The Forest Service policy and practice of discrimination presents a dilemma and a challenge. The discriminatory policy and practice of the Forest Service is its delegation of full and subjective authority to ground level offices (Ranger Districts and Forest Supervisor's offices) for administrative and employment action without monitoring, tracking, or required accountability. Such discrimination has been obvious for decades in that African American employees are severely under represented, are clustered into non-mission type positions, and suffer from a high attrition rate. African American representation in the Forest Service is much less than in most of the other agencies within the USDA, far below the national civil service average, and African American attrition is much higher than the rest of the workforce. Forest Service leadership, Civil Rights Directors, and Personnel Officers have never rationally, logically, or effectively addressed this discriminatory issue.

         Why is that? In 1995 Mr. Bob Bergland, former Secretary of Agriculture, stated on the PBS Frontline program that "The Forest Service is impenetrable. You can't get inside it". Mr. Bergland is right --- from the outside, understanding the Forest Service's policies and barriers to EEO are virtually impossible. Thus, it has been impossible for our elected representatives to be aware of the situation and therefore could not take any action to remedy the issue. It is possible that Forest Service leadership is aware of the real problem, but only initiate "pretend" remedies, i.e., the 1990 "Towards a Multicultural Workforce" project that virtually excluded African Americans, and the current Kaleidoscope Group, LLC, diversity project, which is also poorly planned and does not address the reality of discrimination against African Americans.

         What is the issue? The issue is the policy and practice that impacts EEO at the local level: Ranger Districts and Forest Supervisor's offices. These local levels have full authority, decentralization, autonomy, and absolute subjective authority to hire, promote, train, discipline, and terminate employees. That policy was established decades ago with a primary focus on natural resource decisions. Such a policy makes sense for natural resource decisions. Unfortunately, the policy includes administrative authority that allows managers to make subjective decisions that discriminate without being held accountable by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) or the Forest Service headquarters. Local managers can use administrative gimmicks such as budget to prevent hiring, promotion, training, and other factors that discriminate against minorities, and they have been doing that for almost one hundred years.

         The Forest Service also usees their subjective authority to suppress, intimidate, terminate and force African Americans out of the agency. That is why we have such a high attrition rate for African Americans at the local level. The Forest Service 2005 MD-715 report to the EEOC makes that very clear that there are discriminatory problems at the local level. Unfortunately, the Forest Service has not come up with a viable plan to correct the problem. Neither the EEOC nor the Forest Service headquarters have monitored, tracked, or provided oversight on actions at the local level. That has to be changed. If not, African Americans will never reach equitable representation in the Forest Service. The best solution to resolving this discriminatory policy and practice is a strong and viable settlement of the Spencer class complaint that was filed in 1999 and is currently on appeal at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Office of Federal Operations.

         Forest Service officials have been acutely aware of the local level subjective authority from its inception almost one hundred years ago. An important question is: are the managers unaware of the discriminatory affects of having local level subjective authority without accountability regarding equal opportunity employment or, do they support the condition in order to perpetuate discrimination against African Americans? Obviously they are aware. Thus, the only viable solution is a strong and viable settlement agreement with the Spencer African American Class complaint. Since 1999 the Forest Service has fought Spencer with more force than any other complaint from minority groups. Thus, it is clear logical that there is a sever Forest Service discrimination against African Americans.

         The 2005 EEOC MD-715 report that the Forest Service submitted to the EEOC makes it obvious that Forest Service headquarters is aware of the discriminatory problem at the ground level but has absolutely no monitoring, tracking, or viable accountability at the local level. In the Forest Service MD-715 Report, the Forest Service showed that there are severe problems regarding local level authority and headquarters oversight. Yet, the Forest Service did not present any viable plan to fix the problem, and the EEOC did not follow up on the problem. Nor did the EEOC place any sanctions on the USDA for it's failure to monitor hold ground level agency officials accountable.

