[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
CIVIL RIGHTS SERVICES AND
DIVERSITY INITIATIVES IN THE COAST GUARD
=======================================================================
(111-21)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
COAST GUARD AND MARITIME TRANSPORTATION
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
April 1, 2009
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
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48-646 WASHINGTON : 2009
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COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman
NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia, JOHN L. MICA, Florida
Vice Chair DON YOUNG, Alaska
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
Columbia VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
JERROLD NADLER, New York FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
CORRINE BROWN, Florida JERRY MORAN, Kansas
BOB FILNER, California GARY G. MILLER, California
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi Carolina
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa SAM GRAVES, Missouri
TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
RICK LARSEN, Washington SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts Virginia
TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California CONNIE MACK, Florida
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
HEATH SHULER, North Carolina VERN BUCHANAN, Florida
MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania ANH ``JOSEPH'' CAO, Louisiana
JOHN J. HALL, New York AARON SCHOCK, Illinois
STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin PETE OLSON, Texas
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
PHIL HARE, Illinois
JOHN A. BOCCIERI, Ohio
MARK H. SCHAUER, Michigan
BETSY MARKEY, Colorado
PARKER GRIFFITH, Alabama
MICHAEL E. McMAHON, New York
THOMAS S. P. PERRIELLO, Virginia
DINA TITUS, Nevada
HARRY TEAGUE, New Mexico
(ii)
SUBCOMMITTEE ON COAST GUARD AND MARITIME TRANSPORTATION
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Chairman
CORRINE BROWN, Florida FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
RICK LARSEN, Washington DON YOUNG, Alaska
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin PETE OLSON, Texas
MICHAEL E. McMAHON, New York
LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota
(Ex Officio)
(iii)
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ vi
TESTIMONY
Breckenridge, Rear Admiral Jody A., Assistant Commandant for
Human Resources, United States Coast Guard..................... 5
Dickerson, Terri, Director, Office of Civil Rights, United States
Coast Guard.................................................... 5
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., of Maryland............................ 41
Thompson, Hon. Bennie G., of Mississippi......................... 49
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES
Breckenridge, Rear Admiral Jody A................................ 53
Dickerson, Terri................................................. 63
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
United States Coast Guard, response to request from Rep. Cummings 32
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HEARING ON CIVIL RIGHTS SERVICES AND DIVERSITY INITIATIVES IN THE COAST
GUARD
----------
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
House of Representatives,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:45 p.m., in
Room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Elijah
E. Cummings [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Mr. Cummings. This hearing is called to order.
We convene today to consider the State of the Coast Guard's
provision of civil rights services to its military and civilian
workforce and to applicants for employment. We will also
examine the initiatives being undertaken by the Service to
support expanded diversity among both its military and civilian
personnel. As part of that examination, we will assess what the
Service has done to benchmark its diversity-related initiatives
following a hearing we held on this subject last year.
In April 2008, the Director of the Coast Guard's Office of
Civil Rights asked the Department of Homeland Security to
commission and supervise an independent assessment of the
office and of civil rights programs within the Coast Guard. The
proximate motivation for this request was the posting of
derogatory blog entries on the web. However, as the
Subcommittee has come to learn, there have long existed
challenges far more central to the provision of effective civil
rights services within the Coast Guard than those discussed
within the blog comments.
In February, 2009, Booz Allen Hamilton, the firm ultimately
commissioned to undertake the study of the Coast Guard Office
of Civil Rights, issued its report to the Coast Guard which
subsequently released it to the public.
I note that the Subcommittee invited Booz Allen Hamilton to
testify today and also invited its representatives to meet
privately with staff. They declined both offers citing duty of
confidentiality to their client and, rather perplexingly, their
internal policy against lobbying. Despite Booz Allen Hamilton's
total unresponsiveness to the Subcommittee's inquiries about a
report it prepared on a Federal agency and for which it
received compensation from United States taxpayers' funds, the
firm's report speaks for itself.
Among other findings, the Booz Allen Hamilton team's review
identified at the Coast Guard a civil rights program that does
not fully protect confidential personal information, that does
not conduct thorough analyses of barriers to equal opportunity
in employment or develop specific plans to break these barriers
down, and that has a number of inadequately trained service
providers who cannot ensure implementation of a complaints
management process that is in full compliance with regulatory
requirements.
While these findings are obviously deeply troubling on
their own, as the Subcommittee has learned in the extensive
review of the Coast Guard's civil rights programs, they are
certainly not new. Previous reviews of the Coast Guard's civil
rights programs and even the self-assessments the Coast Guard
submits annually to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
repeatedly identify many of the same problems noted in the Booz
Allen Hamilton report.
For example, a 2001 review conducted by KPMG found that:
One, complaints were not handled in an efficient manner,
Two, individuals who provided civil rights services as a
collateral duty showed great variation in quality,
Three, affirmative action related reports were disseminated
but report interpretation and action is left up to individual
unit commands who may or may not have the required time and
knowledge to legally apply the affirmative action program as a
factor in hiring, and,
Four, equal opportunity reviews were being conducted, but
there were no measures or metrics by which to evaluate local
command's program performance.
A review conducted by PriceWaterhouseCoopers more than a
decade ago concluded that the Coast Guard's ``current civil
rights program is relatively ineffective at preventing civil
rights complaints and the current program office at
headquarters is inefficient in discharging their
responsibilities.''
In May 2008, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
sent a feedback letter to the Coast Guard identifying the
trends it observed in the Coast Guard's annual self-reports
from fiscal years 2004 through 2006. Again, the comments sound
very familiar. EEOC stated in its 2004 report, the Coast Guard
admitted that the ``EEO officials did not have the knowledge,
skills and abilities to carry out the full duties and
responsibilities of their positions.''
In fiscal years 2005 and 2006, the Service ``reported that
there was insufficient staff to conduct adequate analysis of
civilian workforce data.''
And in 2004, 2005, and 2006, the Service noted it ``has not
implemented an adequate data collection and analysis system and
had not tracked recruitment efforts.''
The EEOC found that the Coast Guard's recruitment practices
for positions in the civilian workforce created unintended
barriers to diversity.
Having read all of this, what was perhaps most
disappointing to me was not just the devastating nature of
these individual findings but the fact that the problems they
describe have apparently persisted for nearly a decade. Put
simply, the picture that emerges from the reports available to
us shows that despite knowing that its equal opportunity
programs did not ensure full compliance with the U.S. law and
regulations, the Coast Guard has taken little to no action to
ensure full compliance.
Further, there have apparently been no consequences for
these failures except perhaps the individual consequences that
Coast Guard personnel may have borne, some of whom may have
been denied the opportunity to effectively challenge what they
may have felt was discriminatory treatment.
Discrimination is an evil that destroys the dignity of
fellow human beings and robs them of the opportunity to achieve
what their abilities would otherwise enable them to achieve. In
the 21st Century, any agency that tolerates any failure in the
implementation of effective equal employment opportunity
processes or in the effective management of complaints is an
agency that is willing to tolerate the possibility that
discrimination may exist in its midst. We can do better.
While I applaud the decision of the Director of the Office
of Civil Rights to ask for an independent assessment of the
Coast Guard civil rights practices, it is also obvious that
further study is not needed, that we have studied this too
much. We have basically studied it almost to death.
Back in 2001, the KPMG team that assessed the Coast Guard's
civil rights program reported that the wide gaps between how
the Service's equal employment opportunity program was
described in manuals and how the program was actually
implemented ``created a perception that the program is not
necessarily a priority among senior leadership.'' It is long
past time that these gaps be closed.
Importantly, as the Booz Allen Hamilton report makes clear,
successful implementation of the reforms needed to correct the
gaps that their team found ``will need to be openly endorsed at
the highest level of the Coast Guard organization to ensure the
cooperation of and participation by key stakeholders.'' I would
say that they need to be endorsed by the head of Homeland
Security and the President of the United States of America.
I know that the Coast Guard is undertaking a variety of
initiatives to expand diversity, and I commend the written
testimony of Admiral Breckenridge which details these efforts.
I also commend the individual efforts of the Coast Guard
personnel to support the Service's diversity goals. I note that
Admiral Allen himself recently visited Morgan State University
in my district and gave a very inspiring address to students at
that historically black university.
What I didn't find in Admiral Breckenridge's testimony,
however, was a statement that the MD-715 process will now be
used as intended to identify all barriers to equal access and
to inform the development of the plans that will eliminate
these barriers or that a similar process will be implemented on
the military slide. While I appreciate discussion of an upward
glide slope, progress cannot be measured until specific goals
are in place, and to think that goals would need to be defined
as ``specific representational objectives'' is simply to think
too narrowly. We are better than that.
I also commend Director Dickerson's testimony and her
decision to request the Booz Allen Hamilton review. I emphasize
that I understand, as the Booz Allen Hamilton report indicates
and the evidence clearly shows, that many of the problems with
the Coast Guard's civil rights program have long predated her
appointment.
That said, it is now our watch. This is our watch, and the
failures and the deficiencies that exist with the Coast Guard's
civil rights programs simply cannot continue. For the Coast
Guard to truly be semper paratus, always ready, it must take
all necessary steps to ensure that it is not handicapped by
discrimination in its ranks or the divisions that
discrimination produces.
