Progress toward Racial and Sexual Equality in the Federal Civil Service?

Abstract

In addition to being one of the largest employers in the country, the federal civil service acts as a symbol of this nation's commitment to racial and sexual equality. Its treatment of women and minorities therefore deserves steady scrutiny, especially since most studies indicate that it is far from a model employer. White males hold the vast majority of high-paying, policymaking positions in the federal civil service. They also earn far more than women and minorities at all education and experience levels. In an effort to increase representation and approach pay equality, federal policy has slowly shifted from strategies for eliminating discrimination to affirmative action to abolish inequality of opportunity to the use of numerical goals and timetables. These goals and timetables have never been popular with the general public (Rosenbloom, 1984) nor with elected or administrative officials (Daley, 1984), however. The election of Ronald Reagan gave goals and timetables a strong opponent in the White House. The Justice Department, which for nearly 20 years before 1981 had sided with women and minorities in court battles, began to join lawsuits on the side of white males charging reverse discrimination. Reagan's Justice Department has argued forcefully against affirmative action plans for state and local governments and private employers, and it has even refused to submit its own goals and timetables to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The EEOC, in turn, "has quietly abandoned the use of hiring goals and timetables in settlements with private employers accused of race and sex discrimination" ("EEOC Abandons," 1986), and it has dropped "broad complaints against large companies ... in favor of more tightly focused cases involving specific persons" (Williams, 1985). The Reagan Administration's rejection of statistical evidence of patterns of discrimination convinces many critics that the federal government has taken a giant step backwards in its treatment of women and minorities on personnel issues. To date, however, little empirical evidence has been reported on whether presidential opposition to affirmative action has slowed progress toward racial and sexual equality. This paper attempts to fill this gap; exploring whether the federal personnel system has made progress in the past decade and whether the rate of progress has slowed since Reagan's election. What measures best gauge progress? Political scientists and students of public administration have concen* This paper addresses two questions. First, has the federal civil service made progress toward racial and sexual equality in the past decade? Second, has progress slowed during the Reagan Administration? The paper examines changes in total employment, employment at upper grade levels, average grade levels, average salaries, and unexplained salary gaps since 1976 for ten groups-Asian, Native American, Hispanic, black nonHispanic, and white non-Hispanic men and women. The good news is that women and minorities have made progress relative to white males on all measures, and that progress has continued under Reagan. The bad news is that progress remains slow.