Outside teams to investigate discrimination at USDA

Complaints of civil rights violations against both employees and customers of the Agriculture Department will be investigated by outside teams. The reviews will take place at USDA offices with high volumes of discrimination complaints, agency officials said.

Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman announced Friday that three firms have been hired to go into field offices and review office operations, interview witnesses, determine why complaints persist, and identify factors that contribute to discrimination at USDA. Investigative teams must report to the Secretary in three months on findings of their investiations into the agency's Rural Development department in Virginia and the Forest Service Enforcement and Investigations Division. Other agency reviews will follow.

"I believe those teams will provide us with objective analysis, information and ideas to help us continue making further progress in ensuring that all our employees and customers are treated fairly and equitably, with dignity and respect," Glickman said in June when he first announced the possiblity of using outside accountability teams to combat reports of civil rights violations within the agency.

The agency has been the subject of several class action suits filed by farmers and the department's own employees alleging discrimination against African Americans.

Lawrence Lucas, president of USDA's Coalition of Minority Employees, said Glickman's move is an important step toward eliminating discrimination in the agency. The coalition, formed in 1994, advocates on behalf of racial minorities, women and disabled employees of USDA.

"I commend Secretary Glickman for taking this bold step to bring about a change and focus on those agencies and those regions that the coalition has been talking about for years [and] that has been a hotbed of discrimination and abuse of employees, and in some cases, abuse of the customers that come to the government for services," Lucas said. "To make this bold move of looking within itself is a good move."

The coalition held a press conference at the White House last week, the group's third this year in its effort to push the agency into action before the end of the Clinton administration. But an agency spokeswoman said Glickman's recent actions are part of a proactive, long-term civil rights action plan he had implemented long before the coalition began pushing for more action. "It was several years ago that Secretary Glickman established a Civil Rights Task Force that travels around the country to conduct public meetings, many of which the Secretary did attend personally, to have the task force develop recommendations on measures that should and could be taken to address civil rights at the department," the spokeswoman said.

One of the recommendations stemming from the task force's efforts includes mandatory annual civil rights training for employees, which according to the spokeswoman, has already been implemented.

Lucas says pressure from his group, which lobbied members of Congress, President Clinton and Vice President Gore, helped lead the USDA to focus on repairing its civil rights record.

"This is a reaction to the pressure that the Coalition of Minority Employees has been putting on the USDA for years and, finally, we are getting some response," he said. "Only because the coalition has stayed the course of civil rights, are we finally beginning to see some change."