As I said when I addressed the Coast Guard Academy
following the discovery of nooses there, diversity and our
mutual respect for each other are our greatest strengths as a
Nation. They must necessarily be the greatest strengths of
those who defend this Nation, but they can be so only when an
agency makes the achievement of diversity and the provision of
effective civil rights services a top priority rather than what
appears to be a second thought.
With that, I recognize our distinguished Ranking Member,
Congressman LoBiondo.
Mr. LoBiondo. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for
holding this important hearing today.
The men and women of the Coast Guard come from all regions
of the Country, all races and all walks of life. The Coast
Guard serves all of the American people, and the Service must
continue to take actions to be fully representative of the
American public at large.
The Coast Guard has the responsibility to recruit the most
capable individuals to enter the enlisted and officer corps and
to retain those individuals and their skill sets. The Service
also has the responsibility to create a workplace environment
which supports mission success for all of its members and
employees.
I am concerned by the findings of the recent review in the
Office of Civil Rights which outline a failure to maintain such
an environment. The report includes several recommendations on
measures to be taken to address these issues. I am interested
to hear how the Coast Guard intends to move forward with the
suggested courses of action.
I appreciate the Coast Guard's early efforts to address
these issues, and this Subcommittee stands ready to work with
the Service to provide resources necessary to further tackle
this important issue.
I want to thank the Coast Guard for speaking to these
issues this afternoon, and I look forward to their testimony.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much.
I ask unanimous consent that Congressman Bennie Thompson,
Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, who shares the
Subcommittee's deep concerns about the Coast Guard's civil
rights services and diversity initiatives, may submit a
statement for inclusion in the hearing record, and, without
objection, it is so ordered.
It is my understanding that Mr. Kagen does not have an
opening statement. Thank you.
We are very pleased to welcome Ms. Terri Dickerson who is
the Director of the Office of Civil Rights with the United
States Coast Guard.
Welcome.
Ms. Dickerson. Thank you.
Mr. Cummings. And Rear Admiral Jody Breckenridge who is the
Assistant Commandant for Human Resources with the United States
Coast Guard.
We will hear from you, Ms. Dickerson, first, and then we
will go to the Rear Admiral.
TESTIMONY OF TERRI DICKERSON, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF CIVIL RIGHTS,
UNITED STATES COAST GUARD AND REAR ADMIRAL JODY A.
BRECKENRIDGE, ASSISTANT COMMANDANT FOR HUMAN RESOURCES, UNITED
STATES COAST GUARD
Ms. Dickerson. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and
distinguished Members of the Committee.
I am Terri Dickerson, Director of the Coast Guard's Office
of Civil Rights.
I request that my written testimony be entered into the
record.
Mr. Cummings. Without objection, so ordered.
Ms. Dickerson. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Chairman, I ask that you bear four things in mind
today:
First, that as Director, I recognized my duty to identify
and resolve problems in Coast Guard's EEO program. That duty
led me to quantify my concerns, develop strategies and seek
validation of them by a third party,
Second, that I understand that resolving identified
concerns is critical to a positive EEO climate and a complaint
process with integrity,
Third, that I have a plan to address each recommendation
from the review I commissioned, and I am executing it, and,
Finally, I can assure you that the Commandant of the Coast
Guard is personally committed to ensuring I have the resources,
personnel and senior leadership support to carry out the
changes needed.
My commitment to civil rights is borne of my own personal
experience. In September of 1962, my sisters and I were among a
few students who integrated the New Orleans Catholic school
system despite evil threats, slurs and an environment of racial
bias.
In 26 years in public, private and non-profit arenas and in
government Senior Executive Service since 2000, I have been
personally committed to advancing equal opportunity.
When hired in 2006, I sought improvement opportunities and
began to establish new practices and protocols to benefit our
mission. My headquarters staff consists of 22 full-time
military and civilian positions.
We made progress. For example, I terminated the practice of
liberally providing EEO complaint information to a wide range
of requesters. While unpopular, the decision safeguards
statements made by aggrieved parties and witnesses from
reprisal by management officials, and the officials themselves
are less vulnerable.
I set measurable goals at every opportunity and established
the metrics by which to evaluate progress towards civil rights
outcomes.
I determined that recommendations made in previous reviews
conducted before I arrived had not been fully implemented,
specifically personnel with EEO titles not actually connected
to our office. This decentralized structure hindered certifying
the training and performance of the EEO personnel, consistency
and timely reporting.
Consistent with the Coast Guard's ongoing modernization
efforts, I established a plan to centralize the EEO's structure
and I provided new guidance.
Results followed. Last year, we shaved more than a month
off the average formal complaint processing timeline, and I
will note that the Coast Guard's integrated military and
civilian complaint processing structure has been examined by
other services as a model and that the Air Force has already
moved to a similar process.
We launched a monthly newsletter. We improved our EEO self-
evaluation process and cleared backlogged reports.
While I endeavor to improve the program, the Office of
Civil Rights and I as the Director became the subject of
numerous inaccurate allegations on the web. Against the
backdrop of a need for change and misperceptions, I sought a
third party perspective assisted by the Department of Homeland
Security.
As you will recall, Mr. Chairman, I notified you of my
intent a year ago this month. And, consistent with the Coast
Guard's goals of transparency, I kept the workforce informed of
my actions and posted the review in its entirety when
published.
The Booz Allen review validated the concerns I detected and
offered me some new data points. I have put a team in place to
prioritize and respond to the recommendations. Of the 53 in the
report, we have completed 10. Another eight will be fully
executed immediately upon reorganization, and the rest are on
track for completion by the end of the year.
I have proposed a restructuring to the Commandant and
senior leadership, and I have received direction to move
forward on a centrally run national program delivered from
strategic points throughout Coast Guard. This will foster
consistency, better oversight, faster and more reliable
service.
Initial resources and six civilian positions have been
redirected to our program. Pending validation through a staff
analysis, I will pursue additional ones.
To recap, the review validated my concerns and plan of
action now in full execution, and I have the support of the
Coast Guard's leadership to carry it through.
Thank you for this opportunity to testify today, and I will
be happy to take your questions.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much.
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. Admiral Breckenridge.
Admiral Breckenridge. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of
the Committee.
I am Rear Admiral Jody Breckenridge, the Assistant
Commandant for Human Resources for the U.S. Coast Guard. It is
a pleasure to appear before you today to discuss the Coast
Guard's progress on diversity.
Mr. Chairman, I request my written testimony be entered
into the record.
Mr. Cummings. Without objection, so ordered.
Admiral Breckenridge. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Chairman, the Coast Guard recognizes diversity as an
organizational imperative. Our watch is committed to continue
building and sustaining a strong and diverse workforce that
recognizes and values the potential and contributions of all
employees.
Today, I would like to provide you with an update on our
progress in the short six months since I last testified in
September.
Before I offer Coast Guard actions, I would like to thank
you, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership and support in getting
Coast Guard Academy information posted on Congressional web
sites.
Ms. Carla Grantham was recently hired into a new position
designed to raise visibility with Congressional offices and
constituencies on opportunities within the Coast Guard. Ms.
Grantham is ready to follow up on your actions, Mr. Chairman,
to assist any office in posting Coast Guard Academy
information. This expanded outreach will allow more Americans
to learn of and consider the Coast Guard.
Mr. Chairman, in September, you stated it was an imperative
that the Coast Guard form a plan designed to implement specific
diversity goals. We are aggressively working on an updated
leadership and diversity management strategy to be completed
this fiscal year.
While we work this new strategic document, we continue
taking aggressive steps on the action plan I described in
September, a plan derived from our current strategy and the
Commandant's diversity statement with input from our diversity
advisory council and affinity groups. Within our plan, we have
addressed actionable steps across leadership and
accountability, outreach and recruiting, development and
retention that create a sustainable foundation.
To set the tone from the top, we produced a Commandant's
diversity video. We have recently finished an outreach calendar
and are evaluating software to help us track and measure our
outreach efforts. Executives are more engaged in our outreach
initiatives to historically black colleges and universities,
Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities and tribal
colleges and universities.
In partnership with the National Naval Officers
Association, we established an ambassadors program for greater
presence on minority-serving institution campuses. Both
executives and field commanders will be active participants in
affinity group conferences later this year, and we are
exploring new partnerships such as Advancing Minority Interests
in Engineering, known as AMIE, LATINA Style and the Society of
Mexican American Engineers and Scientists.
We remain focused on recruiting minorities and women for
our enlisted workforce. Here, we have a sustainable methodology
that is producing results with minorities comprising over one-
third of our annual recruits for each of the last five years
while at the same time increasing quality across all the
standards looked at by all five services.
This year, we are ahead of last year for both minority and
women recruits. Recruiting efforts for our college student
precommissioning program were refocused on minority-serving
institutions this year. While the selection board for this year
has not yet met, we have a more robust applicant pool.
The Academy continues to be successful in attracting women.
We project that our trend of 25 to 30 percent women to continue
for the Class of 2013.
We have not yet found that same success with minorities.
