CommunityEditor
02-24-2009, 09:03 PM
Employees in the Coast Guard’s Office of Civil Rights do not have the skills or up-to-date training to handle many of the service’s cases and formal discrimination complaints are not adequately handled, according to an independent report presented to the Coast Guard on Feb. 5 and released by the service Thursday.
Terri Dickerson, the office’s director, requested an independent review April 25, 2008, less than one month after an investigation by the Coast Guard Investigative Service, Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the FBI failed to determine who left nooses for a black Coast Guard Academy cadet and an officer conducting race-relations training in the summer of 2007.
At the same time, an unofficial Coast Guard blog was posting regularly about the office and the director’s alleged inefficiencies, reducing morale among employees and casting OCR in a negative light, according to the report.
The findings are “deeply disturbing and completely unacceptable,” Cummings, D-Md., wrote in a letter this Sunday to Commandant Adm. Thad Allen. Cummings, the chairman of the House subcommittee on the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, said he plans to call a hearing in April to further discuss the report.
“The findings of this report demand decisive and comprehensive action to correct what appear to be a number of significant shortfalls in the administration,” he wrote.
The Coast Guard retained Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting firm with offices throughout the country, to review the entire civil rights program in September 2008, according to a letter from Dickerson to the Department of Homeland Security’s Equal Employment Opportunity Programs.
Coast Guard spokesman Cmdr. Ron LaBrec said the service is thankful for the feedback and is conducting a thorough review of the report and its recommendations.
“The [DHS] Office of Civil Rights and Liberties periodically conducts assessments on its civil rights components and the [OCR] director wanted to do this report now with the ongoing modernization initiative to look across the board and improve the practices in the office and address any allegations that were coming out of blogs or even internal discussions. We take allegations of mistreating [privacy issues] seriously,” LaBrec said.
According to the report, the Coast Guardsmen assigned to ORC often come in with little civil rights experience and serve two-year tours, and “often they leave their post just as they are becoming oriented to the position.” The other Coast Guardsmen in the office are on collateral duty, with the same limited backgrounds, according to the report.
Although training is available, the report said, many employees have not completed the legislatively mandated initial or refresher training. In some instances training was behind up to five years.
“Some staff members lack the requisite skills, abilities, and training to effectively perform the duties of their positions, thereby diminishing effectiveness of the divisions/teams,” according to the report.
LaBrec said the “decentralized” structure led to the delinquency in training and the Coast Guard is looking to “standardize” and “improve” its training program. There are 22 full-time positions within OCR, five of which are military, but that likely is not enough to sufficiently handle the additional responsibilities related to the increased caseload, according to the report.
Although Booz Allen acknowledges that some of the recommendations listed in the report cannot be accomplished with the office’s $788,459 budget, OCR’s Web site says the recommendations are under review and lists some that have either already been completed or can be accomplished in the near future.
Those include:
• Restructuring the office to “optimize the use of our military personnel” and take advantage of existing training and resources.
• Analyze the workload to ensure statutory and non-statutory obligations are being met.
LaBrec said it is too early to determine what recommendations would require additional funding or how much additional money would be needed to accomplish those goals.
“The review reaffirmed many positive aspects of the Coast Guard civil rights program. The report also makes clear there is work ahead,” Dickerson wrote in Thursday’s Alcoast. “Foremost, consistent with past similar studies, the BAH team found we must restructure the [equal employment opportunity] function, and secondarily, shore up our equal employment opportunity/equal opportunity product lines so that they more optimally support our civil rights service providers and work force.”
LaBrec also said the 58 formal civil rights complains OCR received in fiscal 2007, roughly one per 1,000 people, shows the office is doing some things right, since several of the other DHS departments have a much higher number of civil rights complaints per capita.
Allen told academy cadets and faculty in October 2007 that racial bigotry will not be accepted and goes against the service’s ethos and humanitarian mission. In August 2008, he released a service-wide message outlining plans to improve diversity throughout the service.
As part of the new initiative, every flag officer and senior executive service member is required to attend one diversity conference a year and they are expected to build relationships with minority-based “institutions of higher education.”
The first noose, which garnered national attention, was left in the bag of a black cadet in July 2007 onboard the Coast Guard cutter Eagle. The second was found in August on the office floor of a white female officer who had been conducting race relations training.
