             -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DHS-wide....................................      6.8      7.1      0.5      0.2      2.7      1.5     14.2      4.8     44.4     17.7      0.1      0.0
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: GAO analysis of the Office of Personnel Management's Central Personnel Data File.

Notes: M=Men and W=Women. DNDO is the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office; FEMA is the Federal Emergency Management Agency; FLETC is the Federal Law
  Enforcement Training Center; HQ is DHS Headquarters; IG is the Inspector General's Office; TSA is the Transportation Security Administration; USCBP is
  the U.S. Customs and Border Protection; USCG is the U.S. Coast Guard; USCIS is the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; USICE is the U.S.
  Immigration Customs Enforcement, and USSS is the U.S. Secret Service. Other/unspecified includes those who could not be placed in one of the above DHS
  components.
\1\ DHS HQ includes several program offices, such as the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD), and staff offices, such as the Office of
  the Chief Financial Officer, under the Directorate for Management.
\2\ USCIS did not report data to the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) Central Personnel Data File (CPDF) for 2003.


                           TABLE 11.--PERCENTAGE REPRESENTATION AT DHS BY COMPONENT FOR CAREER EMPLOYEES AS OF SEPTEMBER 2007
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                            September 2007
                                             -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                              African American  American Indian/    Asian/Pacific       Hispanic            White         Unspecified/
                  Component                  ------------------   Alaska Native       Islander     ------------------------------------       other
                                                               ------------------------------------                                    -----------------
                                                 M        W        M        W        M        W        M        W        M        W        M        W
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DNDO........................................      4.1      9.4      0.2      0.4      2.4      0.9      2.4      1.2     50.8     28.3      0.0      0.0
FEMA........................................      7.3     14.1      0.4      0.4      1.5      0.9      1.4      1.2     49.3     23.6      0.0      0.0
FLETC.......................................      3.9      5.1      1.4      0.5      0.6      0.5      2.7      1.9     57.9     25.7      0.0      0.0
HQ \1\......................................      6.6     14.8      0.2      0.2      1.7      1.7      1.2      1.0     46.8     25.8      0.0      0.0
IG..........................................      5.8     12.8      0.6      0.2      2.5      2.7      8.3      5.4     41.2     19.6      0.3      0.4
TSA.........................................     11.3     10.5      0.7      0.5      3.5      1.5      8.6      4.6     39.8     18.9      0.0      0.0
USCBP.......................................      3.1      3.3      0.4      0.1      3.1      1.2     27.6      5.4     42.8     12.9      0.1      0.0
USCG........................................      6.2      9.3      0.4      0.2      2.3      1.8      2.8      1.4     53.4     21.9      0.2      0.1
USCIS.......................................      4.3     13.1      0.2      0.4      4.0      5.3      5.0      9.2     26.3     32.0      0.0      0.0
USICE.......................................      5.5      5.8      0.5      0.2      2.8      1.3     16.1      5.8     46.3     15.5      0.1      0.0
USSS........................................      9.3      8.4      0.4      0.1      2.0      1.2      4.0      2.1     57.7     14.6      0.2      0.1
Other/unspecified...........................      1.8      5.3      0.0      0.0      3.5      7.0      1.8      0.0     61.4     19.3      0.0      0.0
                                             -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DHS-wide....................................      7.1      7.8      0.5      0.3      3.1      1.6     14.6      4.9     42.5     17.6      0.1      0.0
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: GAO analysis of OPM's CPDF.
Notes: M=Men and W=Women. DNDO is the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office; FEMA is the Federal Emergency Management Agency; FLETC is the Federal Law
  Enforcement Training Center; HQ is DHS Headquarters; IG is the Inspector General's Office; TSA is the Transportation Security Administration; USCBP is
  the U.S. Customs and Border Protection; USCG is the U.S. Coast Guard; USCIS is the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; USICE is the U.S.
  Immigration Customs Enforcement, and USSS is the U.S. Secret Service. Other/unspecified includes those who could not be placed in one of the above DHS
  components.
\1\ DHS HQ includes several program offices, such as the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD), and staff offices, such as the Office of
  the Chief Financial Officer, under the Directorate for Management.

   Appendix II.--Representation Data for DHS Leadership Development 
                                Programs

    DHS officials stated that they have two formal leadership 
development programs to prepare future DHS leaders: the DHS Fellows 
Program for GS-13, GS-14, and GS-15 staff (an 11-month program) and the 
DHS Senior Executive Service (SES) Candidate Development Program, 
generally for GS-15s (an 18-month program). Tables 12 and 13 below 
provide a breakdown of the representation of women and minorities in 
each of these programs.

                                   TABLE 12.--REPRESENTATION IN DHS FELLOWS PROGRAM FOR GS-13, GS-14, AND GS-15 STAFF
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                     African American  American Indian/    Asian/Pacific       Hispanic            White         Unspecified/
                                    ------------------   Alaska Native       Islander     ------------------------------------       other
        DHS Fellows Program                           ------------------------------------                                    ------------------  Total
                                        M        F        M        F        M        F        M        F        M        F        M        F
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2007 class.........................        1        1        0        1        0        0        4        0       15        8        0        0       30
2008 class.........................        2        2        0        0        2        1        0        1       29       11        2        0       50
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: DHS.
Note: M=Men and W=Women.


                                           TABLE 13.--REPRESENTATION IN DHS SES CANDIDATE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                     African American  American Indian/    Asian/Pacific       Hispanic            White         Unspecified/
   DHS SES Candidate  Development   ------------------   Alaska Native       Islander     ------------------------------------       other
              Program                                 ------------------------------------                                    ------------------  Total
                                        M        F        M        F        M        F        M        F        M        F        M        F
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2007 to 2008 class.................        1        0        0        0        1        1        0        0        9        2        0        0       14
2008 to 2009 class.................        2        3        0        0        1        0        3        0       10        4        0        0       23
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: DHS.
Note: M=Men and W=Women.


    Chairman Thompson. Thank you for your testimony.
    I now recognize Ms. Stewart to summarize her statement for 
5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF STACEY D. STEWART, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF 
           DIVERSITY OFFICER, FANNIE MAE CORPORATION

    Ms. Stewart. Thank you, Chairman Thompson, Ranking Member 
King and the entire committee, for this opportunity to state 
the business case for diversity and inclusion from my 
perspective as Fannie Mae's chief diversity officer.
    For Fannie Mae, like many other companies, the moral case 
for diversity is simple: It is the right thing to do. The 
business case is also fairly straightforward: To serve the 
market, we have to be able to see the market and, in a sense, 
to be the market.
    Having a workforce as diverse as the Nation and the 
marketplace gives us a better intuitive understanding of what 
people want and need and how to communicate effectively with 
diverse constituencies. Having a better understanding of the 
market and how to communicate gives us a competitive edge over 
companies that do not emphasize diversity.
    Take Fannie Mae's market, for example, the home buyers we 
serve through mortgage lenders. People of color are the 
fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population and, therefore, 
potential home buyers. At the same time, there is a nearly 20 
percent gap between the national homeownership rate and the 
homeownership rate in communities of color--67.8 percent versus 
50.3 percent.
    Take those two factors--a fast-growing market and an 
underserved segment--and what we see is a distinct opportunity 
to grow by serving these markets. Fannie Mae wants to help our 
lender customers get to the growing but underserved segments 
first. We want to remain as we are today, America's No. 1 
source of capital for families and communities of color to buy 
homes.
    So we have a business need to maintain our leadership in 
diversity. Right now, people of color represent about 49 
percent of our total workforce and just over 25 percent of 
officers and directors. These numbers compare well with most of 
corporate America, and the financial services and in insurance 
sectors in particular, where just about 15 percent of officers 
and directors there are people of color.
    We are happy to be recognized for our diversity in places 
such as Hispanic Magazine's Corporate 100, 
DiversityBusiness.com's America's Top 50 Corporations for 
Multicultural Business Opportunities, and in Black Enterprise 
Magazine's 40 Best Companies for Diversity.
    To us, making the numbers and best-of lists, while nice, 
are not enough. Right now, we are aiming to take it up a notch 
to the next level of diversity and inclusion. That means 
creating a company culture and environment where employees of 
all backgrounds, affiliations, ideologies and circumstances 
feel connected, engaged and motivated to do their best.
    We also want to connect our internal diversity to the 
external challenges of serving a diverse market in concrete 
ways. For example, we just joined with Freddie Mac to translate 
mortgage documents into Spanish. Fannie Mae employees, diverse 
employees, participate in foreclosure-preservation workshops to 
assist consumers at greatest risk of facing foreclosure, often 
borrowers in communities of color.
    We also want to translate our diversity into real bottom-
line business results that serve diverse communities all over 
America, and that means helping our lender customers reach and 
serve multicultural markets and send us their loans.
    Of course, as a company with a $3 trillion book of business 
that raises tens of billions of dollars in capital every year 
and that has a $2 billion operating budget, when we have a 
diverse base of suppliers, we can have a big impact on 
diversity in the economy.
    To close, Mr. Chairman, diversity and inclusion, much like 
any of our other business operations, is one of those areas 
where you need to make continuous progress or else fall behind. 
Fannie Mae is constantly striving to do better. Our commitment 
to diversity and inclusion remains strong, and we have seen 
firsthand how a diverse workforce gives us a competitive edge 
and a better place to work since the inception of our program 
in 1992.
    Thank you very much.
    [The statement of Ms. Stewart follows:]