However, we have this year experienced an increase in our
minority applicant pool, and we see potential in exploring
applicants who start but do not continue in the application
process.
The Academy continues efforts to increase both visibility
and access through increasing under-represented minorities in
our Academy introduction mission program, providing programs
for educators from under-represented school systems and
starting on the Class of 2014 now, executing a supplemental
cadet search targeting approximately 30,000 additional
underrepresented minorities.
For our civilian workforce, we adjusted hiring practices
based on benchmarking Federal agencies successful in hiring
Hispanics and partnered with maritime industry stakeholders for
new recruiting venues.
Mr. Chairman, we recognize the challenges we have and are
taking actions to reinforce the building blocks we have in
place and to establish those to build a strong foundation for
sustainable programs. We have a plan, and we are executing that
plan.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I welcome
your questions.
Mr. Cummings. I want to thank both of you for your
testimony.
I just want to start with you, Rear Admiral. While there
are many specific questions I have about the reports I have
read, I want to focus right now on some of the overarching
issues pertaining to the equal employment and the civil rights
issues and the civil rights services.
In its fiscal year 2008 MD-715 self-assessment, the Coast
Guard cited a number of essential element deficiencies, and I
note that the term essential element deficiency refers to a
lack of those features that the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission has said a model Equal Employment Opportunity
program should have. Is that right? Are you familiar with the
concept?
Admiral Breckenridge. I am, sir.
Mr. Cummings. Very well. Among the deficiencies cited were
the following: The EEO Director does not have the authority and
funding to ensure implementation of agency EEO action plans to
improve EEO program efficiency and/or eliminate identified
barriers to the realization of equality of opportunity. Would
you comment on that, please?
Where are we there?
First of all, this was a self-assessment. So, I mean give
me some comments on where we are on there.
I guess what I am trying to do, so that you understand, is
that I am trying to figure out what has been done, say, since
September, since some of these reports were done. I want to
figure out what kind of progress we have made, if any, because
it is my philosophy that another group of Congressmen will be
here maybe 10 years from now, sitting in these same seats, and
if we are not careful nothing will have happened.
So, rather than waste my time and waste the Congress' time,
we need to try to figure out what is happening. And, if we are
on a merry go round going nowhere fast, we need to figure out
how to get off this merry go round so that we can achieve
something. So give me your comments on that.
Admiral Breckenridge. Mr. Chairman, we certainly don't want
that outcome that 10 years from now we would still be on the
merry go round and nothing would have changed.
With respect to the action plan, Mr. Chairman----
Mr. Cummings. I want you to comment on that particular one
because I have a whole list of things I am going to ask you.
The EEO Director does not have the authority and funding
the implementation of agency EEO action plans to improve EEO
program efficiency or eliminate identified barriers to the
realization of equality of opportunity. That is deadly. I am
just curious as to where we are on that.
Admiral Breckenridge. Mr. Chairman, I would defer to Ms.
Dickerson who is the head of the program to comment on whether
she believes she has the authority and resources to carry out
her responsibilities.
Mr. Cummings. All right. Okay, Ms. Dickerson.
Ms. Dickerson. Thank you, sir. I believe the letter is
based on 2004 through 2006 self-assessment. At that time, Coast
Guard was at 86 percent compliance with its self-assessment
under the Management Directive 715.
In the ensuring years, in 2007, that grew to 96 percent
compliance, and then we raised our own goal with regard to
complaint processing and set a standard for ourselves. Because
of that, in 2008, we lost 2 percentage points. It was still a
94 percent compliance rate.
One of the things getting to the heart of your question,
which I understand very well, sir, is after Admiral Allen saw
the results of this year's MD-715 report he asked Admiral
Breckenridge and me. Up until now at the staff level, there had
been a cross-functional team representing a number of different
divisions working on the actions arising from the MD-715.
Now Admiral Breckenridge and I together have distilled a
number of initiatives that are immediately actionable and that
we can bring to the workforce, to commanding officers and get
their participation. One of them, sir, is the Defense Equal
Opportunity Climate Surveys and making sure that across the
board we are complying with that mandate that everyone assess
their climate and act on and take follow-on actions arising
from climate surveys.
The other ones that we have distilled have to do with
leadership at the commanding officer level in terms of
recruitment and setting that climate that really affords
opportunity for every member of the workforce.
Mr. Cummings. Let me ask you about the second issue. You
may have similar comments with regard to this. It said:
Sufficient personnel resources have not been allocated to the
EEO program to ensure that the Agency's self-assessments and
self-analyses prescribed by the EEO MD-715 are conducted
annually and to maintain an effective complaint processing
system.
Is that what you were just talking about?
Ms. Dickerson. In part, sir, and more directly to that
point we now have directed more resources to that particular
function.
Mr. Cummings. Since when?
Ms. Dickerson. This occurred recently. In this fiscal year,
we have been redirecting resources to the civil rights program.
Mr. Cummings. So you had made previous requests, and you
hadn't gotten them. Is that correct or you got part of them or
what?
Ms. Dickerson. Oh, yes, we got them. We hadn't had an
overall increase, but to the extent that I went to request
resources I was given them.
Now that we are reorganizing into a more centralized
organization, what is clear is that we will need more people in
the field, and so we will need more personnel resources. But
for now, they don't within my office. We have received. I have
requested and received the resources that we need to carry out
the action items that are in the MD-715 report.
Mr. Cummings. You mentioned, Ms. Dickerson, something about
the 53 recommendations, that you were able to achieve 10.
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. And you have eight that it sounds like you
are about to resolve if I remember. I am not trying to put
words in your mouth.
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. Talk about those. Can you give us an idea
what some of the 10 are that you have resolved and the 8 that
are about to be resolved and the most glaring of those that are
yet to be resolved?
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir. The ones that are about to be
resolved will take place. They had to do with structural
challenges, for example, people who don't report to the Civil
Rights Office.
We didn't have visibility on things that were happening
locally and complaints that were arising in the field. We
weren't able to provide services or to get data calls answered.
I believe, as you may have noted or you certainly saw in the
report, there were inconsistent practices in the field because
the EEO people reported to local commands, and so they tended
to have practices and protocols that somewhat reflected the
local command.
So, instant with reorganization, we will be able to get
everyone on the same page, and it will greatly assist us in
communicating down to the field level and the local levels in
terms of policies, practices and also to assure the training
and performance evaluation of everyone in the EEO chain.
Mr. Cummings. Now you also talked about, and then I am
going to have Mr. LoBiondo, yield to him.
You talked about six employees that you got. Tell me about
that. What is that and what will these people doing, these six,
and have they been hired?
Are they on board? When are they going to be on board or
whatever?
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir. I just received the----
Mr. Cummings. What is just?
Ms. Dickerson. Within the last three weeks, within the last
couple of weeks, I received the information that research had
been done Coast Guard-wide to identify six civilian positions,
and they would be redirected to the civil rights function--two
in my office and four would be available for the field.
Mr. Cummings. That is a total of six, is that right?
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. Okay. But you had requested that before, had
you not? Had you requested personnel before?
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. What do you think brought about this action
in the last two weeks?
Ms. Dickerson. I believe that right after. From what I am
told, sir, and as you indicated, it predated me, but what I am
told is after the 2001 top to bottom review there was a plan.
Mr. Cummings. What year was that?
Ms. Dickerson. In 2001.
Mr. Cummings. I just want to make sure we got the year
straight.
Ms. Dickerson. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. So, go ahead. There was a plan back in 2001.
Go ahead.
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir, to add more full-time personnel to
the field. Initially, there was personnel added. Then at some
point, that plan to resource, to add those resources to the
civil rights function wasn't carried out.
I am not certain, sir, exactly why that was the case, but
that plan was never fully executed. It began and was not ended.
Mr. Cummings. Well, let me, just so that I will be clear.
At what point did you come to the point where you knew you
needed the six people? I guess that is what I am trying to get
to.
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. At what point was that?
In other words, we have a 2001 plan. Some folk were added.
I don't know the dates when they were added. I don't know the
date when the folk were withdrawn. All I am asking you is at
what point, to your knowledge, did the request for these
additional people start?
Ms. Dickerson. I continued the requests. I became aware of
them certainly when I became Director, and I continued the
requests.
Mr. Cummings. Which was in?
Ms. Dickerson. In 2006, sir.
Mr. Cummings. Right. Okay.
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. Were they requested prior to your getting
here?
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. You said you continued them?
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. Okay. So we know that it has been at least
two, three, four years possibly.
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. If not longer.
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. All right, Mr. LoBiondo.
Mr. LoBiondo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I think for Ms. Dickerson, the report indicates that
members of the Office of Civil Rights staff did not understand
the vision, business goals and key success indicators of the
office. Can you tell us what the Coast Guard defines as the
vision, business goals and success indicators of the Office of
Civil Rights?
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir. Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission, its mission is to eradicate discrimination and
certainly in the private sector but in the Federal Government.
Since EEOC can't be everywhere, Federal offices have their own
EEO programs. So the mission of our office would be consistent
with that, eliminating employment discrimination for the
workforce and for job applicants.