Article: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2009/02/coastguard_civilrights_022409w/
Terri Dickerson, the office’s director, requested an independent review April 25, 2008, less than one month after an investigation by the Coast Guard Investigative Service, Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the FBI failed to determine who left nooses for a black Coast Guard Academy cadet and an officer conducting race-relations training in the summer of 2007.
At the same time, an unofficial Coast Guard blog was posting regularly about the office and the director’s alleged inefficiencies, reducing morale among employees and casting OCR in a negative light, according to the report.
The findings are “deeply disturbing and completely unacceptable,” Cummings, D-Md., wrote in a letter this Sunday to Commandant Adm. Thad Allen. Cummings, the chairman of the House subcommittee on the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, said he plans to call a hearing in April to further discuss the report.
“The findings of this report demand decisive and comprehensive action to correct what appear to be a number of significant shortfalls in the administration,” he wrote.
The Coast Guard retained Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting firm with offices throughout the country, to review the entire civil rights program in September 2008, according to a letter from Dickerson to the Department of Homeland Security’s Equal Employment Opportunity Programs.
Coast Guard spokesman Cmdr. Ron LaBrec said the service is thankful for the feedback and is conducting a thorough review of the report and its recommendations.
“The [DHS] Office of Civil Rights and Liberties periodically conducts assessments on its civil rights components and the [OCR] director wanted to do this report now with the ongoing modernization initiative to look across the board and improve the practices in the office and address any allegations that were coming out of blogs or even internal discussions. We take allegations of mistreating [privacy issues] seriously,” LaBrec said.
According to the report, the Coast Guardsmen assigned to ORC often come in with little civil rights experience and serve two-year tours, and “often they leave their post just as they are becoming oriented to the position.” The other Coast Guardsmen in the office are on collateral duty, with the same limited backgrounds, according to the report.
Although training is available, the report said, many employees have not completed the legislatively mandated initial or refresher training. In some instances training was behind up to five years.
“Some staff members lack the requisite skills, abilities, and training to effectively perform the duties of their positions, thereby diminishing effectiveness of the divisions/teams,” according to the report.
LaBrec said the “decentralized” structure led to the delinquency in training and the Coast Guard is looking to “standardize” and “improve” its training program. There are 22 full-time positions within OCR, five of which are military, but that likely is not enough to sufficiently handle the additional responsibilities related to the increased caseload, according to the report.
Although Booz Allen acknowledges that some of the recommendations listed in the report cannot be accomplished with the office’s $788,459 budget, OCR’s Web site says the recommendations are under review and lists some that have either already been completed or can be accomplished in the near future.
Those include:
• Restructuring the office to “optimize the use of our military personnel” and take advantage of existing training and resources.
• Analyze the workload to ensure statutory and non-statutory obligations are being met.
LaBrec said it is too early to determine what recommendations would require additional funding or how much additional money would be needed to accomplish those goals.
“The review reaffirmed many positive aspects of the Coast Guard civil rights program. The report also makes clear there is work ahead,” Dickerson wrote in Thursday’s Alcoast. “Foremost, consistent with past similar studies, the BAH team found we must restructure the [equal employment opportunity] function, and secondarily, shore up our equal employment opportunity/equal opportunity product lines so that they more optimally support our civil rights service providers and work force.”
LaBrec also said the 58 formal civil rights complains OCR received in fiscal 2007, roughly one per 1,000 people, shows the office is doing some things right, since several of the other DHS departments have a much higher number of civil rights complaints per capita.
Allen told academy cadets and faculty in October 2007 that racial bigotry will not be accepted and goes against the service’s ethos and humanitarian mission. In August 2008, he released a service-wide message outlining plans to improve diversity throughout the service.
As part of the new initiative, every flag officer and senior executive service member is required to attend one diversity conference a year and they are expected to build relationships with minority-based “institutions of higher education.”
The first noose, which garnered national attention, was left in the bag of a black cadet in July 2007 onboard the Coast Guard cutter Eagle. The second was found in August on the office floor of a white female officer who had been conducting race relations training.
Article: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2009/02/coastguard_civilrights_022409w/