                Prepared Statement of Stacey D. Stewart
                              May 21, 2008

    Thank you, Chairman Thompson, for this opportunity to state the 
business case for diversity from my perspective as Fannie Mae's chief 
diversity officer.
    For Fannie Mae, like many other companies, the moral case for 
diversity is simple--it's the right thing to do. The business case is 
also fairly straightforward. To serve the market, you have to be able 
to see the market--and, in a sense, to be the market. Having a 
workforce as diverse as the Nation and the marketplace gives you a 
better intuitive understanding of what people want and need, and how to 
communicate effectively with diverse constituencies. That better 
understanding of the market and how to communicate gives you a 
competitive edge over companies that don't emphasize diversity.
    Take Fannie Mae's market for example--the homebuyers we serve 
through mortgage lenders. People of color are the fastest growing 
segment of the U.S. population and therefore, potential homebuyers. At 
the same time, there is nearly a 20 percent gap between the national 
homeownership rate and homeownership rates in communities of color--
67.8 percent versus 50.3 percent. Take those two factors--fast-growing 
market and an underserved segment--and what we see is a distinct 
opportunity to grow by serving these markets. Fannie Mae wants to help 
our lender customers get to the growing but underserved segments first. 
We want to remain--as we are today--America's No. 1 source of capital 
for families and communities of color to buy or rent homes.
    So we have a business need to maintain our leadership in diversity. 
Right now, people of color represent about 49 percent of our total 
workforce and just over 21 percent of officers and directors. These 
numbers compare well with most of corporate America and the financial 
services and insurance sector in particular, where just around 15 
percent of officers and directors are people of color. We're happy to 
be recognized for our diversity in places such as Hispanic magazine's 
``Corporate 100'' . . . DiversityBusiness.com's ``America's Top 50 
Corporations for Multicultural Business Opportunities'' . . . and in 
Black Enterprise magazine's ``40 Best Companies for Diversity.''
    But to us, ``making the numbers'' and best-of lists--while nice--
are not enough. Right now, we're aiming to take it up a notch to the 
next level of diversity and inclusion. That means creating a company 
culture and environment where employees of all backgrounds, 
affiliations, ideologies, and circumstances feel connected, engaged, 
and motivated to do their best.
    We also want to connect our internal diversity to the external 
challenges of serving a diverse market in concrete ways--for example, 
we joined with Freddie Mac to translate mortgage documents into 
Spanish. Fannie Mae employees participate in foreclosure prevention 
workshops to assist consumers at greatest risk of facing foreclosure, 
often in communities of color. We also want to translate our diversity 
into real bottom-line business results that serve diverse communities 
all over America--and that means helping our lender customers reach and 
serve multicultural markets, and send us their loans. Of course, as a 
company with a $3 trillion book of business, that raises tens of 
billions of dollars a year in capital, and has a $2 billion operating 
budget, when we have a diverse base of suppliers, we can have a big 
impact on diversity in the economy.
    To close, Mr. Chairman, diversity and inclusion, much like any of 
our business operations, is one of those areas where you need to make 
continuous progress or else fall behind, and Fannie Mae is constantly 
striving to do better. Our commitment to diversity and inclusion 
remains strong and we've seen first-hand how a diverse workforce gives 
you a competitive edge and a better place to work since the inception 
of our program in 1992.
    Thank you.

