Author: mopress

Trying to Make Sense of Texas Civil Rights Accounting

EEO Report: Working Note One

Not sure how we ended up looking at Table One of the Feb. 2005 report from the Texas Workforce Commission Civil Rights Division, but we were puzzled from the start.

At first, it didn’t seem strange that among an alleged 32.89 percent Hispanic American workers in the total workforce, only 15.2 percent were to be found in Administrative positions. Having studied Texas history, we could easily make sense of that.

For these same reasons, neither did it seem strange that among an alleged 11.24 percent African American workers in the total workforce, only 7.1 percent were classified in Administration.

But it was surely curious to find that among an alleged 84.30 percent Caucasian American workers in the total workforce, only 77.8 percent were in Administration. That was a shock on three counts.

First of all, it meant that all categories of workers by race-ethnicity were under-represented in the Administrative classification, which is quite a statistical achievement to think about in Civil Rights history.

Second, it meant that when you added up the total percentage of workers in the workforce, you got 84.3 Caucasian plus 11.24 African American plus 32.89 Hispanic American equals a workforce of 128.43 percent!

Third, it meant that in a mandatory report to the state, the Texas Workforce Commission on Civil Rights couldn’t even get the first row of numbers right.

And fourth, as we look at the twirling graphics at the TWC website announcing the new report posted Mar. 15 — we wonder, did anybody notice?

It is not difficult to figure out what went wrong here. In the second number of the chart — percent Caucasian American in total workforce — somebody plugged in the percent you would get for White workers if you didn’t subtract out Whites of Hispanic origin. While this is the number reported for White by the bureau of labor statistics, it is a deceptive number to use for Civil Rights purposes under the heading of Caucasian American ethnicity.

Note: on second reading, analysis in the next few paragraphs looks strange to us. We’d rather say, after further consideration, that better numbers were available from EEO reports, so why weren’t EEO reports used?

If you derived percentages from the overlapping numbers of race-ethnicities actually reported in row one, you’d start with a total Caucasian workforce of 65.64 percent. And if you started this way, you would notice in the second row of Chart One that Caucasians who hold 77.8 percent of positions in Administration are over-represented by 12 percentage points.

Furthermore, if you derive your first row percentages from the first row numbers provided for race-ethnicity, you’d find that the total workforce is not 32.89 percent Hispanic American as reported but 25.6.

Misdirection on the percent of total Hispanic Americans in row one is instructive, because the percent reported there (32.89) matches pretty closely with the percentage that the US Census Bureau reports for the Hispanic population as a whole in Texas (32.0). Just reading along with the Texas Civil Rights Commission’s first chart, you’d think the Texas workforce had achieved parity in Hispanic employment.

Ditto with the misdirection on African Americans. The 11.24 percent workforce shown matches up nicely with the 2000 census number of 12.0 percent Black Texas, which sure looks better than the 8.75 percent you’d have to publish in row one if you worked with the actual numbers in that same row.

As for percentages Caucasian, the impression that Caucasians with 77.8 percent of Administrative jobs, share some kind of under-representation in Texas Administration is dispelled by knocking down the 83 percent total workforce figure to 65, as we have seen. But now look at the 2000 census percentage of Whites who are not Hispanic and the dramatic heft of white power weighs in with a 25 percentage point differential between total population (52 percent) and total Administration (77.8).

Note: the preceding attempt to make sense of civil rights categories with non-civil rights numbers, although yielding results closer to the truth of the civil rights situation, employs methodologies that we do not recommend. Better to get the civil rights numbers from a proper civil rights source, rather than try to make bad numbers work for purposes they were never intended to serve.

Enough with the misdirection, already. The whole stupid report should be tossed back to the alleged Commission on Civil Rights with an angry, loud, and resolute demand: give Texas citizens numbers that dignify the importance of Civil Rights in this state.

The fact is that BLS numbers do not reflect either the categories of Caucasian or African American reported in table one, and the numbers are meaningless for a civil rights report.

Click to access EEOrptsum205.pdf

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/48000.html

Note: this was our first whack at the Civil Rights Report and it has some zest to it. But the analysis has been superseded by another day’s work.

Change of Data Sources Yields Anomalies

By Greg Moses

A Texas agency charged with taking over Civil Rights analysis has decided to stop basing its civilian workforce report on data collected by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

Instead of basing its analysis on data collected for civil rights purposes, the Division of Civil Rights at the Texas Workforce Commission in its debut report this year used less precise figures reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

In the past, noted the report, the Texas Commission on Human Rights had compiled the civil rights report from data provided by the EEOC. As a result of the switch in data sources, the first table of the Texas Equal Employment Opportunity Report shows some civil rights anomalies.