Mr. LoBiondo. You are saying that the Coast Guard Office of
Civil Rights is basically taking from the EEOC what the report
claimed was the vision, business goals and key success
indicators, that the Coast Guard didn't have that?
I mean I am a little bit confused. So the Coast Guard
didn't have their own policy, that the report indicated that
members of the Office of Civil Rights staff of the Coast Guard
did not understand. So they didn't understand the EEOC
requirements or the Coast Guard had its own requirements that
they did not understand?
Ms. Dickerson. That particular finding, sir, what I get
from that is that to the extent that we were beginning to
associate our work with metrics, I found when I got there that
there was an inability to quantify how many of a particular
activity we had carried out or the office had carried out or
how much of a service but not necessarily what the impact of
that service was. That was alluded to in the report.
In other words, when we conducted, for example, site
visits, there was data to indicate how many visits we might
have conducted but not necessarily what the outcome of that was
and then to stand back from a year of conducting site visits to
indicate what that was telling us in a comprehensive sense and
whether or not those efforts were successful in reaching EEO
and civil rights outcomes in terms of a place where there is
equality for all employees and applicants.
Mr. LoBiondo. I am a little bit fuzzy, and I am not trying
to give you a hard time. As we look at this, and I don't know,
Mr. Chairman, maybe you_I think what I am trying to understand
here is as we get to particulars, if we don't have the broad
outline and when the report indicated that members of the Coast
Guard Office of Civil Rights did not understand the vision,
maybe I am just not getting what you are saying of how this was
interpreted because my next question was going to be how does
the Coast Guard Office of Civil Rights communicate that vision
and those goals to the office employees?
How do you take what that is supposed to be so that people
understand and then can implement it?
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir. Our mission, goals and vision are
communicated in all of our publications. It would be certainly
part of our web site. Then as we undertake activities, we
verify and validate that against that mission to make sure that
we are pursuing activities that are connected to it.
Our individual vision and mission has to do with making
sure that the workforce is at all times ready. So if we bring
equality to the Coast Guard workforce, then our force, it will
be ready for mission execution.
Mr. LoBiondo. I understand that part. I am just trying to
get in my head how you communicate through your office to the
people who need to understand this. Do you feel that just the
web site, I mean do they have any requirement to look at this?
If it is not individually communicated, I am wondering how
you can be sure that everyone who needs to understand what the
vision is gets what the vision is.
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir. One thing I have recently begun is
all hands meetings weekly where we take a topic and discuss
exactly its application to our mission and vision, whether it
is our publications or how we promote our services. We spend an
hour a week now as an office really to articulate that and to
secure alignment with our services and our goals and make sure
that that expression is throughout all of our materials and in
how we carry ourselves.
I think part of what the report was getting at, sir,
though, was in the field, that to the extent we attempted to
articulate the vision and mission of people in the field, there
wasn't very much opportunity to align ourselves.
The local field civil rights service providers report to
local commanders, and they had their own mission, vision, et
cetera. And so, to the extent that I was ever able to go to the
field and get input from them about what we were doing at
headquarters, it just was not a strong line or a strong avenue
that enabled that to occur.
Mr. LoBiondo. If I might, just another minute or so. So
what I am understanding, I think, of what you are saying is
that up until sometime recently or until now the vision is left
to interpretation in the field?
Ms. Dickerson. No, sir. In my office of our 22 personnel,
we do have a vision and a mission for civil rights.
Mr. LoBiondo. Okay.
Admiral Breckenridge. Sir, if I might offer a comment from
an individual who was out in the field, as a former district
commander, I think what Ms. Dickerson is describing, in
fairness, is somewhat accurate. I think our field commanders
and, as one, I clearly understood discriminatory practices and
the vehicles to correct that.
I think it is the total program, and Mr. Chairman raised
several of the issues of what does the 715 plan really
represent and how do you utilize that as a tool. So it looks at
the EEO reviews that are done to analyze climate at units. How
do you use all of that information as a total systems approach
to the issue that I think that is the issue.
It is not what EEO represents but rather that I think Mr.
Chairman in his comments made a comment about some of our
definitions being narrow. I would say that perhaps our
understanding, our implementation in this arena was somewhat
narrow.
Ms. Dickerson had measurements there that will allow us to
open the program up. We are going to put things in place
utilizing the 715 plan to understand the full breadth of tools
and responsibilities that we have and make sure that we carry
them out.
Mr. LoBiondo. Mr. Chairman, just if I could, in explanation
to you, I am thinking if we are specifically talking about the
report that was issued, and my only goal here was to try to get
a feeling for at the broadest level how the Coast Guard
understands and interprets this. So, thank you.
Mr. Cummings. Before we get to the Chairman of the Full
Committee, let me just piggyback on something that the Ranking
Member talked about. Let me make sure I understand here. There
is something called collateral personnel. Is that right?
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. In the area of the Office of Civil Rights,
tell me how they operate? Who are they? Who are these folks?
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir. We have collateral duty civil
rights officers as one.
Mr. Cummings. What do they do?
Ms. Dickerson. They are people who there is a requirement
that every command that has more than 50, every unit with more
than 50 employees would have one of these individuals. Their
purpose is to be an intake point for people when they believe
that a discriminatory act has occurred.
So, for example, they would either direct that person to an
EEO counselor or they would direct that person to the military
command. That would be the complete function of that particular
collateral duty civil rights officer.
But, in addition, we have do have civilian and a few
military collateral duty civil rights counselors. Their mission
is to counsel complaints, well, matters once they have been
identified. There is a mandatory counseling period of 30 days
that EEOC requires, and so the collateral duty civil rights
counselors would be the ones who would offer that service.
Mr. Cummings. Is it a probability that if someone had a
complaint, that they would come in contact with one of these
collateral duty folks?
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, high probability.
Mr. Cummings. Is it a high probability?
Ms. Dickerson. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. When the Booz Allen report talks about staff
members of the Office of Civil Rights, are they talking about
those folks too? Do you know?
Ms. Dickerson. The staff members in my office are not
collateral duty. They are all full-time. The collateral duty
personnel are in the field.
Mr. Cummings. So, in other words, what I am asking you is
that when the report says that staff members in the Office of
Civil Rights did not understand the vision, business goals and
key success indicators of OCR, you are just talking about those
22 people? You are not talking about these collateral duty
folks?
Ms. Dickerson. That is how I took it, yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. Okay. So, when the report says that the
people in your office, are all of them basically in the same
office?
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. That they do not understand the vision,
business goals and key success indicators, basically, what you
are saying is you just agree with that? Is that what you are
saying?
I am going to the report. I am sure you have read it.
Ms. Dickerson. Of course.
Mr. Cummings. It says the Booz Allen Hamilton report
indicates that staff members in the OCR, and I just want to
clarify what the Ranking Member is talking about, so I will be
clear. I want to be clear too. That they did not understand the
vision, business goals and key success indicators of OCR, is
that accurate?
Do you think that is accurate?
Ms. Dickerson. To some degree, yes.
Mr. Cummings. And why is that? Why do you think that would
be?
In other words, you were the head of the office. Is that
right?
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. It was your duty to create a vision and
working with others to create the vision and make sure
everybody was working from the same page. Is that right?
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. Then why would that be a problem?
Ms. Dickerson. I utilized opportunities to communicate it.
I believe that there were legacy constructs and legacy concepts
about things, how things had been done previously.
Mr. Cummings. So, in other words, you are saying there were
some personnel.
Let me make sure I understand what you are saying. You are
saying there were some personnel that had been there for years?
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. Hello?
Ms. Dickerson. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. Okay. And so, you don't necessarily feel that
everybody was on board?
Ms. Dickerson. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. All right.
I yield to the Chairman of the Full Committee, Mr.
Oberstar.
Mr. Oberstar. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Cummings and
Mr. LoBiondo for being here and for your ever vigilant
participation in Coast Guard matters.
Chairman Cummings, you have really taken charge of the
Coast Guard Subcommittee Chairmanship, and you have taken, how
should I say it, an ownership interest in this subject matter.
I am very proud of your having done that.
This hearing did not just come parachuting out of the sky,
and we woke up one morning and said we ought to do this. This
is an issue that we have been concerned with for quite some
time on the Subcommittee.
But it is not just the Coast Guard. It is diversity in the
building and construction trades. It is diversity among the
contractors for our surface transportation or transit programs.
We have a provision in the Federal Aid Highway Program,
which I supported, I can't quite say that I initiated it, but I
was Chief of Staff on the Committee when it was initiated and
had a hand in writing that legislation, to have a 10 percent
set-aside for minority business enterprises. We maintained that
language even when it was under assault some years ago, and we
moved to strengthen it.
We included in the stimulus initiative funding in the
surface transportation, principally the highway program, $20
million for recruitment, training and retention of minority
workers in the building trades--carpenters, plumbers,
pipefitters, steamfitters, all the rest of those, the operating
engineers--and funding for minority transportation enterprises
to have access to some $20 million for surety bonds, for
performance bonds, for construction bonds in a program
comparable to that which the State of Maryland has established
for many years and which was brought to our attention by Mr.
