Each House office should have a “diversity” officer and use “anti-racism” training programs, according to a group of former high-ranking Hill staffers.
The House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress heard from four witnesses who discussed how more congressional offices can expand their hiring and promotion practices to more people of color.
The hearing is based on one of 97 bipartisan recommendations from its last session on how to improve Congress. The panel is led by Chairman Derek Kilmer, a Democrat of Washington state, and Vice Chairman William Timmons, Republican of South Carolina,
The diversity recommendation came about after numbers in January were released, showing a 97% increase of minorities as members of Congress. On the staff level, though, the number was strikingly low.
One contributing factor is the Jan. 6 riots, when supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol. A mob of Trump supporters attempted to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election by disrupting the joint session of Congress assembled to count electoral votes to affirm President Joe Biden’s victory.
“While there are many long-standing and underlying issues in empowering and supporting diverse staff, the current climate is particularly challenging. For all that love this institution, Jan. 6 was, and very much is still unnerving,” said Keenan Austin Reed, a former chief of staff to Virginia Democratic Rep. Donald McEachin and co-founder and chairwoman of the Black Women’s Congressional Alliance.
“Staff of color, who felt especially targeted by the hate symbols displayed by the angry mob, continue to feel angry, unsafe, and unprotected.”
Reed, who also worked in high-level roles for Florida Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson, suggested each office and committee establish a diversity, equity, and inclusion point person.
“The success of diversity, equity, and inclusion principles demand that this ideology be accepted fully in how an office does its work, have member-level engagement and buy-in, and continuously be prioritized,” she said.
“I recommend a staffer become the internal office support for the member and chief for these issues, which could include leading or initiating culturally sensitive conversations, ensuring diverse networks are engaged in the hiring of interns and staff, supporting diverse staff by identifying professional growth and mentorship opportunities, and expanding stakeholder engagement to support legislative goals.”
Reed also referenced other recommendations from outside organizations she supported, including a suggestion from Issue One and Partnership for Public Service, which want Congress to mandate cultural competency and implicit bias training “for anti-racist work environments.”
Kemba Hendrix, Director of the House Office of Diversity and Inclusion, testified House staffers who communicated with her office frequently recommend programming and services they want to see the office provide, including “ODI-lead staff support groups, ODI-conduct executive coaching for senior staff that would include a curriculum on cultural competence, and lead facilitated discussions on race [and] bias, experiencing microaggression in the workplace, professional communication, and team building.”
Hendrix explained, “While we would like to provide all these services to the House community, some may be beyond our capacity, training, or experience. We also know that other resource offices may be more appropriate, and our recommendations reflect that.”
Among their own caucus, Democrats established their own Diversity Rule that was proposed by New York Rep. Grace Meng in the 117th Congress. This caucus rule would guarantee that job candidates of color are considered for every open position in a Democratic House office.
Rep. Rodney Davis, an Illinois Republican, asked Hendrix what the partisan breakdown from her office’s data was on diversity among all the congressional offices and how GOP offices can attract more candidates of color.
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“The data collection we had done has not broken down the data by party. In some ways, that was intentional because it would have been harder to get people to agree to data collection because people believe that it would reflect on them negatively,” Hendrix responded. “We wanted to be able to collect the most robust information … and the information is collected anonymously.”