    Chairman Thompson. I thank all of the witnesses for their 
testimony.
    I will remind each member that he or she will have 5 
minutes to question the panel.
    I will now recognize myself for questions.
    Ms. Duke, looking at the departments that make up DHS, in 
general, which one would you characterize as the one that best 
represents diversity? Which one would you characterize that 
represents the opposite?
    Ms. Duke. I think there are so many categories when we talk 
about diversity. There are African Americans, women, people 
with diversity, veterans. So I think it depends on what 
category under ``diversity'' we are talking about.
    Chairman Thompson. I will make it simple.
    Ms. Duke. Okay.
    Chairman Thompson. If I take every group you just talked 
about, which agency would represent that?
    Ms. Duke. I know that TSA is the best represented in 
African Americans, and CBP is the best represented with 
Hispanics. But I do not know, in the aggregate overall, if one 
is better represented to the other.
    What I do know is that we have to act as a Department, and 
it is not okay for one component to be well-represented. What 
we need to do is have a balance of diversity throughout the 
Department.
    Chairman Thompson. Okay. Well, how do you work at getting 
the balance?
    Ms. Duke. I think in several ways.
    One way is to make sure we have DHS-wide recruiting, so 
that when we have a job in a specific component it is just not 
open to that component, that we can do better about advertising 
our jobs Department-wide.
    I think a second way is to make sure that we have career 
opportunities for existing employees. For instance, we have 
better diversity at the lower grades. We have a good 
representation in TSA among the TSOs, the people you see at the 
airports, but they are capped out at what is equivalent to 
about the GS-7, GS-9 level. So we have to have opportunities 
for them, like we just did in having them be recruited by the 
Border Patrol, where they have better opportunities.
    So it is that kind of mixing within the Department to 
ensure that we have a balance but also career paths.
    Chairman Thompson. I understand.
    I guess I want to hear the agency that is the worst.
    Ms. Duke. Pardon me?
    Chairman Thompson. I want to hear the agency that does not 
represent the minority groups you have referenced.
    Ms. Duke. I would have to analyze the data and get back to 
you for the record on that.
    Chairman Thompson. Well, okay. I will not say ``good 
answer,'' but I understand. You know there are some that do not 
represent America very well.
    Ms. Duke. There are some components that are not doing as 
well, as demonstrated by their employee diversity.
    Chairman Thompson. So do you have the authority, when you 
see a component not representing America well, to correct it?
    Ms. Duke. I think we have the opportunity to make sure that 
a diverse pool gets to the applicants.
    Chairman Thompson. Yes, I understand. From an authority, 
from a direct line, if you see an agency that is not performing 
relative to your expectations as to diversity, do you have the 
authority to go in and fix it?
    Ms. Duke. I do not have the authority to select their 
employees. We do have, in all our SESes, diversity as a 
performance element. So we would have an opportunity through 
performance evaluations to reflect that they are not achieving 
that objective. But in terms of taking the authority and hiring 
a diverse population, no.
    Chairman Thompson. You talked about outreach and 
recruitment fairs and things like this. Can you provide this 
committee with how many actual hires that have occurred with 
those recruitment fairs?
    Ms. Duke. There is a system problem with doing that. That 
is that right now the regulations require applicants to apply 
via USAJOBS's online site regardless if we recruit them at a 
fair. We cannot right now meet an applicant at a site and hire 
them, the way industry can and the way other groups can.
    So we have a notional in some areas, but we cannot one-for-
one say who we met at a job fair and, of those, who applied for 
a job was selected, because of that requirement to apply 
through USAJOBS to an existing announcement.
    Chairman Thompson. So how do you measure success?
    Ms. Duke. We measure success by looking at the statistics 
overall of how we are doing in terms of results. Are we getting 
more hires of minority and women candidates?
    Chairman Thompson. How dated is that information?
    Ms. Duke. We have information--really, we can pull it by 
pay periods, so it can be real-time. We are trying to pull it 
real-time. We are also trying to do an annual look in March of 
each year.
    Chairman Thompson. I just don't know how you measure 
success of your outreach if you can't say how these people came 
into the system at the end of the day.
    We will probably have a second round. I will yield to the 
ranking member.
    Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I want to thank all of the witnesses for their testimony.
    Ms. Duke, I am sorry I came in near the end of your 
testimony. I do want to commend you for the tough jobs you have 
undertaken over the past several years in the Department.
    Ms. Duke, I know you said that you are looking at it 
Department-wide and not by specific agencies or components 
within the Department. But if we could just go back to looking 
to specific agencies, do you look into the fact of whether or 
not, whether it is African Americans, Hispanics or women, there 
may be an historic reluctance on their part to join a 
particular component? Is the Department doing anything to 
encourage recruitment in those areas?
    For instance, there are certain parts of the country where 
African Americans, for historic reasons, may not want to join a 
police department. A police department makes extra efforts to 
reach out.
    Are there any components within DHS which, for historic 
reasons, any of these three groups I mentioned have not felt 
welcome or whatever it is, feel a reluctance? Are you actively 
recruiting within those communities?
    Ms. Duke. One of the specific job areas that fits that, Mr. 
King, is law enforcement in general, and do we have the right 
diversity in law enforcement, which covers many of our 
components but is a discrete population. So we have formed a 
law enforcement council to look at how can we get a better 
representation of diversity in the law enforcement areas, which 
in Federal civil service are the 1800 series. That would affect 
Secret Service, ICE and CBP principally. But we do think that 
we need to look at getting a good representative population in 
law enforcement.
    Mr. King. Now, would you actively recruit among minority 
populations for those agencies?
    Ms. Duke. Yes. We are trying to do that through a couple of 
ways. We are trying to go to historically black colleges and 
universities; working through some of the groups that tend to 
advocate or to represent minority populations, such as the 
Urban League. The third way is advertising for job openings in 
periodicals and papers that would be in the vicinity of 
geographic areas that have a higher population to pull from.
    Mr. King. Thank you.
    Mr. Stalcup, to the extent that DHS is not measuring up to 
the standard that might be optimal, do you see any particular 
actions by DHS to prevent that, or is it just not taking 
action?
    What I am getting at is, have you detected any policy 
within the Department to keep minority representation down? Or 
would your criticism of such, as it is, be that they are not 
doing enough to encourage minorities?
    Did I make that clear? Is there any discrimination against 
minorities?--is what I am saying.
    Mr. Stalcup. Well, we have not done work to even approach 
having that kind of conclusion.
    What we have learned through what DHS officials have told 
us, as we prepared this statement over the last couple weeks, 
are the initiatives that they have under way. We have made note 
that those initiatives are consistent with many things that we 
have recommended in the past.
    Several years ago, we did a broad report on diversity 
management in general that listed nine categories of practices 
that experts recommend are key to achieving workforce 
diversity. A lot of what we have heard from the DHS officials 
and repeated today is consistent with our--we cite four 
examples in the testimony that I have delivered for the record, 
and there are other areas. I mean, clearly demonstrated top 
management commitment is one of the most key things. Succession 
planning----
    Mr. King. Is that there?
    Mr. Stalcup. Excuse me?
    Mr. King. Is that there?
    Mr. Stalcup. Again, we have not done that work to know 
whether it is there or not, but it appears to be there based on 
the activities they are doing.
    The question is going to be follow-through and whether or 
not these efforts achieve their stated objectives.
    Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Thompson. Thank you.
    I recognize the gentleman from Washington State, Mr. Dicks, 
for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Dicks. Ms. Duke, explain to me this USAJOBS. What is 
that? Is that a Web site?
    Ms. Duke. It is a Web site.
    Mr. Dicks. Whose Web site is it?
    Ms. Duke. It is a Federal Web site. It is managed by Office 
of Personnel Management. It is the single----
    Mr. Dicks. So you are saying that you can't hire a single 
employee if they do not go through USAJOBS?
    Ms. Duke. In general, there has to be a published job 
announcement on USAJOBS, and we have to accept applicants 
unless, we have a special authority like direct hire.
    Mr. Dicks. Do you have direct hire?
    Ms. Duke. No, we don't.
    Mr. Dicks. In all of these 22 agencies, we don't have any 
direct hire?
    Ms. Duke. We do for a few targeted workforces. We have it 
for our acquisition workforce and for a few areas where we get 
specific authority--IT people. But, in general, we do not have 
it.
    Chairman Thompson. Excuse me.
    Can you provide us with who those direct hires are by 
department and the diversity within that?
    Ms. Duke. Okay. Yes, sir.
    Chairman Thompson. Thank you.
    Mr. Pascrell. Will the gentleman yield?
    Mr. Dicks. Yes, I will.
    Mr. Pascrell. What is the source of this Web site being the 
only path from which you would hire?
    Ms. Duke. I believe it is regulatory and not statutory. I 
believe.
    Mr. Pascrell. So we did that?
    Ms. Duke. No. Regulation, not statutory.
    Mr. Dicks. OPM.
    Let me take back my time, because I have a very short 
amount of time.
    So you can't hire anybody unless they go through this Web 
site. So how can you have an affirmative-action program or a 
diversity program? You just have to hope they do it?
    Ms. Duke. We have to, in essence, train them as applicants 
and teach them the Federal system. So, when we go out to job 
fairs and we have persons that we are interested in, we have to 
explain to them the Federal process and encourage them to apply 
through USAJOBS, through the Federal system.
    Mr. Dicks. Okay.
    Now, the chairman was trying to get at the point of the 
rankings. Maybe Mr. Stalcup can help us. Who is strong, who is 
doing a good job of these 22 agencies? Who is not doing a good 
job? Where is there a demonstration, as you put it, of 
leadership and commitment? Where isn't there a leader of that 
same kind of commitment?
    Mr. Stalcup. Well, Congressman Dicks, I apologize, but we 
have not done that work. So I can't answer that question with 
specificity. The numbers----
    Mr. Dicks. Do you think we should ask you to do that, to 
look into the 22 agencies so we can get a comparison to see how 
they are doing?
    Mr. Stalcup. That would be a job that could be done.
    Mr. Dicks. Well, I would think we should, Mr. Chairman, 
take a look at that.
    So the Office of Personnel Management, they are the ones 
that manage this Web site; is that correct?
    Ms. Duke. Yes.
    Mr. Dicks. So people apply there for a particular job. Then 
what happens? Let's say there are seven or eight people who 
apply. What happens then?
    Ms. Duke. The resumes are gathered. It is blind to race. At 
the time they apply, they can fill out an optional 
questionnaire about their demographics, but that is not 
provided. It is a separate process. The resumes are rated and 
ranked according to criteria. Then the hiring official only 
gets a subset of the applicants that are considered the best 
qualified. That rating and ranking is normally done by a 
personnel specialist.
    Mr. Dicks. Is that somebody in the Department or somebody 
at OPM?
    Ms. Duke. Somebody in the Department, generally.
    Mr. Dicks. So the Departments get to make the final 
decision?
    Ms. Duke. Yes.
    Mr. Dicks. Now, is there any way to have an affirmative-
action program at the SES level, or do they have to go through 
the same exact process?
    Ms. Duke. They go through the same process. We cannot, by 
statute, consider diversity--gender, race--as part of a 
qualification criteria. So that is why we are so much focusing 
on casting the net widely. So the way we are going to get to--
--
    Mr. Dicks. In other words, getting more people to apply and 
then hoping the numbers will materialize but without having an 
affirmative action-type program.
    Ms. Duke. Yes, because we cannot consider gender----
    Mr. Dicks. Mr. Stalcup, it is pretty hard to have 
leadership if--I mean, is there any other way that you see that 
there could be leadership here? Or should we change the law and 
let the Department go out and get these people?
    Mr. Stalcup. GAO has done some work in the area of hiring 
flexibility. Direct hire is one aspect of that. I do know that 