Cummings
Chairman Cummings said, well, we are having a lot of
problems with small enterprises. They have reported to our
Committee that they just can't get the bonding they need to
perform properly. So we provided that money under his
inspiration.
We had a meeting yesterday with the building and
construction trades, which I chaired, with the presidents of
all the unions, six of them. We never had them gathered in one
place before with members of the Tri-Caucus, as we call it: the
African American and Black Caucus, the Hispanic Caucus and the
Asian/Pacific Islander Caucus.
I pointed out that in the building trades that only 4
percent of the trades people are African Americans, 24 percent
Hispanic, 8 percent women, and in other trades it is a smaller
percentage of women than African Americans.
So we have a problem here. We have a problem. You have a
problem. Building trades have a problem.
You are not recruiting. You are not retaining. You are not
outreaching.
We want this program, we expect this $27 billion to benefit
all Americans. So, now tell us what you are going to do and how
you are going to correct that problem.
Well, the presidents of the trades said it is actually in
the union side of the business, much higher.
How much higher?
Well, they didn't have that number.
Trade by trade by trade, tell me what it is.
Well, just off the top of their heads, a few of them, well,
we are in the range of 20 percent.
That is not good enough. That is not good enough.
We have Congressman Rush from Chicago who says, I walk down
the street in my district and people come up and say: You have
all this construction money going out the door. I can't get a
job.
Why can't you get a job?
Because I can't get into the union hall.
What do you mean you can't get into the union hall?
We had all the brothers sitting here, all the national
presidents of the various trades: You are going to have a
program. You are going to start recruiting. You are going to
outreach. You are going to recruit. You are going to do this,
and you are going to start today. That was yesterday.
So that is the origin and the genesis of the hearing here.
The Coast Guard needs to be more inclusive.
When we won back the majority, the Committee took a closer
look at these issues, and we found this problem as I talked
about in the building and construction trades. We found them in
the management side of our highway and transit program. Now we
are finding it in the maritime trades, the Coast Guard.
You have to raise your game a little, more than little.
That in a class of 300 you would have 9 African Americans is
appalling.
We are long past Brown v. Board of Education. We are a long
ways from that.
I have asked for numbers. In the 2008 enrollment class for
the Coast Guard: 177 White, 7 African American, 9 Hispanic, 13
Asian/Pacific Islander.
Over many, many years I have gone to the Coast Guard
headquarters for meetings, and the mess served and the
Secretary of Transportation is served by largely Filipinos
recruited from the Coast Guard. You have quite a few of those
in the enlisted rank, but you don't have very many in the
officer rank.
For the Class of 2009: 178 White, 9 African American, 14
Hispanic, 2 Native American or Alaskan, 5 Asian/Pacific
Islander.
In 2010: 174 White, 8 African American, 10 Hispanic, 2
Alaskan/Native American, zero Asian/Pacific Islander.
And for 2011: 192 White, 8 African American, 11 Hispanic, 3
Native American/Alaskan, 1 Asian/Pacific Islander.
Now the U.S. Military Academy is doing a little bit better.
I am not going to recite their numbers.
This is about the Coast Guard. I want to know what this
great organization that goes back to the foundations of our
Nation, the first Congress in a new republic in 1789. The first
Committee of the first Congress was the Subcommittee on Rivers
and Harbors of which this Committee is a descendant. In fact, I
started my service in Congress on the staff of the Subcommittee
on Rivers and Harbors as Clerk.
But the first act of the first Congress in 1789 was to
establish and maintain a lighthouse at Hampton Roads. The
second act of the first Congress was to establish and maintain
a lighthouse at Cape Henry in the entrance to the Chesapeake
Bay. And the third act of the first Congress by the Committee
on Rivers and Harbors was to establish the Revenue Cutter
Service to exact duties on inbound cargoes and pay the debts of
the Revolutionary War. That became the Coast Guard.
You go back to the origins of our Nation and span all of
this history of the new Nation, the Great Republic, but you
haven't caught up. What are you going to do to catch up and get
ahead?
Admiral Breckenridge. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I wish I had a silver bullet to say we had the answer, and
I had it fixed today. I honestly can't tell you that.
What I can tell you is that we are being successful with
women and, in fact, the most successful of the service
academies, and we want to make sure that we don't backtrack on
any of that.
As we look at minorities, I think our numbers do show that
we have not been successful, and we don't dispute that.
I think we are seeing that the outreach efforts that we
have, that we are seeing slightly larger pools coming in. And,
quite frankly, looking at those pools of how many actually
start into the process and complete the application process, I
think there is a huge gap in those numbers that we should be
exploring.
I believe it is 165 started into the process, African
Americans, of which 36 completed the process, of which we have
accepted into the upcoming class of 2013. If I look at
Hispanics, it was somewhere on the order of 255 of which 111
completed the process. So I think that as we look at those
pools there are additional prospects in there that we need to
very actively go after.
Some who started in, who indicated interest, we have looked
at some of them. Have we fully looked across the potential? We
have not.
I think as we also look at the trends that are going on in
colleges and the increasing trend of individuals leaving high
school to go to two-year colleges. We have a high number of a
requirement for science, technology, engineering and mathematic
degrees coming out of our academy, but those in most colleges
are five-year degrees. So, individuals who start in a two-year
school potentially are looking to go on to a four-year school,
and I think that there are partnerships that we can form there.
We have gone to affinity groups, professional groups to
help us take a look at what we are doing.
We have done a scholars program as a one-year feeder. We
have really focused that effort in where we are marketing.
We have done extensive outreach. This year, we will be
bringing in more educators from underrepresented school
systems, so that we raise the visibility of the opportunities
that we have.
Then also, as we look at Congress, we know that there are
many applicants who come from the other academies. We would
like the visibility of the opportunities that exist at the
Coast Guard so they would consider it. And we also think that
there is some potential that there are individuals in those
pools who would be interested in the Coast Guard Academy.
So we are looking across all of those venues.
I wish I could say overnight, sir. It took us a long time
to get where we are, Mr. Chairman, with women. As we look at
our enlisted force again, the last five years, over a third,
sometimes 40 percent are minorities. Yet, as we look at the
growth of our workforce, we have only increased 6 percent with
each of those annual changes.
So we are open to suggestions, and we certainly want to
afford every American the opportunity to consider the Coast
Guard Academy.
Mr. Oberstar. Well, that is a good attitude and a good
spirit, and I appreciate your frankness and admission that
things aren't up where they should be and you will work to
change that.
I have noticed--and perhaps my colleagues--that in the
applications for the service academies the numbers have fallen
off dramatically, especially over the last eight years with the
Iraq War and the revulsion against our presence in Iraq. I used
to have 200 applicants for 5 positions, one at each of the
academies including Merchant Marine/Coast Guard, and that is
down to about 9 or 10.
I have had academy information day at the largest city in
my district, Duluth, which is about the size of subdivision of
Baltimore, but it is an 85,000 population, and we had 15 people
from the academies, wonderful presentations, marvelous. We had
nine people, nine students. We had more presenters than
students.
Now the Coast Guard is in a different position than the
service academies. It is not seen so much as a military
institution as the preeminent safety service organization. I
call the Weather Channel the Coast Guard Channel because they
constantly have these dramatic rescue efforts of the Coast
Guard in so many of our weather-related tragedies, weather-
initiated tragedies.
I would take that footage from the Weather Channel and go
to high schools around the Country and show kids: Look, this is
what you can do. You would be saving lives. You may be putting
yourself at some risk but not gunfire, but saving lives and
saving property and even saving pets, which the Coast Guard has
done.
I have said for years we get more value out of that blue
uniform than we do out of any other investment we make in the
government, but we want you to spread that message. Now if the
building trades are going to do an outreach program, then
surely the Coast Guard can do that.
My oldest daughter was at Marquette University, and
Marquette asked her to recruit, to take a semester off and
travel the East Coast and go to all the high schools and make a
pitch for Marquette. That was a pretty big deal for Marquette.
She is very attractive, very smart, bright red hair, very
personable. She could talk the pants off anybody and do it in
French as well as English, and she did a great job for them.
But are you doing that? Is the Coast Guard? Are you
targeting maritime communities? Are you going into the inner
cities, going into places like inner city Chicago and Los
Angeles and elsewhere in America?
And not just the coasts because in the inland cities there
are young people who dream of a career in the maritime.
Admiral Breckenridge. Yes, Mr. Chairman. In fact, my
husband is from Nebraska, and he joined the Coast Guard at one
point.
Mr. Oberstar. There you go.
Admiral Breckenridge. So, absolutely, yes, sir. We do have
an outreach program, Mr. Chairman, that goes across each one of
our workforces.
As we look at our enlisted workforce, where we focus that
effort along with the other services, we actually utilize a
demographic database that looks at high schools, that looks at
the scores on a test that they take, that looks at skill sets
and then also factors in a propensity to serve. That started
several years ago and became the baseline for the program that
we use today.
We have also taken success stories in the Coast Guard from
our recruiting command, filming individuals within the Coast
Guard. It is not only on all of our web sites, but we dropped
it on ITunes, and it is also out on YouTube so that any young
person who is going out and searching across ITunes, which is a
very common feature for them today, can come across the Coast
Guard.
