The Department of Homeland Security’s disgraceful response to Hurricane Katrina may have been a reflection of the racial and gender makeup of its senior staff. A new GAO report shows that women and minorities are greatly under-represented in the senior ranks of DHS.
In March 2007, the department’s headquarters staff was one of the least diverse offices, with only one African American and one Hispanic among 46 members of the career SES, the report said. (Washington Post)
The problem was illustrated when Secretary Chertoff appeared at a Congressional hearing last week to discuss the report. One legislator noted that Chertoff had brought with him ten aides - all white and all male. Another legislator, Rep. Melvin Watt (D-NC) , asked the Secretary to assure him that the rest of his staff was more diverse.
“I think that is definitely the case,” Chertoff said.
“Okay,” Watt said, and appeared to begin moving to another question.
But Chertoff continued: “I wouldn’t assume that the ethnic background of everybody behind me is self-evident.”
Watt replied: “I wouldn’t assume the ethnic background of everybody behind you is self-evident, but I think I know an African American when I see one. . . If anyone wants to stand up and volunteer and tell me they are an African American, I hope they will do that right now.”
No one stood. Some in the audience began laughing. (Washington Post)
But, discrimination in emergency response is no laughing matter. The lack of diversity in the senior ranks at DHS almost certainly affected the department’s slow and callous response to the needs of minorities and women following Hurricane Katrina. Those and other examples described in “World Disasters Report: Focus on Discrimination” show that discrimination in disaster response is a worldwide problem.
In the United States, the emergency management profession is one of the last to integrate its ranks, permeated by a pernicious bias that perceives minorities and women as less capable of taking charge in emergencies. As a result, during my 13 years with the federal government, I found it necessary many times to remind FEMA and other agencies of the need to be more inclusive: to include tribal governments in emergency planning activities, to address the emergency needs of foreign-born migrant workers, and to respect the technical contributions of African-American emergency management specialists.
In 1999, federal agencies began requiring vast numbers of senior career positions to have security clearances, although many of the positions had no clear need for access to classified information. This, I warned members of Congress, would open the door to more discrimination because the process for approving (and revoking) clearances was vague and external oversight poor to non-existent. Agencies could therefore deny clearances for virtually any reason - even an illegal one like discrimination or whistleblower retaliation. Thus, it is not surprising that the executive ranks of DHS, which are most likely to require clearances, are the least diverse.
Dysfunctional hiring practices will remain a problem until new laws are passed providing meaningful oversight over the the security clearance approval process and providing stronger protections for discrimination complainants and whistleblowers. As Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) stated,
“The makeup of the department’s senior leadership must be reflective of the face of America.”
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Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI couldn’t agree more, Thanks Linda!
Great post.
Specifically, the issue of gender is important in humanitarian aid as well. A simulation conducted in 2006 in San Diego called Strong Angel III, that was attended by civilian defense contractors, members of the US government including DHS and representatives of US Armed forces, prompted me to observe in the first days itself the lack of any perceivable emphasis on gender in the responses to the simulated emergency (in terms of planning, team composition, mitigation, response and coordination). As I noted here http://ict4peace.wordpress.com/2006/08/30/strong-angel-iii-final-observations/:
“SA III was, most regrettably, not gender sensitive. It did not mainstream gender considerations in the design, adaptation, application and the monitoring and evaluation of solutions developed during the exercise. The rich textures of experience, valuable insights and interesting ideas of the women in the Executive Committee were hidden to the majority of participants at SA III. The majority of those developing solutions were male - some with absolutely no experience of humanitarian disasters and the special needs of women and children (including how even within conflict / disaster affected communities, how precarious their human security is).
While SA III lead Eric Rasmussen specifically mentioned the importance of gender during his briefing on the second day, much more could have been done to push the participants to recognise that gender is a vital consideration of any humanitarian and peacebuilding initiative.”
Best,
Sanjana
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