I have read where certain agencies can have direct hire 
authority but they still have hurdles they have to overcome 
regulatory-wise or even legislatively.
    There are examples also where agencies are provided 
flexibilities, and they are not fully utilized.
    So, again, we have done work in those areas in the past. I 
don't believe we have done that work at DHS.
    Mr. Dicks. Okay.
    Just one final thing. We understand that sometimes in the 
direct hire thing, they don't take into account veterans 
preference. Is that correct? Or do you know about that?
    Mr. Stalcup. Is that for me?
    Mr. Dicks. Either one of you, whoever can answer it.
    Mr. Stalcup. As far as I know, that also takes into account 
veterans preference.
    Mr. Dicks. It should, but we understand there may be a 
problem with that. Anyway, we hope you will look at that.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Thompson. Thank you much.
    I guess, for Ms. Duke, from my vantage point, do you know 
if anyone in the Department has ever been disciplined for not 
hiring minorities?
    Ms. Duke. No.
    Chairman Thompson. You talked about evaluations, that 
people are evaluated. Mr. Stalcup just said that the Department 
is woefully underrepresented in minority categories. You talked 
to me about--that we evaluate people who hire. So, now, maybe 
my term was too strong.
    Did people lose their bonus, did they not get promoted or 
anything like that because they did not meet some expectation?
    Ms. Duke. This is the first year that we have had that in 
performance plans, and so our rating cycle ends at the end of 
September. So no one has been evaluated based on the diversity 
issue.
    Chairman Thompson. I am glad you told me that, because, if 
I had taken your earlier comment, I would assume that it was 
already in place and being done. But now you tell me you just 
started.
    Ms. Duke. It is in place. It was in place as of October of 
last year. So it is in place for this fiscal year. We just have 
not rated people yet. It is not the end of the rating cycle.
    Chairman Thompson. Right. Before that, what was being used?
    Ms. Duke. There was no formal factor in SES performance 
appraisals before that consistently throughout the Department, 
to my knowledge.
    Chairman Thompson. Well, I think the Department is to be 
complimented for it now, but--so we really can't evaluate our 
success until after October of this year?
    Ms. Duke. Yes, sir.
    Chairman Thompson. Ms. Stewart, can you share with us how 
Fannie Mae looks at diversity across the board when numbers are 
not where leadership expect them? What do they do to impact 
those numbers?
    Ms. Stewart. Well, within our recruiting operation, we have 
a specific team dedicated to diversity recruiting. We probably 
do not have all of the same regulatory hurdles that exist in 
the Federal Government to be able to go out and recruit various 
individuals across a diverse set of communities to attract them 
to come to Fannie Mae.
    But we do reach out across the board to communities based 
on race, based on gender, and try to create an environment in 
which people feel comfortable in coming to the company and know 
that they are being attracted to the company based on their 
talent, based on their skills. But also, they understand that 
Fannie Mae creates an environment in which we welcome people of 
different perspectives, with different backgrounds and 
experiences to come to the company.
    So we have a specific diversity recruiting team. We do some 
of the same things that I have heard earlier this morning 
around creating relationships with various organizations that 
can source top talent and candidates to the organization.
    I think one of the things that we do on a regular basis is 
we also track our levels of representation across the board and 
try to do more specific outreach when we find that we are 
probably not comfortable in the levels of representation that 
we would like to see. So that is a very active part of the 
company and always has been.
    For us, though, we have now 49 percent of our company are 
people of color. There are certainly other ways to measure 
diversity, but if you just look at those, we have actually 
achieved quite a bit in terms of creating a diverse workforce. 
That has come over a long period of time. We initiated our 
diversity effort in 1992, so we have spent 15 years working on 
this, and we have gotten to this point of success.
    For us, it is not just about measuring success in terms of 
representation and how our company looks relative to race or 
gender or ethnicity. Right now, we are really focusing on how 
we are measuring the kind of environment that is created once 
you have that diversity. Are we creating an environment and 
making sure that we have an environment in which everyone feels 
that everyone, based on their differences, is valued and 
respected? That is a different level of diversity inclusion 
that we are finding ourselves in. But it has been a long, hard 
road for us to get to this point, and we continue to work at 
it.
    Chairman Thompson. Thank you.
    The gentleman from North Carolina for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Etheridge. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    You mentioned earlier on your recruiting--and certainly, I 
would encourage that to continue, because I think if you do the 
outreach, you are more likely to have a much better 
opportunity.
    In my district, for example, we have seven universities and 
four community colleges. Of those seven, one is a research 
university and two are historically black universities, turning 
out some great students. We also have Fort Bragg, which, 
obviously, has a lot of opportunities there for our veterans. 
There is Pope Air Force Base. So, within that contingency, 
there is a lot of talent and there are a lot of opportunities.
    Let me ask Ms. Duke a question.
    The EEOC requires a periodic review of agency personnel, 
programs and policies to determine if there are barriers to 
open competitiveness in the workplace. Based on your recent 
analysis, what have you discovered that DHS leadership can 
improve upon to create more opportunity for advancement within 
the Department?
    You touched on it a little bit in your answer a few minutes 
ago when you said it was part of the performance appraisal 
instrument. I guess I am shocked to find out that the 
Department has been in business this long and they are finally 
putting it in place. I ran a department that had over 1,100 
people and 130,000 people State-wide when I was State 
superintendent. You normally get what you want.
    If the leadership decides what they want, they can get what 
they want by putting it in a performance appraisal for each one 
of the managers, because that is how you promote. Is that 
correct?
    Ms. Duke. Yes.
    To answer your question, the report that you are talking 
about, the analysis, that is actually done by our civil rights 
and civil liberties union. But we work in partnership with them 
in the Chief Human Capital Office.
    As for some of the top barriers they identified in the last 
analysis, one was the USAJOBS that I talked about, not only 
because of the administrative system, but you have to have 
access to the Internet to be able to apply under that system. 
So that tends to be a problem when we are dealing with 
diversity.
    Another area that we looked at----
    Mr. Etheridge. Let me interrupt there because it seems to 
me, if it is a problem, we ought to find out what the problem 
is and fix it. Because if you are only doing it through the 
Internet and you do not have access to the Internet, it would 
seem to me that, if I really want to be aggressive, I can find 
a way to fix that.
    Ms. Duke. I agree. I think both fixing the system and also 
within the current system----
    Mr. Etheridge. Well, I am not so sure it is the system. I 
don't mean to keep interrupting, but it is not the system; it 
is an attitude.
    Mr. Pascrell. It is an attitude.
    Ms. Duke. I think it is important that if we are going to 
have--when I call it the ``system,'' I am talking about the 
regulations. I think, if we have to fix the regulations, I 
don't think we should promote a culture where we have the 
choice of whether we follow regulations. So, when I say 
``system,'' I mean the regulations, but in the meantime, we 
have to try to enable the candidates to work through the 
existing regulations.
    Another area, in all candor--and it is why I started the 
Diversity Council with senior leadership--is there was a 
perception in the review by our EEO group that--the visibility 
of management. Meaning, we had policy statements, we had 
actions put in place, but there was more of a desire to have a 
day-to-day--what the chairman mentioned about the sustained and 
continuous consideration of diversity. That is another big 
area. That is something that we can totally control within our 
own culture.
    Mr. Etheridge. It is kind of a measurement tool as you go 
along, which I think is critical.
    Very quickly, because I know my time is running out, under 
the fellowship program, it is designed to help current 
employees develop into SES positions over a span of time.
    According to the GAO study, after a candidate completes the 
Fellows Program, the fellows remain in their current 
assignment, but they are prepared for advancement when the 
opportunity arises. This seems like exactly what you really 
want to do. It seems to me this is making progress.
    Can you tell the committee about the initiative and 
particularly how many fellows have gone from positions into SES 
positions and how many of them have been of the background of 
diversity of women, of various people of color, et cetera?
    Ms. Duke. We just had our first class graduate, and I would 
have to get you the statistics on if any of them have been 
placed in the Senior Executive Service. They are considered 
qualified for it, so that is a big competitive advantage for 
them.
    In terms of the actual makeup of the class, I believe that 
was in my written testimony, but 23 percent were African 
Americans. So we have a better representation in that class 
than we do in the general DHS population.
    Mr. Etheridge. Could you supply the committee with numbers? 
Percentages tend to be somewhat deceptive sometimes. You do not 
really know what you are getting when you get a percentage. If 
you would do the numbers, I would appreciate that.
    Ms. Duke. We will do that.
    Chairman Thompson. Which class was that, Ms. Duke?
    Ms. Duke. We had one class that just graduated, and we have 
a second class that just started up. I will provide you the 
numbers for both of those.
    Chairman Thompson. Is this the fellows class?
    Ms. Duke. Yes.
    Mr. Etheridge. Thank you.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Chairman Thompson. Thank you.
    I recognize the gentleman from Texas for 5 minutes, Mr. 
Cuellar.
    Mr. Cuellar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Ms. Duke, part of your testimony says that part of your new 
job is to implement a new strategy to increase diversity across 
the workforce, with particular attention to leadership and 
executive ranks.
    About 2 months ago, on the Judiciary Committee, they asked 
Secretary Chertoff to have whoever was with him to stand up. I 
am sure you are better prepared this time. Can I ask you who is 
with you and ask them to please stand up?
    Okay. Power of example is important, especially since that 
is part of your strategy. When the chairman was asking you the 
question of what department has the best diverse workforce, I 
thought you were going to say ``mine'' because that is your 
job.
    How diverse is your department?
    Ms. Duke. I would have to get the exact----
    Mr. Cuellar. Well, let me ask you: Is your department the 
most diverse one? I mean, that is your job, is to diversify.
    Ms. Duke. If you look at the numbers across the board, I do 
not believe it is the most diverse of the organization.
    Mr. Cuellar. It is not?
    Ms. Duke. I do not believe so, no.
    Mr. Cuellar. So how do you, as a leader--I mean, if your 
job is to say, ``I am here to diversify the workforce within 
the Department of Homeland Security,'' wouldn't you think that 
most people would look at what are you doing?
    If you are not the top one, which is your main strategy, 
how do you expect other people to follow what you are trying to 
tell them if you are not doing the diversification?
    Ms. Duke. I do believe, as the Deputy Under Secretary of 
Management, that I have to demonstrate that, and I have to 
demonstrate it through filling the existing jobs, through 
attrition, and produce the results. It is not going to be 
instantaneous success, but as I build throughout USM, I agree 
with you, I have to demonstrate that.
    Mr. Cuellar. Percentage-wise, how many Hispanics and how 
many blacks do you have?
    Ms. Duke. Like I said earlier, I will provide for the 
record by component, including----
    Mr. Cuellar. I am sorry. You don't know percentage-wise 
what your own department is? Do you have a rough estimate?
    Ms. Duke. I have that information. I just am not able to 
recite it now.
    Mr. Cuellar. Give me a rough estimate.
    Ms. Duke. I don't have that, and I don't want to----
    Mr. Cuellar. Less than 5 percent blacks?
    Ms. Duke. I honestly don't know.
    Mr. Cuellar. Hispanics, more than 5 percent or less?
    Ms. Duke. I don't believe it is more than 5 percent.
    Mr. Cuellar. Blacks are probably not more than 5 percent?
    Ms. Duke. I believe that, if I am recalling the statistics 
correctly, we have a better representation of black females 
than black males. I do believe the black females are over 5 
percent. But I will have to check for my specific office.
