African-American civil rights leaders, including Blacks in Government (BIG) President Oscar Eason Jr. and Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., gathered Wednesday to call for the end of discrimination in the federal workplace.
Speaking at the annual Blacks in Government convention in Washington, Eason proposed an overhaul of the equal employment opportunity (EEO) complaint process. He proposed eliminating EEO offices within agencies and centralizing EEO activity at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Eason also released "Report on Racism and Disparate Treatment in the Public Sector," a compilation of testimonies by federal employees who said they were cheated by the government's EEO system. The testimonies were given at an equal opportunity summit held at the Brookings Institution in May.
Cummings, who represents Baltimore, said he visited a Veterans Affairs Administration hospital to investigate complaints of racial discrimination.
"We discovered that women, blacks and poor people stayed at the bottom of the rung," Cummings said.
Cummings has scheduled a Sept. 10 hearing on discrimination in the federal workplace. He said his office had received hundreds of calls from people interested in attending.
Ben Johnson, deputy assistant to President Clinton, said the administration has worked hard to make the federal government "look like America," noting three African-American Cabinet officials; Labor Secretary Alexis Herman, Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater and Office of Management and Budget Director Franklin Raines.
But National Urban League President Hugh Price said there is an "all-out assault" on anti-discrimination initiatives like affirmative action. Price decried the level of funding for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, saying the commission is unable to reduce its backload of discrimination cases.
Eason said he hopes discrimination will be eliminated.
"If there were no discrimination, there would be no need for Blacks in Government," Eason said.
An estimated 5,000 federal, state and local government employees attended the BIG convention.
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