We have affiliations with a number of organizations. The
National Naval Officers Association, which is helping us to
reach out to colleges, those are individuals in the sea
services and reach out to colleges. With them, we have
established an ambassadors program.
The Academy has an extensive outreach program. They have a
partner program that brings in the Coast Guard auxiliary or
volunteers as well as parents and alumni and those on active
duty and within our reserve force and use them as force
multipliers as well as focusing their efforts.
Mr. Oberstar. That is good, and I think that is a very
commendable initiative. There is more I think that members of
the Tri-Caucus could offer, following up on our meeting
yesterday, as I said, with the building trades.
Do you do a follow-up?
I am just looking at the number of completed applications,
the offered appointments and sworn in the Coast Guard Class of
2009. Well, there are 55 African Americans who completed
applications, 5 who were sworn in. Have you talked to them? Do
you follow up with those who didn't and find out why they
didn't?
Admiral Breckenridge. To say that we have 100 percent
certain to everyone of those individuals, we do not, sir.
Mr. Oberstar. You do some?
Admiral Breckenridge. Yes, sir.
Mr. Oberstar. Can you do more? Do you learn something from
those follow-ups?
Admiral Breckenridge. Mr. Chairman, we have to do more
there. I mean those are individuals who started in. We do find
that as they start into the process, some of them pursue other
academic institutions. There are those who do come to the Coast
Guard are also competitive to other academic institutions where
they may also earn scholarships.
Mr. Oberstar. Well, that is true, and we see that in the
other services academies. If you are good enough to get into
the Coast Guard or West Point or the Naval Academy, the Air
Force Academy, you probably can get a scholarship to another
university, maybe an Ivy League or one of those, and I have
seen that drop off myself in my district.
The other thing is retention. I talk about retention in the
building trades. Here are from lieutenant commander to
commander, 67 African American, but by the time you get to the
commander level there is only 17. Why is that?
What are you doing? Why are they dropping out? Why are they
leaving? Why are they not being promoted?
Admiral Breckenridge. Actually, sir, the flow across our
grades of African Americans, and I would say minorities in
general, minority retention rate is actually higher for our
officers than it is for the office corps in general.
Mr. Oberstar. Well, this is as of August, 2008, and you
start off with at the ensign level, 29, lieutenant junior
grade, 54, lieutenant, 129. Then you get to the lieutenant
commanders, down to 67 and then it is down to 17. By the time
you get to admiral, it is zero.
Admiral Breckenridge. Yes, sir. I think there are a number
of variables that play into that. We have an up or out system.
In each grade, there is a smaller percentage of individuals
that remain. For instance, there is 6 percent, roughly 6
percent by law that are in the grade of captain, 12 percent
that are in the grade of commander as a service structure. So
it is a pyramid structure.
As you look at each grade, you look at those coming up, and
not everyone is going to be successful going up through the
system, number one.
Number two, I think--well, not I think. Clearly, there are
individuals who choose to leave the organization. Some of that
comes from the fact that across our Service we do have a number
of individuals in our officer corps who come from the enlisted
ranks. We do have upwardly mobile opportunities. And, they
become retirement eligible more junior in their careers.
So we need to look at how we are attracting across all
opportunities for all individuals and look at how we are
pulling. What are the accession sources through which we are
pulling people into the officer corps to make sure as they move
through the grades we are using venues that will create
populations that do make it through all the way, so we have a
robust pool at the upper end of our organizational structure.
Mr. Oberstar. We are not asking to establish a quota or
proposing a quota system, but when it drops off from 67 to 17
to 4 and a White or not Hispanic or Latino goes from 1,100 to
772 to 353 at the captain rank--we could put this chart up on
the board as well, but I will just cite those numbers--that is
about half, and you have a 75 percent drop-off for African
American, something is happening.
Something is not working to encourage them to stay on. Is
there a glass ceiling that they reach at a certain point?
Admiral Breckenridge. I think several things I will offer,
Mr. Chairman. First of all, we do look at promotion board
results. We do not have the statistics in front of the board
with respect to gender or minority status.
After the board is finished we do a scrub on what the
results of the board are. In the case of minorities and women
in particular, we take a hard look at what happened in those
boards, particularly where we see anomalies.
We do the same thing when we look at occupational
specialty. If there are individuals in a particular career
field, that over several years we seem to have a different
percentage selected than other career fields, we go in to do a
hot wash to understand what the root causes are and if there
are barriers or if there are things happening in our
organization.
With respect to African Americans and other minorities, we
have had two of those that I can remember in recent history. In
each one of those hot washes that we looked at, we could not
identify any trend and the system appeared to be upheld. When I
say that, we did find specific things in the record for a
number of the individuals that explained the nonselection
within our process.
Having said that, I will tell you, Mr. Chairman, that I do
think at the mid-grade level, and I describe that as our E5s,
E6s and our 03s and particularly going to 04, that is a very
critical time. That is when they are making a decision of
whether they are going to become a careerist within our
organization. I think that there are some vulnerabilities
there, that we need to ensure that we are doing more to guide
individuals through that portion of their career.
So, right now, part of our action plan that we have is that
we are extending individual development plans to those grades,
and I have 38 units that are currently participating in a pilot
project for how we would roll that out across the organization
in a way that is sustainable at units.
The intent of this is to create the one on one counseling
and helping individuals do goal planning and have commands
involved in that goal planning to make sure that it is
achievable.
Mr. Oberstar. All right. Well, that is good.
Take a look at that chart up there. You will see what we
are talking about.
Do you have a goal over a period of time for flag officers?
We asked Navy for what they are doing. The Chief of Naval
Operations established a 30-year goal of having 38 percent flag
officers be minority. The Coast Guard, have you discussed
having a goal?
Admiral Breckenridge. We do not have a specific
representational goal within our flag corps.
Mr. Oberstar. I want you to discuss that with the Admiral
and with the Commandant and talk about this. I think it is
important to have that. Start that conversation.
I won't set a goal for you, but I would just say if you did
as well as our Committee we wouldn't behaving this
conversation. We have six Subcommittees. Four are chaired by
African Americans.
Admiral Breckenridge. I understand, Mr. Chairman. I would
offer that----
Mr. Oberstar. You are going to start working on it is what
you are going to say.
Admiral Breckenridge. I think we already have started
working on it.
Mr. Oberstar. Okay.
Admiral Breckenridge. Over the last five years, there have
been 36 flags selected of which 3 have been minorities and 2
additional women. So, right now, of our 41 flag officers, we
have 6 women and 3 minorities that are represented which is
very different than just 2003 when I joined the flag corps.
And, our SES corps which is our civilian component of our
executive corps, over the last few years, we have a total of 14
of which we currently have 13 filled. We have had a turnover of
11 of those positions. Seven of them have been filled external
to the organization, four of which have been filled by women,
two of which are minority, and we have had one minority male
hired. So I think we are making definition.
The other thing I think is important, sir, that as leaders
in the organization it is what we demonstrate by our behavior.
If you look at the Commandant's front office and those
individuals that work directly for him in those development
opportunities at the 05, 06 and the aide level which is 04 for
him, 03 or 02 for most of the rest of us, they are all women or
minorities.
For my own staff, when I looked at going back to the field
this summer, I had three selections to make. Two of them are
minorities.
As we look at our 02, 03 aides today, 26 positions, over
half of them are minorities and women.
So I think senior leadership has taken this on as an
initiative and is looking at opportunities to look at that
bright talent and to make sure that we do recognize that we
pull it up and provide full opportunity.
Lastly, I think the thing that we are not doing today that
may be a barrier for us is as we look at our workforce we have
very bright, talented individuals. If I look at the enlisteds
that qualify for many occupational specialties and our officer
corps, every occupational specialty is open to every single
individual in our officer corps.
But we see collections, smaller collections and
concentrations, and those patterns really haven't changed over
time. Our growth recently in the enlisted corps has been in
ratings where we do not see minorities and women migrating to.
So I think we need to look at ensuring that young
individuals who are joining our organization fully recognize
the opportunities, that they are counseled on specifically what
they qualify for, what opportunities are there, and then we
ensure that they make a very well-informed decision because
most of them qualify on the enlisted side for a multitude of
ratings.
Mr. Oberstar. You have shown a range of sensitivity and of
interest and of willingness to do things. You also need a
deeper cultural understanding, and this is the beginning of the
conversation.
And by cultural understanding, I mean in my Congressional
district there are six of the eight bands of the Minnesota
Chippewa Tribe. The Anishinaabe People are very reticent
people. They don't speak much in their own circles. When they
do, they have something significant to say. But they are also
reticent in the non-Indian community, even more so.
It makes all the difference having an Ojibwe, Chippewa,
Anishinaabe female doctor on the reservation. The young women
come and are treated, and they open up, and they talk because
they have someone who understand them, whom they feel
comfortable with. They are also accustomed not to speaking up,
not to saying, not to stepping forth.
And I think you find that also in the African American
community, that because for so long they have had the doors
closed, that they are uncertain about speaking to open them.
You need to open that door. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Richardson.
Ms. Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am going to make a point building upon what our Chairman
has just shared with us over a few minutes, and then I have one
question for Ms. Dickerson.