    Mr. Cuellar. Could you provide to the chairman and the 
committee what it is?
    Ms. Duke. Yes.
    Mr. Cuellar. The other thing is--I think Mr. Pascrell 
agrees, and I think it was Mr. Norm Dicks also--it is attitude. 
You know, in Texas, I used to chair the budget for higher ed in 
Texas, where we went through the Hopwood decision where the 5th 
Circuit said you cannot use race as a factor in letting kids 
into--at that time, we were talking about law school, the UT 
law school.
    So what we decided to do was we said, if you can't use race 
as a factor, then use socioeconomic factors, use other factors. 
A year later, we saw that certain law schools, if they really 
wanted to diversify, they would diversify. The ones that said, 
you know, we are just going to do what we need to do to get 
along, did that, and kids were not getting in.
    Just like with Fannie Mae, if you want to want to 
diversify, you can diversify. I know there are barriers. I know 
that there are legal barriers. You know, there are other 
barriers that you have to look at. But if you really want to 
look at good, qualified--and I am not just saying just hire 
blacks or Hispanics just because--but good, qualified 
minorities, it can be done.
    I was secretary of state, and within a short period of 
time, I did what I needed to do and diversified. It is an 
agency that was there for over 100 years and pretty much looked 
the same for years and years. In 1 year, I did what they 
couldn't do in 100 years. So there are ways to do this.
    With all due respect, Ms. Duke--and I appreciate what you 
are doing; I know it is a very difficult job--but the power of 
demonstration is so important. I would ask you to really look, 
you know, at what you do within your department, because if 
your strategy is to diversify and if you don't do that within 
your own house, it is kind of hard to tell the next one, ``Hey, 
diversify,'' when you are not doing it yourself.
    So I am really looking forward to seeing those numbers, Mr. 
Chairman. I assume that can be done probably by next week. I 
mean, you can print it out pretty quickly.
    Ms. Duke. Yes. Yes. I do agree with you that, within the 
existing law, we can have better diversity than what we 
currently have.
    Mr. Cuellar. Okay. Thank you very much for your time, 
ma'am.
    Chairman Thompson. Before I recognize the gentleman from 
New Jersey, Ms. Duke, you talked about the Diversity Council. 
Can you provide us, if you know, the number that that council 
is made up of and the composition of the council?
    Ms. Duke. Yes. Are you talking about the ethnic 
representation within the council?
    Chairman Thompson. Yes.
    Ms. Duke. Yes.
    Chairman Thompson. The number. You don't have it offhand?
    Ms. Duke. There are about--I believe it is about 25. But I 
can provide you the titles and the people who are on the 
council. They are basically my counterparts throughout the--the 
ones responsible for management throughout the Department. As 
you know, under our functional integration, we have that dotted 
line, so it is my dotted-line group. I will provide that to 
you.
    Chairman Thompson. I guess what I am trying to say is you 
put a lot of confidence in this council, but at the end of the 
day, what can they do?
    Ms. Duke. I think what they can do is show the sustained--
this isn't a problem or an issue or a challenge that is going 
to be resolved tomorrow, but we have great opportunity. We are 
hiring. We have turnover, as was said, 8 percent turnover. So 
it is a problem that we need a sustained look to, you know, 
stabilize in the long term. I think that what the council does 
is it does a monthly look so that diversity isn't something we 
just do because we have a hearing or that we do because it is 
annual performance appraisal time, but it is something with a 
sustained look and focus. I think that is what is going to 
effect change.
    Chairman Thompson. How long has it been in existence?
    Ms. Duke. It came into existence--we proposed it in 
February, and then early March.
    Chairman Thompson. Do you keep minutes?
    Ms. Duke. Yes.
    Chairman Thompson. Can you provide the committee with the 
minutes of the council?
    Ms. Duke. They are notes more than formal minutes, but I 
will provide them.
    Chairman Thompson. I guess what I am trying to say is, 
whatever they are, if that is what you are using to change the 
Department, I would hope that it goes a little bit more than 
just notes. Because, otherwise, it is just another council put 
together for comfort and not real action.
    The gentleman from New Jersey.
    Mr. Pascrell. Let's see, where do we begin here?
    I have a great deal of respect for, Mr. Chairman, every 
member under the loyal opposition. As you well know, I know 
many of them and am close to them. The chairman is usually 
always here and Mr. Rogers.
    But I am concerned--indeed, maybe disturbed--that when we 
discuss this particular issue there is nobody here. I hope I'm 
not out of order, but that is the way I think and that is the 
way I feel.
    I have a great deal of respect also for the Under 
Secretary. I have told her that publicly and privately.
    But you still have no diversity action plan, and I think a 
legitimate question would be--I am not asking it of you; just 
let it hang out there for a minute--when will you have that 
plan?
    We are not talking about numbers. We are not talking about 
percentages. We are talking about how we approach a problem if 
we recognize it.
    I don't sense, as with many other things in the Department, 
Mr. Chairman, a sense of urgency. I don't see a sense of 
diversity. Because, when you look at the numbers supplied by 
the GAO, you have minority groups in particular divisions that 
are, like, shoe-fitted into specific divisions, be it the TSA, 
be it border security, et cetera. We don't have across the 
board.
    So I know it may be easier to get someone to check my 
baggage, but I don't believe that--and I don't believe that we 
cannot get and recruit minority people in management positions 
and in senior positions. It is absolutely unacceptable.
    I would hold that we should not have the Under Secretary 
here, because she is doing, I think, a great job. We should 
have the Secretary here because he does a lot of talking, he 
does a lot of talking about how wonderful all of these things 
are shaping up.
    Now, we have found out for the first time that a person has 
to go through the USAJOBS Web site. That is not your fault, 
Madam Under Secretary, but it is a fact of life. When we are 
talking about 22 divisions, how in God's name are we going to 
get diversity that way?
    Second of all, if we had a plan that it would, it hasn't. 
It just hasn't. So let's call it the way it is. Let's call it 
the way it is.
    According to your testimony, the Department of Homeland 
Security recognizes diversity as a management and mission 
imperative for success. You said that; it is in your testimony.
    You also stated that better business decisions are made 
when diverse points of view are considered, and teams perform 
better when their members represent diverse backgrounds. 
Particularly in Homeland Security, in this area where we are 
trying to protect borders and neighborhoods, do we need the 
folks who live in those neighborhoods represented somehow in 
protecting themselves, ourselves.
    Mr. Pascrell. Given the recent reports of racially charged 
occurrences within the Secret Service, Coast Guard, United 
States Coast Guard, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, what 
is the Department of Homeland Security doing to ensure that 
people from diverse backgrounds are placed into senior service 
positions to help bring more diverse viewpoints to these 
components? Can you tell us.
    Ms. Duke. Well, a couple of the specific actions we have 
taken recently and a lot of these are, you are right, on the 
spot have been this calendar year, so results are going to come 
over time. One of them is we have just added an equal 
employment opportunity rep to our senior executive board called 
the Executive Resources Board----
    Mr. Pascrell. Doesn't that strike you, excuse me for 
interrupting, doesn't that strike you that 5 years into the 
Department we are now hiring someone that should have been 
hired 5 years ago in order to ensure, particularly in this 
Department, which is the face of the Nation in protecting our 
neighborhoods, our families, that we should now think of this?
    Ms. Duke. I think it is important that since we don't have 
the results I want that we take different actions, and that is 
one of them, yes. We are also looking at both the fellows 
program and the candidate development program, and that is to 
put people in a position that they can be competitive for 
senior executive positions. I think that is very crucial to 
that because our statistics demonstrate that at the GS-13 and 
below level we have much better diversity. So we have to 
somehow give those candidates an opportunity, being position, 
through vocational opportunities and training development to be 
competitive for the senior development.
    Mr. Pascrell. Have you looked at this GAO report?
    Ms. Duke. Yes.
    Mr. Pascrell. Did any of the conclusions I come to, are 
they out of line?
    Ms. Duke. No. I think we have to have a more sustained and 
systemic focus on diversity.
    Mr. Pascrell. Did it occur to you or did you think about 
the fact that many of what we would consider minorities have 
been moved into one or two particular areas in the whole 
department?
    Ms. Duke. I think we are looking at the TSA initiative. We 
have moved 400 Transportation Security Administration screeners 
out of the screener career field into Customs and Border 
Patrol. So I do agree. We are taking steps more to do. We are 
also looking at, I mentioned earlier about the law enforcement 
community, looking at how we can have career paths, cross 
component among the law enforcement communities within DHS.
    Mr. Pascrell. This is what I hope. I hope when we have this 
transition, whoever is the next, whatever is the next 
administration, and I say this with ample thought given to what 
I am going to say, that they keep you because you are one of 
the very few people from Homeland Security through the years 
that I have found give direct answers. The rest of them are a 
bunch of bull throwers. This is too important an area if we are 
really serious about protecting our neighborhoods and our 
families, that we can play games with reports. The GAO has led 
us into understanding many of these points. I salute the GAO as 
usual. I really appreciate the fact that you are coming here 
this morning.
    This is unacceptable. For us to learn 5 years later that 
the only way to get a job is to go through this Internet, I 
think we haven't been doing our jobs that we didn't find it out 
sooner. I apologize. But I don't think you have been doing, 
your department, and the whole department, has been doing what 
we say we do. So we pound our chests. We see pictures of 
officials with minorities in the background, but we are not 
doing what we are supposed to be doing. We are not doing what 
we are supposed to be doing. That angers me. It does.
    Ms. Duke. I do believe that a diverse workforce will help 
us accomplish our mission more effectively. I agree with you on 
that, Mr. Pascrell.
    Mr. Pascrell. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Thompson. Thank you, Ms. Duke. For the record I 
want you to know that Congressman Pascrell doesn't give out 
positive comments about witnesses. So you are a rare commodity 
on that one. Trust me.
    Ms. Duke. Thank you, Mr. Thompson.
    Chairman Thompson. Ms. Jackson Lee, you are recognized for 
5 minutes.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you for 
this hearing. I do want to echo the distinguished gentleman 
from New Jersey's call for Secretary Chertoff in these waning 
months to come before us on this singular issue. This is how 
important I think it is. I think the policy positions of an 
agency clearly starts at the top.
    I want to ask Mr. Stalcup if he would rate DHS, I am sorry 
if it was in your testimony. Compared to the other Federal 
agencies, where does DHS fall with respect to diversity, grade 
of 10 or you can use ABCs, F is failing.
    Let me just indicate 14, 15 agencies and the number, where 
do they relate to the agencies?
    Mr. Stalcup. I don't have that information. We have not 
looked at diversity in depth, as I say in my statement. We 
present the numbers. The numbers are where they are. We talk 
about things that we have seen work across government. We have 
heard from DHS officials both today and----
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Then what grade would you give them?
    Mr. Stalcup. It is not GAO's role really to provide grades 
like that.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. How poorly are they performing? You have 
your numbers in front of you. What would be your assessment? I 
don't want to add to the assessment their improvements. I will 
recognize that. But where are they on the scheme of things? If 
you have to look at your numbers, black and white, you look at 
them, my understanding is Homeland Security is the second 
largest department after DOD. Is that an accurate assessment or 
is there a larger one?
    Mr. Stalcup. I believe that is correct.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. So give me an assessment, just looking at 
the numbers.
    Mr. Stalcup. Looking at the numbers, we have African 
American, we have Asian Pacific. We have Hispanic. We have 
American Indian. There are numbers that are a broad range in 
some components and within some groups, agencies are doing 
better than average and in many they are doing worse than 
