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Subseries 2: Subcommittee on Affirmative Action Hearings Testimony and Reports on State Agency Affirmative Action Programs

Scope and Content Note:

Hearing testimony given before the subcommittee by state agency heads in 1982 and 1984 describes each agency's affirmative action efforts on behalf of women, ethnic minorities, and the disabled. There are also a small number of agency work force profiles and other documents created for the 1982 hearings. Although many agencies included Hispanic workforce statistics in their reports, the Division of Criminal Justice, the Department of Motor Vehicles, and especially the Department of Correctional Services' Agenor Castro specifically highlighted their strategies to reach Hispanics and to include them in their workforces. Additional testimony in this subseries (B2F1-3) was presented at the three subcommittee hearings in Rochester, Albany, and New York City (October – November 1985). These hearings investigated the effectiveness of New York State's affirmative action programs and whether legislation should be considered to require local governments to implement affirmative action plans. The 1985 testimony is principally from state agency heads. These officials describe the implementation of their agencies' affirmative action programs, the effectiveness of these programs and their plans to meet statewide employment guidelines. The testimony of five of the state agencies specifically addresses Hispanic New Yorkers including the Departments of Environmental Conservation, Correctional Services and Transportation; the New York State Housing Finance Agency; and the Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities. New York City Mayor Edward Koch submitted a statement concerning the lack of Latinos on the city's School Board (B2F4). No one from the Governor Mario Cuomo's Office for Hispanic Affairs provided testimony. There is also 1985 testimony in this subseries from local government officials, business organizations, and affirmative action advocate groups. These speakers, among them representatives from women's groups and the Black, Hispanic, and disabled communities, describe the shortcomings of existing affirmative action programs and make recommendations for legislation to improve the hiring of underrepresented groups. According to a post-hearing letter (B2F4) speakers at the New York City hearing were made to wait to present their testimonies until after all the state agency representatives had taken their turns. The correspondence in these files primarily documents hearing administration, responses to requests for affirmative action plans and statistics relevant to the hearings or concerns of the minority communities which the affirmative action initiatives were designed to reach. The files contain at least four letters from representatives of the Hispanic community: one calls attention to evidence (with charts and a checklist) that "Puerto Rican and other Hispanics are grossly underrepresented in all levels of public and private sector employment," and another includes a copy of an article from Public Affairs Tribune about the failure of NYS Executive Order 40.1 as it relates to the Hispanic workforce (B3F10, 12). The files also contain a 43-page report entitled "Mayor Koch and Puerto Rican-Latino Community Representation on New York City Board of Education (Documents) January – February 1986" by the Institute for Puerto Rican Policy, Inc. (B2F4). The Coalition for Latino Representation on the Board of Education produced a similar albeit shorter response (B2F4). The clippings and press releases in this subseries augment the background information gathered by the Subcommittee on Affirmative Action as it prepared for its hearings and drafted its final report. Three clippings address Hispanic issues and a press release touts the establishment of a Governor's Office for Hispanic Affairs (B3F11, 14). The remaining files in this subseries are reports relating to the affirmative action efforts of three specific agencies: the State Education Department, the New York City Equal Employment Opportunity Program, and the State Department of Taxation and Finance. Although women and Blacks were specifically mentioned by all three agencies, only the City's report mentioned Hispanic concerns (B2F9). Two additional reports make use of statistics to bolster arguments concerning the failure of affirmative action as it relates to Hispanic New Yorkers. One, the eleven-page "Affirmative Action Marshall Plan" written by Louis A. Cardona (B3F11), specifically addresses the situation at the New York State Department of Civil Service. The other is the thirty-two page "New York State Latinos: An Ignored Minority – A Critique of the August 8, 1985 Report of the Governor's Advisory Committee for Hispanic Affairs" prepared by the Institute for Puerto Rican Policy, Inc. (B3F14).

Arrangement:

The testimony is arranged roughly by hearing date or alphabetically by topic. The 1985 hearings occurred in Rochester on October 15th, in Albany on October 29th, and in New York City on November 12th.