Rear Admiral, I would recommend that you consider talking
to some police organizations, some fire organizations who have
had similar difficulties in increasing their numbers and have
spent much time developing strategies and plans. For example,
in the fire department, you know they have pre-class trainings
to help people to come up to speed prior to them applying to
become a firefighter, and it has increased significantly the
turnout.
I would say to you that as an African American female, it
is public record and by fact that the greatest beneficiaries of
the Civil Rights Movement were not African Americans. They were
white women who benefitted most greatly from civil rights.
So it is not unusual for me to hear to hear today you say,
oh, we are doing much better with women. Well, that doesn't
change the fact, though, that we have other objectives that we
must achieve as well.
And so, like I can tell you from the police side of it,
things like background checks, credit checks, things like that
that maybe young people haven't heard as much about in
different communities, of the importance of those items that
impacts the later on positions that they will have are crucial
and need to be understood in working with all communities.
Finally, I would also say to you I represent a community
where we may only have two pools out of 655,000 people, two
pools for children in underserved communities. So kids who know
about the Army, as our Chairman said, kids who know about the
Air Force and planes and Marines. But if kids have never been
on boat themselves or a ship themselves, it is kind of
difficult to make that connection of why they are going to
consider the Coast Guard and what skills they need to do.
You talked about our alumni. Well, I hate to tell you, but
a lot of kids in my district don't have parents or relatives
who are alumni of the Coast Guard. So you really have to look
at it from a completely different perspective.
I would be more than happy to come and support in that
effort, and I am sure that other members of the Tri-Caucus
would be more than willing to come and volunteer and assist.
But I would recommend that you work with some police agencies,
fire agencies who have had similar situations and who have had
to look at other creative ways to recruit, so that we can get
at some of these numbers.
But understand not all kids are around water. Not all kids
are seeing water. Not all kids are going on ships, and not all
kids are understanding even physical attributes, things that
they need to excel in, in order to succeed. So that would be my
first comment.
Admiral Breckenridge. Thank you very much. I think they are
some great ideas. I, personally, have talked to police
departments, and in fact had a very close association with
police departments in California while I was stationed there.
Ms. Richardson. Which ones were those?
Admiral Breckenridge. Up in the Bay Area.
Ms. Richardson. Where?
Admiral Breckenridge. Alameda, San Francisco and San Jose
in particular.
Ms. Richardson. Okay. With all due respect, I recommend you
look at the diversity of those communities, and you will find
that the plans are different, and it gets at the core of what
we are talking about.
Admiral Breckenridge. I welcome that feedback, and I will
be happy to go back and look at that. I would be very happy to
talk to you and get some additional ideas. I said we are open
to ideas.
If I implied that you have to be around water to understand
it, I do very much understand your point that it is difficult
for some, the way we advertise and what we are all about, to
maybe make the connection and that you need a different
approach there. What we have done in advertising and the way we
put the word out, if it isn't connecting, we certainly would
appreciate that feedback on some other things that we can do.
When I talked about alumni, I did not mean to imply that
alumni only go to their own children. We use them in the
communities they are in to reach into the school systems and
through civic groups and other associations. Having said that,
with the feedback, it is likely that they may not be going to
the right places.
Ms. Richardson. Right. It is also with alumni, that you
relate to who you know. So they might be going, but if the kids
that they are going to don't relate to them or don't know them
or haven't interacted with them at all, the likelihood of the
connection is not as high.
To give you an example, my brother-in-law went to
Annapolis, an African American, and when he went, there was
still the stigma in the 1970s that African Americans don't swim
as well.
There are issues, and all we can do is to work to address
them and to improve where we are, and I am more than happy to
support you in that effort. I would like to help.
Admiral Breckenridge. Thank you very much.
Ms. Richardson. And my time has expired. So Ms. Dickerson,
you got off easy.
Thank you.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you.
Admiral, I was listening to your testimony and your answer
to the Chairman's question, and I just have a few things I want
to ask you about. How long have you been in the position you
are in?
Admiral Breckenridge. Since last June.
Mr. Cummings. Since last June. You read the report, right,
this Booz Allen report?
Admiral Breckenridge. I have, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Cummings. You have?
Admiral Breckenridge. I have, sir.
Mr. Cummings. Is there anything in the report you disagree
with? Anything? The findings?
Admiral Breckenridge. I can't say. There are portions of
it, Mr. Chairman, that I can't say that I agree or disagree
with it because I have not been in Ms. Dickerson's position
with responsibility to run the program.
From looking at our Service and looking at the structure
that we have and some of the feedback that we got, I do agree
with those pieces, Mr. Chairman. I think Ms. Dickerson has an
action plan now to address those issues, and there is
commitment at the senior end to see through on that action
plan, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Cummings. Now she mentioned the authority for six
positions, and I want to make sure we are clear. When we say
authority, does that mean those positions are a done deal? Does
that mean that they are going to be live people in the
positions or does that mean that we have this wonderful
umbrella that says authority, but there may not be anything
behind it?
See, I guess what I am getting to is I want to make sure.
My frustration comes with the fact that this has been 10 years,
and a lot can happen in 10 years or not happen. The things that
don't happen, particularly in this area, is literally taking
opportunities away from a lot of people.
So the question becomes I want to know exactly what has
changed. I hear there is this thing about six people. I know
that a request had been made before for additional personnel,
and it has not happened. I know that it was just two weeks ago,
according to Ms. Dickerson, that these six people were suddenly
approved or authorized.
I know that we had a hearing today. As I have said many
times in these hearings, I conduct my hearings a little
different than a lot of Chairmen because I want results. My
life is too short. No, really. I would rather be studying
something or writing something or whatever, writing in my
office than go through this if we are not going to have
results.
I am trying to get the rubber to meet the road, but I want
to make sure there is a road when the rubber is supposed to
meet it.
So the question becomes do we have six new people, or don't
we, who are going to get a paycheck and get all the benefits
that come with employees? And are these full-time people? Are
they part-time people? When did they begin? When will they
begin?
Let me finish. What are their titles, because I want to
know about them? I want to see them at some point and say, hey,
welcome, and I don't want to be talking to a non-existing
authority.
So the question, is do we have the personnel? I can't hear
you.
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir, we do.
Mr. Cummings. We have them.
Ms. Dickerson. Yes. I sought the same clarification that
you are referencing, and I am assured that I can begin
recruiting for those personnel. I have already spoken with
people in the field in terms of deciding the best positioning
of the ones who will be geographically located in the field
area, and the two in my office I have already begun the effort
of starting to program those positions.
Mr. Cummings. When do you expect them to be hired?
Ms. Dickerson. Soon.
Mr. Cummings. You tell me, Ms. Dickerson.
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir. I would say by May, hopefully, is
what I hope.
Mr. Cummings. Give me a date.
Ms. Dickerson. May 31st.
Mr. Cummings. May 31st. I tell you what, I will give you a
bonus two weeks. June 15th, we are calling you back in here. I
would like to meet those personnel.
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. I would like to meet them. So you said May
31st?
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. You have until June 15th. All right?
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. Let me just go on. The reason why I am so
emphatic about that is you get tired. You get tired of people
making commitments, and then people assume, and I am not
talking about you all. I am just talking about what I have seen
in 14 years.
They will say, okay, we don't have to worry about Cummings.
He will have a hearing two years from now. Damage done. What
the hell.
That is what happens here in this Congress over and over
and over and over again, and that is why we are going to have
this June 15th hearing or thereabout. We won't make it any
earlier than June 15th, but it will be right around that date,
assuming we can fit into our schedule. But there will be a
hearing.
What else do we have? The military academy, the Academy,
the Coast Guard Academy.
Are you in charge, Rear Admiral, of the Chief of Diversity?
Does that person come under you.
Admiral Breckenridge. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Cummings. I notice you have an Hispanic Association of
Colleges and Universities liaison person, is that right?
Admiral Breckenridge. That is correct, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Cummings. How long has that person been in place?
Admiral Breckenridge. The individual that is there right
now, I believe.
Mr. Cummings. No, no, no. The position itself.
Admiral Breckenridge. I will have to get back to you, Mr.
Chairman. I don't recollect the exact year we started it. We
have had two people there.
Mr. Cummings. Two?
Admiral Breckenridge. Yes, sir, over two tours. But exactly
the length of those two tours, I will get back to you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Cummings. How many Hispanic colleges and universities
are there, do you know?
Admiral Breckenridge. I don't remember off the top of my
head. I remember half of them are two-year serving
institutions.
Mr. Cummings. Do you know how many historically black
colleges and universities there are?
Admiral Breckenridge. I did. I can't pull that off the top
of my head at this moment, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Cummings. There is well over 100. Well, over 100.
I was just wondering as I listen to your testimony. I was
wondering if you all had explored possibly have a liaison with
those colleges and universities.
I must plead and give you this fact. I am a graduate of an
historically African American college. My daughter is a
graduate, and we have a 14 year old who is going to be a
graduate. She doesn't know it yet, but she will be.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Cummings. And I am on the board of an historically
black college. So I am just wondering, and I know what we go
through trying to help these students get to where they have to
go.