average. That is what the numbers that we presented in our 
testimony----
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Do you have them broken down by 
management?
    Mr. Stalcup. We have them broken down by component.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. So what you are looking at, as you 
indicated, Border Patrol is high and TSA is high, 
Transportation Security Administration.
    Mr. Stalcup. Yes.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Border Patrol. Do you have any others that 
are high?
    Mr. Stalcup. Those are the best examples of those that are 
high.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. So if you took those out and looked at 
your other numbers for the rest of your agency, then where are 
we?
    Mr. Stalcup. It would look worse than it does now.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me indicate that I frankly believe, 
Mr. Chairman, it is not your jurisdiction. I frankly believe 
that the Federal Government itself is a poor participant in 
diversity. We wrote legislation in the Judiciary Committee 
called the NO FEAR Act which was in direct response to the 
discriminatory treatment of African Americans, women, Hispanics 
and others in the Federal Government and the complete--and the 
insult, not to say that you don't engage in litigation, but the 
insult of where cases were found to have been proven as 
discriminatory. The Federal Government took taxpayers' dollars 
to appeal the cases over and over again. One particular case 
was a U.S. Marshal who the Federal Government appealed for 21 
years. But you have given me a good answer.
    Ms. Stewart, let me thank you for your testimony and ask 
the question, how has Fannie Mae been impacted or how has 
Fannie Mae generated decisionmakers who happen to be diverse, 
and what is the positive effect of having a decisionmaker, 
meaning leadership, Senior Vice President, CEO, through, up 
your ranks that are a useful or effective business tool?
    Ms. Stewart. Well, we started our efforts in diversity 
inclusions 15 years ago, and it really came as a result of a 
very strong commitment at the very top of our organization, at 
the level of our board of directors as well as our CEO, to 
engage in a serious effort to diversify our workforce and to 
create an environment within the company that really does 
appreciate and value the differences among all of our 
employees. So the success that we have been able to achieve, 
although we try not to rest on laurels and always recognize 
that we need to do more, really comes as a result of our senior 
leadership. There is a tone at the top that is set that sets 
the stage for successful effort in diversity and inclusion.
    So the commitment at our CEO level and our board of 
directors level and across top management across the company is 
what has enabled us to attract diversity across the board and 
to create that culture, that environment that I talked about.
    Obviously when you have senior leadership that is diverse, 
it sends a message to the rest of the organization that we, 
that that is a level of diversity that we ought to encourage 
across the organization.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. It sets the tone.
    Ms. Stewart. It does set the tone, and tone at the top is 
really very important to us. I think one of the things that is 
really, too, is it goes beyond just the tone because words 
don't mean really much unless actions are there to back them 
up. So one of the things we have always done is we have had 
diversity goals that are part of management's goals across the 
organization. Compensation is tied to whether or not we meet 
those goals, and so we measure success based on the goals that 
we set and then pay accordingly.
    I also think that we have always tried to make sure that 
diversity isn't something that is off to the side and the rest 
of business goes on on a day-to-day basis. What we try to say 
is diversity is an integral part of what makes us a successful 
company. If we are a company that is going to provide housing 
to both on a single family side to multi-family side to all 
Americans, we need to have a company that reflects America. We 
need to have a company that acts like America should. So one of 
the things that we have tried to do is to say that it is 
important to count the numbers of who you have got in the 
company and do they reflect the country overall.
    But this isn't a numbers game for us. It really is a way of 
behaving in our company that is reflected outside the company 
so that we serve the communities that we are here to serve as 
well as we can.
    So there is a piece of this for us that is about making 
sure that we have got diversity in the workforce, but more 
importantly, it is about how is our behavior as a company 
reflected inside the company in terms of valuing and respecting 
others and also how does that reflect outside with our 
customers, our stakeholders and the communities that we are 
serving.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. We might ask you to consult with our 
Federal agencies.
    Let me pose this question to Ms. Duke. You have heard that 
statement, and I will associate myself with Mr. Pascrell and 
other Members here, that you have always worked with us and we 
look forward to working with you. Let me ask some pointed 
questions to finish up my line of questioning, listening to 
these two individual witnesses here. First of all, would you 
tell me, this diversity, DHS diversity initiative is an 
internal administrative decision? Is that formulated inside the 
Department?
    Ms. Duke. Yes.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. I would offer to say just as an aside it 
might be well for the next President to look for a diverse 
Secretary of Homeland Security being the agency that is really 
considered, really I believe second to defense and No. 1 in 
importance in securing this country and protecting America.
    But just to put on the record and then ask you two 
questions, most recently in May 2008, 10 racially insensitive 
e-mails written by 20 Secret Service were exposed in July 2000 
and these were Secret Service supervisors that had these 
racially insensitive e-mails, which goes to my point of the 
intimidation of line employees. In July 2007, a noose was 
discovered in the personal belongings of an African American 
male cadet aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Eagle. October 
2007, during a Halloween party at an Immigration Customs 
headquarters the ICE employee was awarded a prize for his 
costume, which consisted of a striped prison suit, dreadlocks 
and darkened skin. So we know we have some problems. So my 
question to you is the two large agencies are TSA and Border 
Patrol, interestingly enough probably Hispanics and African 
Americans. The question there is why since you have that pool 
of individuals, and we know that we have merged Secret Service, 
Air Marshals, this is the biggest conglomeration and we have to 
make it work. We all may have a second thought of what we did 
but we have to make it work. Where is the initiative to pierce 
down into those entities? Bright, comfortable people probably 
went there because they felt comfortable maybe they lived in 
the Southwest for Border Patrol, maybe, as I know, African 
Americans. This was a first line opportunity and, by the way, 
Mr. Chairman, recruitment process was horrible. I had to 
intervene in Houston. They were sitting at a hotel talking 
about trying to recruit TSA people at the airport. I said, do 
you come into our neighborhoods? Are you going to leave the 
hotel and the airport and come into the city of Houston? But 
neither here nor there, and pierce down to give those people 
professional development, one.
    Two, what are you doing about getting management, assistant 
secretaries, and, last, what are you doing about attrition?
    Ms. Duke. In terms of attrition, start with your last 
question, we are slightly higher than the government average. 
We have about a 7 percent attrition rate. It is down from 8 
percent, but it is still higher than the government average. We 
recently completed our employee survey, as you know, and we 
have corrective focus groups talking to the employees more 
about that and also corrective action plans in place by each 
component that are addressing what were the trends of the 
employees surveyed, both this first annual DHS one and the one 
we did at OPM last year. So I think the key to retention or the 
data we have now is that employee survey and the actions we 
take to address the employees' concerns.
    I will note, since this hearing is on diversity, that two 
of the key indices--the contractor that ran a survey indicated 
that on two of the key indices minorities were more satisfied 
in key questions than nonminorities. So that is a hopeful 
prospect for us.
    Chairman Thompson. Satisfied with what?
    Ms. Jackson Lee. I'm sorry. What did you say? What did you 
say?
    Ms. Duke. There were three questions under talent 
management, three questions under performance out of say 8 or 
so, where statistics showed that minority employees were more 
satisfied. Some of the questions were do you have access to 
training and development? So the good thing about that is how 
do we take that pocket and make it a systemwide, DHS-wide 
culture. So I do, I think that----
    Ms. Jackson Lee. I take that answer in the innocence of 
which you have given it because I know that your intentions 
were good. But just know how it sounds to us that minorities 
are happy with the status quo and happy at the bottom of the 
ladder. I know that that was not your intent. What we are 
trying to do is how do we get minorities, you obviously a 
woman, and we appreciate that and appreciate your service, but 
how do we get minorities and women at the top level. I have 
already said that we need to posture the next Secretary for 
Homeland Security to be a diverse person, without a doubt, but 
well qualified as we would expect, a diverse person. But you 
know my point and I hear your answer, but I really want to 
focus on how do we jump these and why wouldn't you go down to 
TSA with--I have always been arguing about professional 
development, there are people probably that have been there 
since 2001, 2002. They may be FSPs or FDSs, they may be workers 
that might be willing to be plucked out of somewhere in this 
country and say why don't you come to Washington and they might 
even be put on a different track. But you have a pool of 
minorities from which you can pull from.
    Ms. Duke. We do think that rotational assignments are a key 
to increasing diversity, and have that in our strategy to 
increase rotational assignments, especially among the national 
security professionals, which is a broad piece of our 
workforce. Both our candidate development and our fellows 
program also have rotational assignments. So we think both that 
training, the rotations and the education are going to help, 
but that is, like I stated earlier, because we know we have 
better diversity at the GS-13 and below, we have to do exactly 
what you are saying and find ways to make our existing 
employees, our 200,000, competitive for the Senior Executive 
Service.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the Chairman for his indulgence, 
and I just want to put this on the table. It is unfortunate 
that the U.S. Secret Service has had such a long history of 
issues of discrimination. I would appreciate a report on this 
case that could be given back to the committee. It may be a 
report. I am not sure if it is in litigation, but I would 
appreciate a standard report that does not interfere with the 
litigation as to the situation and the other issue that I would 
like to have an assessment--this hearing is talking about 
personnel but you did diversity as it relates to contractors, 
and I would just simply want to see some internal policies that 
deal with the massive numbers of majority contractors and what 
you are doing for oversight to ensure--I will just call the 
name like a Boeing that seems to be growing in its 
opportunities, just cite that as a company--what enforcement 
internally is there to have Boeing present its diverse 
subcontractor situation or numbers as well as what are we doing 
to ensure that there are Boeings that are minorities, African 
American, women, Asian, Hispanic, et cetera. There must be some 
Boeings that can be getting prime contracts. I yield back.
    Chairman Thompson. Yes, ma'am. I thank the gentleman from 
New Jersey.
    Before we close out the hearing, Ms. Duke, can you provide 
the committee with a copy of this document that you said went 
into effect last year where you would evaluate employees based 
on their diversity efforts?
    Ms. Duke. Yes. We can provide you that language. It is part 
of the performance evaluation form, so there are certain 
factors that are mandatory, and we can provide that to you, 
yes.
    Chairman Thompson. You reference those direct hires. I want 
to make sure you understand that we need that information from 
all of the departments as well as the Department's diversity 
plan. If it exists, please provide it. The Diversity Council, 
the composition of the Council, the authority and the minutes, 
whatever they have done since it has become part of this effort 
to broaden the employment of the Department.
    Let me thank all of the witnesses for their valuable 
testimony and the members for their questions. The members of 
the committee may have additional questions for the witnesses 
and we will ask that you respond expeditiously in writing to 
these questions.
    Hearing no further business, the committee stands 
adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 11:30 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]


