Five of the University’s annual, federally mandated affirmative action plans are missing. Administrators say the reports were not created and that finalizing the plans yearly is not critical to campus diversity efforts.
But the former director of the University’s Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity said he recalls creating them.
If it did not update the plans, the University may not have complied with federal laws, said an affirmative action administrator at Oregon State University.
Affirmative action plans, which in-part provide the University with data about minority representation, are meant to be “evaluated, updated and reaffirmed” annually, according to the most recent plan, updated in 2004.
An economics professor searched for the plans several months ago while researching the University’s Diversity Plan, and administrators eventually told him that plans from 1997-2002 are missing.
“After extensive searching and investigation, we believe that in some years, although the data was collected and analyzed, affirmative action plans were not updated or completed and the data was not retained,” University General Counsel Melinda Grier wrote in an Oct. 25 e-mail to associate economics professor William Harbaugh. “We are taking steps to make certain that does not occur again.”
Grier told the Emerald Friday that it is “not acceptable that they’re not done,” but the plans are “only one requirement that the office does.”
Yet former director of the University’s affirmative action office Ken Lehrman, now director of the Affirmative Action Office at Penn State University, said he had “no idea” what happened to the hard copies but that electronic data should have been retained.
Anne Gillies, affirmative action associate at Oregon State, said it seems unlikely that any affirmative action office would not finalize its plan, but she noted that every office is different.
If they were not done, then the University “would be out of compliance with federal requirements,” Gillies said.
Penny Daugherty, current director of the University’s affirmative action office since 2003, said it is charged with a number of responsibilities, many of which supersede finalizing the plan. Just because there are no printed copies of the plan does not mean data was not gathered and analyzed, she said.
Current plans have been updated annually since she has been director, Daugherty said.
“The best I can surmise is that this office handles a lot of responsibilities, and if the data didn’t get finalized, it was because of the pressure of the work,” she said.
The office’s other responsibilities include monitoring and advising hiring and dealing with discrimination complaints. The most important function of the office is to “provide guidance to an institution,” Daugherty said.
Daugherty said she has “every reason to think” that the office was providing appropriate guidance during those years because the University has seen progress in faculty minority representation.
Harbaugh, however, said the missing plans are a “testament to their commitment to diversity.”
University President Dave Frohnmayer is required to sign each year’s plan, which open with a statement from Frohnmayer calling the plans “expressions of my personal and professional commitment to equal opportunity in employment.”
Frohnmayer said he did not believe the plans were required to be redone each year.
“A plan can be formulated to last for more than one year,” Frohnmayer said. “The fact that they weren’t updated in minor particulars in those years is not a statement about our commitment to diversity.”
Frohnmayer said the uncompleted plans are a testament to the overworked and understaffed status of staff at state universities.
During the time he worked at the University, Lehrman said, there were roughly six employees in the affirmative action office.
Grier said it is not unusual for schools not to update the plans yearly.
Oregon State’s office employs one part-time and three full-time employees, Gillies said. The office has completed a plan each year, she said.
Lehrman worked at the University from 1990-2002, and Grier said he was not removed from his position, but took a promotion to work at Penn State.
The University is committed to diversity, Grier said.
“What you’re talking about with the plan is a bunch of pages and some paper work that’s set up as a contract compliance tool,” Grier said. “I don’t want to downplay its importance, but I don’t see that as an indicator of the president and the University’s commitment.”
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