As I said a little bit earlier, and I know you were aware
of this, the Admiral, to his credit, kindly took up a
phenomenal amount of time just within the last month to speak
at Morgan State University in Baltimore. They tell me that he
did an outstanding job. So I am just trying to figure out how
we can possibly help this effort by having a liaison.
Don't get me wrong. I think it is very important, very
important to have the Hispanic American college and
universities liaison. You know how some folks do. They will cut
out one thing and substitute with another. I don't want that.
What I am trying to figure out is can we look into that
possibility?
Admiral Breckenridge. We can certainly look into that, sir.
I am just trying to think across. HACU became a venue that we
could reach many colleges through one central point rather than
having to have representatives at every single college which is
why we agreed to put the liaison there.
Mr. Chairman, we have been working with Morgan State and a
number of other historically black colleges on two venues,
specifically on our CSPI program, because in talking to the
Dean of Engineering at Morgan State he told me his single
biggest challenge was while he has tremendously talented
individuals who come in, they struggle to find money to be able
to finish their education. Well, the CSPI program helps with
that because it pays for two years of education.
We have also done the same outreach with North Carolina
A&T.
We have a broader outreach than that to historically black
colleges and universities. Mr. Curt Odom has been working at
Morris College and has four individuals from that college who
are interested in coming into the Coast Guard. So we are trying
to use our executive corps to outreach.
The other thing that I am trying to leverage on this next
cycle is looking at our internship programs and providing
internships both for our blue collar work and for our other
civilian positions, so that we look at both of those venues and
look at full opportunities when we go out there.
Mr. Cummings. I am glad you said that. The internships are
very important, but let me just tell you this. I think the CSPI
program is also very important.
At Morgan State University, the school I sit on the board
of, we have to let go so many students not because they are not
brilliant, because they don't have the money. Our research has
shown if they drop out, there is a 60 to 70 percent chance they
will never come back. I mean these are talented kids.
So if there is some kind of way we can get the word out
even more so about the CSPI, and I am not saying that everybody
will be anxious to be part of the Coast Guard, but the fact is
they have a choice between getting their college education and
having to go through this process and having that education
significantly paid for, I guess. Is that right?
Admiral Breckenridge. That is correct. They enlist in the
Coast Guard. So they get paid allowances while they are going
to school. They get two years of school paid for while they are
earning a salary.
Mr. Cummings. What I am saying is that they have a choice
between that and not completing college at all. I think some of
them will say, you know what, I am going to go through the CSPI
program and complete my college education and pay my duty to my
Country, and then hopefully they won't die with their dreams
and aspirations in the casket, locked up.
Admiral Breckenridge. Yes, Mr. Chairman. On our
internships, we have looked at talking to the dean. We have
looked at two internships for the School of Engineering. We
know that Morgan State is a high producer of engineers, and so
we are interested in working with them.
Mr. Cummings. I am hoping that you will do that with all.
We have a number of schools, historically black colleges and
universities that need the same kind of attention. That is one
of the reasons why I asked you about the liaison position
because there are so many, and they are so often unknown,
unseen, unnoticed, unappreciated, unapplauded and unsung.
Admiral Breckenridge. Several comments, Mr. Chairman:
First, through the CSPI program, we are looking at our
graduates in the National Naval Officers Association. We have
looked across all of those colleges and looked at where we have
graduates and we can use them, and that is that ambassador
program that I was talking about.
When we look at the executive outreach that we talked
about, first of all, we want the executives to have something
to take to the table--not to show up, and that is good, and we
can talk about it. But we do believe we have to have something
to take to the table to talk to the provosts or the deans.
In with that, we also want at least two junior officers, a
mid-grade and a junior officer for linkage into the student
population in addition to the recruiters who process the
paperwork but for relevancy to that student population.
That also sets up a mentoring relationship. Ultimately, I
will move on, Mr. Chairman. The schools that I choose, there
will be someone who comes behind me who will also go into that
school, but we will replace those officers. So if I take an 04
and an 02, as that 04 becomes more senior, the 02 becomes more
senior. We will bring more in. So we have a chain that becomes
unbroken.
I think part of our challenge has been that we had created
relationships, including with Morgan State in the past, which
we did not sustain. We must have sustainable relationships to
have credibility to go into these communities and talk about
the opportunities they have and for people to take us
seriously.
Mr. Cummings. I just have two more questions, and then I am
finished. Ms. Dickerson, you wrote in your testimony that a
decision to seek the outside review of the Coast Guard civil
rights programs in 2008 was ``neither an offensive nor a
defensive undertaking.'' Do you remember writing that?
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. ``The decision was deliberate. I had taken
steps, and while they were bearing fruit I thought the Coast
Guard could gain from outside perspective.'' Do you remember
that?
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. Can you explain what you meant by that?
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. You go ahead, and then I will have a follow-
up. Go ahead.
Ms. Dickerson. In part, as I know I have stated to you
before, I came to Coast Guard from the U.S. Commission on Civil
Rights, and there are other people I have had opportunity to
bring into the organization who have come in from other
agencies as well.
I think, well, sometimes what appeared to be occurring was
there is very much a construct for civil rights as it is in
Coast Guard, and that seemed to be a very entrenched process. I
was new to the military, and I wanted to validate some of what
I knew had worked in civilian agencies in Coast Guard, but I
also wanted to be very much aware of that I was in a different
element as well.
And so, I thought I would really benefit from a third party
perspective on that in order to kind of validate the direction
I was taking and to steer the organization and the civil rights
function in a way that I thought would bring really a lot of
integrity and that the workforce could access it better and
have a lot more trust in the process.
So it was a validating exercise in that I gave the Booz
Allen team everything, every piece of data that I had
collected. I opened my records to them and gave them my plan of
action, my strategic plan, and asked them: Please tell me what
you see here. What am I missing? Are there additional data
points? Is this a good, informed direction to be going?
I am in a new military environment. I want to be sure I am
not trying to graft something into an environment that may not
work because, foremost, we are certainly there for national
security. I don't want to circumvent the commanding officers'
authority and things of that nature.
Just, I had a vision, and I believe it can work, and it
will work with Coast Guard. I am sure it will bring more
integrity to the process.
So it wasn't a defensive move in terms of trying to prevent
anything, and it wasn't something where I was trying to push. I
just really wanted to get a third party perspective and benefit
from other data points from someone who was external, from an
entity external to Coast Guard.
Mr. Cummings. But the self-assessments were reporting the
same kind of things that you had almost assumed, right?
Ms. Dickerson. The self-assessments look at workforce
numbers, and I wanted specifically to look at the EEO process
itself in terms of people entering the complaint process and
how that could have more integrity.
Mr. Cummings. All right. You mentioned some 53 things, and
you said you had done 10.
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. Eight were, I guess, about to be done.
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. That leaves quite a few, right?
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir, absolutely.
Mr. Cummings. So you have 10 and 8, 18 from 53.
Ms. Dickerson. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. That is quite a few.
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. So what is going to happen? What is going to
happen with the other ones?
I mean that is nice, but what happens with all these other
things?
Ms. Dickerson. I have an action team right now that is
prioritizing them, and all of them are now underway. For
example, there was a recommendation that we issue standard
operating procedures. We have standard operating procedures for
our complaints process but not for our other activities.
Mr. Cummings. All right. Let me cut you short. This is what
I would like for you to do, you and the Rear Admiral.
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. Since we are going to have our hearing around
or about June 15th, I would like for you all within the next
few days to let me know what you expect to have achieved out of
that 53 by that time so that we can hold you to it. All right?
Ms. Dickerson. Yes, sir.
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Mr. Cummings. Well, I want to thank all of you for being
with us today and this evening. Decisive actions are needed to
bring the Coast Guard civil rights programs including the Equal
Employment Opportunity programs to full compliance with all
applicable regulations and, frankly, with the standards that
the Subcommittee expects of the United States Coast Guard.
I am encouraging the senior leadership of the Coast Guard
to examine closely the issues we have discussed today, to probe
deeper into their own organization, to identify and break down
any barriers that may limit opportunities for anyone and to put
specific and targeted reforms in place.
As I have said, we will be meeting again on or about June
the 15th so that we can evaluate what progress has been made.
Given the urgency of the changes needed in the Coast
Guard's civil rights program, I intend to ask the Government
Accountability Office to conduct an examination of the
Service's progress in a year's time and to report its findings
back to the Subcommittee. In this way, the Subcommittee will be
able to receive a report of an objective third party that will
be responsive to the data request posed by the Congress.
I will remind you, when we asked Booz Allen to come and
testify they said that they would not. So maybe we can get the
GAO to do so.
I am hopeful that for the benefit of all the Coast Guard's
officers, members and employees the GAO will be able to report
real progress towards implementing an efficient and effective
civil rights service program that adequately protects the civil
rights of all Coast Guard personnel.
I consider this to be an urgent matter. I want to thank you
for understanding that.
I want to thank you for your efforts. I know this hearing
has been a little tough at times, but I want to thank you for
everything you have done. I really mean that.
Progress can seem like it is not moving at the pace that we
all want it to, but I can see that you all are making the
efforts to make that happen.
And so, this meeting is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:33 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
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