OPM and civil rights chiefs defend special hiring programs

The Office of Personnel Management and the Council of Federal EEO and Civil Rights Executives have spoken out in defense of the Outstanding Scholar and Bilingual/Bicultural hiring programs as legitimate means of ensuring workplace diversity in the federal government.

In a report released Wednesday, the Merit Systems Protection Board criticized the Outstanding Scholar and Bilingual/Bicultural hiring programs for allowing federal managers to bypass merit system protection rules. The board called for the two programs to be ended.

"MSPB's report on the government's use of the Outstanding Scholar, Bilingual/Bicultural program is wrong. I strongly disagree with its conclusion that these programs are not needed," OPM Director Janice R. Lachance said in a statement.

The MSPB report, "Restoring Merit to Federal Hiring," showed that, in recent years, more white women than minorities have been hired under the two programs, which were created to increase the representation of African-Americans and Hispanics in the federal workplace.

The report also said that the two programs' criteria are inconsistent with the merit principle of fair employee selection.

The Outstanding Scholar program allows federal agencies to hire college graduates who have a 3.45 or higher grade point average and who were in the top ten percent of their class. The Bilingual/Bicultural program gives preference to applicants with Spanish language or Hispanic culture knowledge.

The Council of Federal EEO and Civil Rights Executives, a Washington-based group of Equal Employment Opportunity professionals, acknowledged that the programs are sometimes misused, but said they are still necessary for minority hiring.

"With all the work that still needs to be done in the federal sector to meet the presidential mandate to diversify the federal workforce, we do not feel that MSPB's proposal would be helpful," Luther Santiful, president of the council, said in a letter disagreeing with MSPB's conclusion.

According to Santiful, federal agencies simply need to be better educated about the purpose of the two programs.

Santiful also questioned MSPB's assertion that grade point average is not a valid predictor of job performance in part because it does not offer a common basis for comparison among candidates.

"The academic institution, the program of study, the grading practices of professors-all of these can dramatically affect GPA or class standing," the report said.

This suggestion "denigrates our minority educational institutions," Santiful said. "We feel that historically black colleges and universities and Hispanic-serving institutions have done an outstanding job in providing minority applicants who are just as competitive for federal positions as those graduating from Ivy League colleges and universities."