         What is the source of the problem? The source is due to the local offices serving the local communities and, in the western states, most of those communities consist of predominantly European Americans who continue to carry prejudices towards minorities. Much of the attitude of the local communities has been influenced by Forest Service public affairs activities. Many decades ago the Forest Service launched a public affairs program to gain the favor of local communities. Unfortunately, the program led to the production of movies and novels about the Forest Service that praised the Forest Service, but supported and proliferated racism. The fact that the Forest Service public affairs activities supported the local communities and racism is made very clear in the Jeffrerey M. Lalande study "The 'Forest Ranger' in Popular Fiction: 1910-2000". or go to www.xusda.com/class_report_20050628_No_28_Ranger_Fiction.pdf. The Forest Service caters to the local community and the local Forest Service managers tend to hire locally and promote their friends and relatives. That pleases the local community but categorically excludes minority persons. As long as the Forest Service caters to the local community, there is no way it can achieve diversity.

         Forest Service diversity programs all fail: In the late 1980's the Forest Service launched a multi-million dollar national program called "Towards a Multicultural Workforce". The program was fully implemented around 1991, and was carried out through recent years. Even though the program purported great advances in achieving diversity, the fact is it was a total failure and African American diversity did not improve one iota. Why? It is simple: if the Forest Service caters to communities that are not interested in diversity, or are against diversity. Thus, the Forest Service is really not interested in diversity or are against diversity. Thus, the bull corn diversity programs that the Forest Service conducts are phony and are not intended to achieve diversity. There is no way the Forest Service will ever achieve diversity without a strong, effective, and viable class complaint settlement agreements.

         Delegating subjective authority to the local level of a national federal agency clearly violates the Constitution of the United States and works against the intents of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Additionally, it deprives minorities of the opportunity to benefit from the national public lands the Forest Service manages. It also contributes to preventing minorities the opportunity to work in specific geographic locations in the United States. The delegated authority also contradicts Executive Order 11478's requirement to "establish and maintain an affirmative program of EEO for all civilian employees". Making matters worse is the fact that the EEOC actually collaborates with the agency's anti-EEO policies. The worst aspect of the Forest Service discriminatory policy and practice of subjective authority at the local level is in support demographic imbalance and Balkanization in the United States. Something that could have tremendous adverse affects on our country in the future.

         Local level authority perpetuates the legacy of historical discrimination against African Americans in the United States. Just recently, President Bush, while speaking about the New Orleans disaster, made it clear that in this country we have historical discrimination that continues today, has cut off generations from opportunities in America, and must be dealt with and remedied. He stated that "That poverty has roots in the history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action". Click here for the excerpt of his speech. The entire speech is available on the National Public Radio web site http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4850116.

         The Lead Agent of Spencer I has also thoroughly informed Forest Service leadership about the historical legacy that establishes De Facto Segregation In Today's Forest Service.

There is no doubt that the Forest Service must remedy its local level discriminatory EEO mismanagement. All of the past programs, i.e., "Towards a Multicultural Workforce" have failed miserably. The problems of programs like that, plus the new programs under contract with the Kaleidoscope Group, LLC, is they do not understand the reality, depth, and severity of discrimination against African Americans at the local level as compared to White Women and various "ethnic" and "cultural Groups". The Lead Class Agent has thoroughly informed the Forest Service leadership and the Kaleidoscope company about their exclusion of African Americans by presenting an in-depth Written Statement analyzing the Forest Service diversity programs and the exclusion of African Americans.

         The only way to deal with this problem is through a Class Complaint Settlement agreement that has strong requirements, oversight, and special features to deal with the problems, i.e., monitoring hiring and other EEO factors, recruitment outside the local area, special cultural training for African Americans prior to their entering a hostile local community or Forest Service office, intense oversight from the agency and the Class, etc,. etc.

Allen P. Spencer
Lead Agent, USDA African American Spencer Class Complaints
220 Altgelt Avenue
San Antonio, Texas 78201-1803
Email: spencer@xusda.com
Class Complaint Web Site: http://www.xusda.com