                            A P P E N D I X

                              ----------                              

Questions From Chairman Bennie G. Thompson of Mississippi for Elaine C. 
 Duke, Under Secretary for Management, Department of Homeland Security

    Question 1. In June 2007, the Department released the DHS Diversity 
Initiative, a partnership between the Chief Human Capital Officer, the 
Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. Does the partnership 
between the Chief Human Capital Officer and the Officer for Civil 
Rights and Civil Liberties still exist? Will the Officer for Civil 
Rights and Civil Liberties have input in the Department's Diversity 
Action Plan and/or sit on the Diversity Council?
    Answer. Yes. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) continues to 
strengthen the partnership between the Office of the Chief Human 
Capital Officer (CHCO) and the Officer for Civil Rights and Civil 
Liberties (CRCL) through initiatives such as the Diversity Planning and 
Policy Sub Council. The Deputy Officer for CRCL in charge of Equal 
Employment Opportunity (EEO) serves along with the Director, Recruiting 
and Diversity CHCO as the co-chair of the Diversity Planning and Policy 
Sub Council. This Sub Council develops recommendations for the DHS 
Diversity Council. The Sub Council recently drafted a fiscal year 2008 
Diversity Action Plan, which was reviewed and approved by the Diversity 
Council. Further, the Deputy Officer, CRCL (EEO) is a standing member 
of the DHS Human Capital Council chaired by the CHCO. Likewise, the 
Director, Recruiting and Diversity is a standing member of the DHS EEO 
Council, chaired by the Deputy Officer, CRCL (EEO).
    Additionally, the Deputy Officer for CRCL in charge of EEO will 
serve in the future as an ex officio member of the Executive Resources 
Council, chaired by the Deputy Secretary, in charge of approving the 
highest level SES selections.

    Question 2. The June 2007 DHS Diversity Initiative found that many 
minority groups are overrepresented in particular DHS components, while 
underrepresented in others. Have you identified these components, 
identified the reasons why some minorities are overrepresented or 
underrepresented, and developed a strategy to create a balance of 
minority representation throughout the Department's components?
    Answer. The Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer (CHCO) has 
conducted a review as to the representation of various diverse groups 
in our components vis-a-vis the DHS-wide data. CHCO is using this data 
to continue to implement our diversity approach; i.e. recruitment, 
development, retention, and succession planning within the merit system 
principles and applicable laws, rules and regulations. Please see the 
attached Diversity Action Plan.

    Question 3. The Department released a Diversity Initiative in 2007. 
At that time, the former Chief Human Capital Officer, Ms. Brito Perez, 
stated that the Department was participating in the following 
activities:
   Meeting with DHS Component Heads to reinforce diversity 
        objectives;
   Spearheading corporate participation in job fairs;
   Completing a year-long review of DHS employment policies and 
        practices;
   Expanding scholarship and internship opportunities for 
        Minority Serving Institutions;
   Planning a Department-wide annual Diversity Day event;
   Initiating a formal mentoring program;
   Establishing an Executive Leadership Development Program;
   Ensuring Accountability;
   Continuing expansion of outreach and employment of 
        individuals with disabilities, including veterans.
    Is the Department still participating in these activities? Has this 
2007 Diversity Initiative been abandoned?
    Answer. DHS has continued the activities as stated by Marta Perez 
in 2007 and has expanded upon them in fiscal year 2008. This is 
demonstrated in our fiscal year 2008 Diversity Action Plan, which has 
been approved by the DHS Diversity Council and is attached for your 
reference.

                                   DHS DIVERSITY ACTION PLAN--FISCAL YEAR 2008
                                   Approved: DHS Diversity Council (5/29/2008)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   ACTION OFFICIALS/
             ACTION                    FUNCTION        PLANNED DUE DATE     CURRENT STATUS          REMARKS
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Deploy framework for wide      Recruitment         7/31/2008.........
 distribution of DHS vacancy       Council.
 announcements, including non-
 traditional outlets.
2. Implement formal mentoring/    OCHCO, CLO........  9/30/2008.........
 coaching policy and program.
 Deploy a means for mentors and
 potential mentees to connect.
3. Convene external Diversity     Diversity Council/  8/31/2008.........
 Advisory Forum.                   EEO Council.
4. Develop a Diversity Outreach   OCHCO/Diversity     7/31/2008.........
 Media Strategy.                   Sub Council.
5. Hold a DHS Educational Forum   Recruitment         9/30/2008.........
 for DHS employees to learn        Council.
 about the mission, occupations,
 and job requirements in other
 components.
6. Define clear criteria for the  Diversity Council/  7/31/2008.........
 Secretary's Award for             OCHCO.
 Diversity. issue in advance of
 nominations.
7. Secretary Diversity message    Diversity Council/  8/31/2008.........
 and support issued via video      CRCL/OCHCO/OPA.
 and other means.
8. Designate the DHS EEO Officer  AS2...............  6/30/2008.........
 as an ex officio member of the
 Employee Resources Council
 (ERC).
9. Issue guidance and best        Diversity Council/  6/30/2008.........
 practices to components to        USM.
 integrate diverse participation/
 input into the SES hiring
 process.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Question 4. DHS has one of the largest law enforcement populations 
within the Federal Government. However, components such as U.S. Secret 
Service, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, and Customs and Border 
Patrol do not have Senior Executive Service professionals that reflect 
the diversity of this Nation. What is DHS doing within these particular 
components to attract more women and racial minorities to Senior 
Executive Service positions within these components?
    Answer. The Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer (CHCO) has 
established a Department-wide Law Enforcement Council, composed of 
high-level law enforcement officials from all components. The Council 
has begun to coordinate corporate efforts in training and recruitment 
of law enforcement personnel and is considering the possible use of a 
firm which specializes in law enforcement recruitment.
    In addition, the Department has a variety of programs to develop a 
qualified and diverse pool of applicants for SES positions by preparing 
its mid-career employees. These programs include the DHS Senior 
Executive Service (SES) Candidate Development Program (primarily GS-
15s) and the DHS Fellowship Program (GS-13s, GS-14s, and GS-15s). 
Attached are the past and present classes for these two programs, which 
include the participants' race/national origin data. Also, the U.S. 
Secret Service and Customs and Border Patrol have launched their own 
SES Candidate Development Programs and are currently accepting 
applications.
    We have also engaged Federal-based minority executive associations 
to distribute our SES vacancy announcements among their membership, 
including the African American Federal Executive Association, National 
Association of Hispanic Federal Executives, and the Asian Pacific 
Executive Network.