For example, Caucasian Americans, African Americans, and Hispanic Americans collectively represented 128 percent of all Texas workers; and all three categories of race-ethnicity cited were under-represented in Administration jobs. While these anomalies are common in reports from the BLS, they make a poor basis for analyzing civil rights.

Since the civil rights report is supposed to compare state agency employment figures with civilian workforce numbers, the choice of BLS data as a baseline raises further questions about the “comparison charts” presented in the report.

Chart One for instance (not Table One) presents numbers on the employment of African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Females in the Statewide Civilian Workforce. Numbers used in the chart for race and ethnicity are taken from the overlapping BLS categories.

Chart One in turn is compared to employment of protected classes in state agency employment. From attachments, it appears that state agency employment is calculated according to more rigorous EEOC standards, where protected classes do not overlap.

Throughout the report, numbers are presented in such isolation that it is difficult to scan for internal consistency or disparate impact. Why does no chart present a complete spectrum of protected classes including Asian Americans or Native Americans. Why do colorful graphs of employment rates not also show comparison bars for Anglos or Males? Why are women rarely considered as various races or ethnicities? Why are discussions, analyses, and footnotes so scarce?*

In the end, the reader wants to know, what purpose is this report intended to serve beyond simply complying with some law that says a report is to be issued? Do the laws themselves not have a civil rights context that can serve as the basis for stating the purposes, findings, and recommendations of this report?

Perfunctory is the word that would most charitably describe this report. Evasive is the word I would rather use. From start to finish, the reader gets the impression that no one has really set out to present the condition of equal employment opportunity in Texas in a way that the plain language of civil rights demands.

NOTES:

The Texas Equal Employment Opportunity Report:
http://www.tchr.state.tx.us/EEOrptsum205.pdf

The BLS distribution of employment report 2003:
http://www.bls.gov/opub/gp/pdf/gp97_complete.pdf

The EEO-1 Aggregate Report for 2002:
http://eeoc.gov/stats/jobpat/2002/state/48.html
[What a Civil Rights report looks like.]

First posted 3/27. *Paragraph revised 3/29 to include “disparate impact,” Asian Americans, and Native Americans.

First Row of First Table Fails to Specify Protected Classes

EEO Report: Working Notes Two

Reading the first Civil Rights audit prepared by the Division of Civil Rights at the Texas Workforce Commission is a hair-pulling screamer. The numbers are that bad. The problem arises from a choice on the part of the new civil rights team to use non-civil rights numbers as a basis for civil rights analysis.

“The Equal Employment Opportunity and Minority Hiring Practices Report” is dated February 2005 and bears a March 8 cover letter to the Governor. The Workforce Commission website says the report was posted online March 15.

And according to explanations given to the Governor, this is the first time the report has been prepared by the Civil Rights division at the Workforce Commission. In previous years, the work had been done by the Texas Commission on Human Rights. But that commission was decommissioned in 2003, although the URL bearing the new reports contains the old TCHR address.

The problem with the latest civil rights report from Texas is that in Row One of the First Table of figures, the Civil Rights Division fails to quantify classes of race and ethnicity that are most pertinent to Texas Civil Rights.

On the challenge of differentiating men from women, the report does its job. Of 10.07 million workers in Texas, 4.495 million are women and 5.575 million are men. As the top row of the first chart says, that’s a workforce that is 44.64 percent female, and 55.36 percent male.

The male female comparisons in the first row of the first chart offer helpful beginnings for anyone interested in civil rights for women. The statewide allocation of administrative positions held by women very closely tracks the percentage of women in the total workforce, which serves as a first case indicator that women are probably getting their fair share of opportunities in that category of employment.

In addition to women there are four other “protected classes” under civil rights law, and we would expect similar statistical treatment for each. They are Hispanics, African Americans, Native Americans, and Asian/Pacific Islanders. Just as row one of table one has given us workable numbers for women, we have a right to expect workable numbers for each of these groups.

And finally, just as the numbers for the protected class of women must be compared to men, so must the numbers for protected races and ethnicities be compared to Caucasian or Anglo populations, too.

But the first row of numbers for the first table of the 2005 Texas civil rights report, is a most deceptive and unhelpful guide. Although the first row purports to offer numbers for Caucasian Americans, African Americans, and Hispanic Americans, in fact the numbers are based on a source that can only give correct numbers for workers of Hispanic origin. And whether these workers are Hispanic Americans, as the Texas chart says, would be difficult to say for sure.

Note: second take on the civil rights report. This one circles in on the real problem, the switch to BLS statistics rather than EEOC. But it’s a little long-winded.

A Report on the Texas Secretary of State “Listening Tour”

By Greg Moses

Texas Secretary of State Roger Williams calls himself a retail man: “and you’re my customers,” he told the Travis County Commissioners Court on Tuesday morning. Indeed, by the time he’d left the room, you might have wondered if he’d sold them all tickets to a show he improvised while standing on their stage.

The pure political theater that the Secretary brought to Travis County has been repeated at several County Commissioners Courts throughout the state, often with the desired results: next day news in the local paper reporting that the Secretary is working hard and helping out. In order to keep from getting stuck in all the sap, however, you have to pay close attention to the quips. That’s how Gainesville Daily Register reporter Andy Hogue handled the story of the Secretary’s visit to Cooke County.

In Travis County, the role of lead quipster went to County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir who still runs the elections around here. She introduced the Secretary with cheer in her voice, while handing him a Lounge Lizards CD. It was a clever joke after all. The Secretary was on a “listening tour” was he not?

“But I didn’t offer him a flak jacket this time,” said DeBeauvoir in the first telling quip of the day. And without taking another breath she joyously introduced the Secretary to the “nicest, smartest court” he’d ever know.

“I’ll get the flak jacket when I come back,” said the Secretary, in the second telling quip of the day. He explained that his “listening tour” started about thirty days ago, listening to “how some of you converse about HAVA.” That’s the Help American Vote Act, which is either reforming or uprooting voting as we know it in America, and is the only reason why the Secretary of State this year has no choice but to tour the County Commissions.

Williams has been tourning commissions with this same show since at least early March. He calls it a listening tour, but everywhere he goes the pattern is repeated with local papers reporting presentation of “a check” to help purchase new electronic voting machines.

“It’s a federal mandate Judge,” says the Secretary with all the stock inflections that signify political bidness in open court. “And I’m not sure how we like federal mandates.” Travis County Judge Samuel T. Biscoe is African American, so his political life has been pretty much defined by federal mandates on the one hand and those who aren’t sure how they feel about them on the other.

“Come January first the HAVA requirements must be met,” says the Secretary, “and Texas will be a leader, a model in meeting those requirements.” What that means is that by January first, HAVA requires all states to: replace punch cards and levers with electronic systems, have new voting system standards, and implement statewide voter registration.

What the Secretary has been dealing with on his county by county tour is that the new voting system standards haven’t been handed down by the federal government yet, and neither has the cash that was supposed to help with all the replacing. To fix these problems, the Secretary has brought a promise and a promissory note.

The Secretary’s promise is that he will make all the private contractors for voting systems eat the costs of modifying equipment if the federal standards cause further changes. And his promissory note is a nice poster-sized image of a check freshly unwrapped from a Kinko’s/FedEx plastic bag.

Get ready for more quips here, because the big camera-friendly poster of a check is supposed to represent the Secretary’s commitment that all bills incurred by HAVA will be paid by the Secretary in thirty days or less.

“But it’s been more than thirty days!” chuckles the Travis County Clerk. And some folks in the room take this chance to chuckle with her.

“I brought you a check Judge,” says the Secretary trying to stay on message. “And I hope when we present the check, we’ll get our picture taken.”

To which, quips the Judge: “We won’t talk about how long it took to get the check. The check is here.”

Actually, I don’t think the check was there, although the pictures did get taken. According to the press release dated Tuesday from the Secretary’s own office, he wasn’t there to hand over a check. He was there “to discuss ways to facilitate a grant worth over $4.5 million to the county resulting from new federal voting requirements.” If the secretary had actually brought a check, I think his press release would have said so. A plainer reading of facts would suggest that the Secretary had put $4.5 million within thirty days reaching distance, provided that proper procedures are duly followed, etc.

Commissioner Karen Sonleitner had only one question for the Secretary after all the pictures had been taken. She asked him to help pass HB 2759, an election reform bill that would lift the cap on the size of voting precincts. Under current law, a precinct can serve no more than 2,000 voters. HB 2759 will raise the limit to 5,000.

Sonleitner explained that growing precincts get expensive when they require new precincts to be drawn and managed. Tell me about growth said the Secretary. Last week he was in Fort Bend County, which is growing at the rate of one or two new precincts per month. There he was also urged to support larger precincts, reports Stephen Palkot of the Herald-Coaster.

Readers of the Texas Civil Rights Review will recall that voters were pouring into Fort Bend County so fast that last November some of them came back to their old Harris County neighborhoods to vote. Republican lawyers called that fraud. Now we also know that Fort Bend County is under stress to accoomodate all its voters anyway.

As for HB 2759 said the Secretary, “I don’t see any issues against that. It sort of streamlines it.”

Lines that are streaming we can easily visualize here at the Texas Civil Rights Review whenever voting precincts are more than doubled in size. But probably that’s not the kind of streamlining backers of the bill have in mind. So it will be our last quip of the day, we promise.

Note: revised from original Mar. 29 version to include links to earlier reports from the tour–gm.