    Question 5. In 2006, DHS implemented the DHS Fellows Program for GS 
13s, 14s, and 15s. This program is a competitive developmental program 
where participants are placed in high-visibility rotational assignments 
and receive training in leadership areas which prepare them for Senior 
Executive Service. The 2007 class had 30 fellows, 15 of which were 
white men. There were 2 African Americans, one male and one female, and 
zero Asian Pacific Islanders. For the 2008 class the number of African 
Americans increased by 100 percent to 4 and the number of White men 
increased nearly the same to 29. Please explain how this program will 
increase diversity at DHS, especially when, out of a class of 50 
employees, the 2008 class of DHS Fellows only contains 4 African 
Americans, 3 Asian Pacific Islanders, and 1 Hispanic American?
    Answer. The DHS Diversity Framework is multi-faceted, including 
areas such as recruitment, retention, succession planning, and 
development. The DHS Fellows Program is one of several efforts which 
are part of the diversity framework. Taken together, these programs 
provide DHS with excellent opportunities and vehicles to enhance 
diversity. In addition to the Fellows Program, these efforts include 
the Senior Executive Service Candidate Development Program (CDP), 
rotational assignments, and various coaching/mentoring programs. These 
programs are in their earliest stages; for example, both the Fellows 
and the CDP programs are in their second cohort. The increase in 
African Americans in the DHS Fellows program to 8 percent of the class 
of 50 shows promise. The DHS Fellows Program projects providing two 
cohorts per year for the next 4 years. DHS plans for all of these 
efforts to be ongoing and continuous, and believes they will contribute 
to the diversity of DHS's workforce.

    Question 6. Succession planning is necessary to ensure that there 
is a competent, skilled workforce to make up for the number of retiring 
Federal employees. According to GAO, succession planning is also tied 
to the Federal Government's opportunity to affect the diversity of the 
executive corps. Given that 26 percent of your career executives are 
eligible for retirement in 2008, 34 percent in 2008, and 41 percent in 
2010, how does DHS use succession planning to obtain racial, ethnic, 
and gender diversity?
    Answer. In addition to recruitment, development, and retention, 
succession planning is a key facet of our Diversity Framework. The 
Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer (CHCO) has undertaken several 
initiatives to ensure key senior positions are filled timely and to 
enhance the diversity of our Senior Executive Service (SES) cadre. 
Specifically, we have:
   Selected our second SES Candidate Development Program class 
        to commence in July 2008. This class has 23 participants, which 
        are 22 percent African American, 13 percent Hispanic, and 30 
        percent women. This is a significant increase from the first 
        class of 12 participants which were 25 percent women and 8 
        percent minority.
   Begun exploring the feasibility of engaging an executive 
        search firm with proven experience in attracting minorities and 
        women to executive positions.
   Reviewed our SES recruitment and hiring processes to 
        identify best practices which we can adopt to ensure attention 
        to diversity is included in the processes while still adhering 
        to Government-wide merit principles.
   Engaged Federal-based minority executive associations to 
        distribute our SES vacancy announcements among their 
        membership, including the African American Federal Executive 
        Association, National Association of Hispanic Federal 
        Executives, and the Asian Pacific Executive Network.

Questions From Chairman Bennie G. Thompson of Mississippi for George H. 
Stalcup, Director of Strategic Issues, Government Accountability Office

    Question 1. Your testimony mentions 4 areas where DHS has reported 
taking steps that are consistent with leading diversity management 
practices. In what other areas should DHS place its focus to recruit 
and manage a diverse workforce?
    Answer. As we testified in 1999,\1\ perhaps the single most 
important element of successful management improvement initiatives is 
the demonstrated commitment of of top leaders to change. As we reported 
in January 2005,\2\ top management commitment is a fundamental element 
in the implementation of diversity management efforts. According to the 
literature, leaders and managers within organizations are primarily 
responsible for the success of diversity management because they must 
provide the visibility and commit the time and necessary resources. A 
leader committed to diversity management communicates the 
organization's support for diversity in newsletters, policy statements, 
speeches, meetings, and Web sites. Communication of this commitment 
from senior management throughout the organization sends a clear 
message to others in the organization about the seriousness and 
business relevance of diversity management.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ GAO, Management Reform: Elements of Successful Improvements 
Initiatives, T-GGD-00-26 (Washington, DC: Oct. 15, 1999).
    \2\ GAO, Diversity Management: Expert-Identified Leading Practices 
and Agency Examples, GAO-05-90 (Washington, DC: Jan. 14, 2005).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Question 2. Are you aware of reports that DHS has submitted to EEOC 
or OPM on their diversity management efforts? How do OPM and EEOC use 
these reports?
    Answer. Neither EEOC nor OPM requires Federal agencies to report on 
their diversity management efforts. As we reported in January 2005 
(GAO-05-90), diversity management is a process intended to create and 
maintain a positive work environment where the similarities and 
differences of individuals are valued, so that all can reach their 
potential and maximize their contributions to an organization's 
strategic goals and objectives. We cited the nine leading diversity 
management practices from our January 2005 report in our May 21 
testimony (GAO-08-815T). Experts and the literature generally agree 
that some combination of these indetified practices should be 
considered when an organization is developing and implementing 
diversity management.
    EEOC and OPM require agencies to annually analyze the diversity of 
their workforces and report on those analyses as well as on plans or 
actions to address any known problem areas. We describe the required 
analyses in our May 21 testimony. We have done no work on how OPM and 
EEOC use the reports on agencies' annual workforce analyses.

    Question 3. In your testimony, you also looked closely at DHS-wide 
data by pay plan/grade in September 2003 and 2007. Which pay plan/grade 
represents the largest number of racial minorities and women?
    Answer. The pay plan/grade with the largest number of racial 
minorities in 2003 was ``Grade 9 to 12,'' which had 14,995 racial 
minorities (including Hispanics). ``Grade 9 to 12'' had the second-
largest number of all employees with 35,919. ``Other/unspecified'' had 
the second-largest number of racial minorities (including Hispanics) in 
2003 with 12,230 and had the largest number of employees in a pay plan/
grade with 35,929.\3\ Those in the ``Other/unspecified'' category are 
primarily located in TSA.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ Other/unspecified includes those who could not be placed in one 
of the identified pay plans or grades.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The pay plan/grade with the largest number of women in 2003 was 
``Other/unspecified,''which had 10,743 women. ``Grade 9 to 12'' had the 
second-largest number of women in 2003 with 10,118.
    The pay plan/grade with the largest number of racial minorities in 
2007 was ``Other/unspecified,'' which had 23,963 racial minorities 
(including Hispanics). ``Other/unspecified'' are located primarily in 
TSA and had the largest number of all employees with 58,374. ``Grade 9 
to 12'' had the second-largest number of racial minorities (including 
Hispanics) in 2007 with 20,053 and had the second-largest number of 
employees in a pay plan/grade with 45,931.
    The pay plan/grade with the largest number of women in 2007 was 
``Other/unspecified,''which had 20,811 women. ``Grade 9 to 12'' had the 
second-largest number of women in 2007 with 12,564.

    Question 4. Your testimony references the percentage representation 
at DHS by component for Career Employees. Please tell the committee 
which component has the highest percentage of a particular racial 
minority group. Please tell the committee which components have the 
lowest percentage of minorities.
    Answer. Table 10 in our May 21 testimony (GAO-08-815T) shows that 
in 2003 the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office with 179 staff had the 
highest percentage of a particular racial minority group (African 
Americans at 25.1 percent). The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center 
(FLETC) with 737 staff in 2003 had the lowest percentage of racial 
minorities (including Hispanics) with 13.8 percent.
    Table 11 in our May 21 testimony shows that in 2007 TSA with 57,468 
staff had the highest percentage of a particular racial minority group 
(African Americans at 21.8 percent.) FLETC with 1,009 staff in 2007 had 
the lowest percentage of racial minorities (including Hispanics) with 
16.5 percent.

                                 
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