Flyers left anonymously at homes decry Modesto’s effort to diversify city workforce
Modesto’s effort to have a city workforce that mirrors the diversity of the local work force and ensures it provides services to all residents in an equitable manner has met with opposition, with residents receiving anonymous flyers suggesting the city is discriminating against white people.
Human Resources Director Christina Alger said the city’s effort is not about Modesto giving preferences to job seekers because of their race, ethnicity or gender. She said that is prohibited by law.
Instead, she said, the city wants to improve its outreach to qualified job seekers who are among those groups underrepresented in the city’s workforce. The city also wants to remove any barriers they face in seeking employment while still hiring the best candidate for the job regardless of their background, Alger said.
“We always hire the most qualified candidate,” she said.
For instance, Latino men make up about half of the craft workers in Stanislaus County but represent about one-fifth of the city’s work force in that job category. Modesto’s five-year plan is to increase Latino representation in these jobs by 6 percentage points over five years.
The city says craft workers include electricians, tree trimmers, parks crew leaders, equipment operators, mechanics and waste-water treatment plant operators, according to the city’s Equal Opportunity Employment Plan.
The anonymous flyers have targeted Modesto’s Equity Commission, which is one component of the city’s new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Program.
The commission consists of 11 residents who will advise city officials and the council on “matters that relate to equity and inclusion, equal opportunity and disability related issues within the city work force and services provided to the community,” according to the city’s website.
The city defines equity as “an approach that ensures everyone has access to the same opportunities.”
The commission members are volunteers and are not paid.
The anonymous flyers have been left at homes. They urge residents to tell council members they oppose the commission because it supports critical race theory, a more-than-40-year-old academic theory. The flyers say opposing the commission is necessary to protect the community’s children.
Critical race theory
An Education Weekly article states the theory’s “core idea is that race is a social construct, and that racism is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies.”
As of last week, about a half dozen residents had contacted council members and the city about the flyers. There are at least two of them.
One flyer states a committee supporting equity, diversity and inclusion “is the cornerstone of critical race theory” and “would result in discrimination in the city’s hiring process.”
The other flyer states the ideology of equity, diversity and inclusion is sweeping the nation and promotes such ideas as white people have privilege while people of color have been left behind, that men can give birth and compete in women’s sports, and that women can have male genitalia.
The flyer also states that “most, if not all,” of the academics who support this ideology are Marxists, socialists and are anti-capitalists who want to reduce or eliminate police funding and support Black Lives Matter.
Councilman David Wright, who is a conservative Republican, said the flyers miss the mark on what the city actually is doing.
He said this about the city casting as wide a net as it can when it hires employees. “It’s looking at everyone regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity and selecting the candidate who is the most qualified based on ability,” he said.
“’Equity’ and ‘inclusion’ are political words,” Wright said, “and people take those and run with them. I’ll say the far right has twisted that and saying it’s something that we are doing.”
City revamps efforts
Alger said Friday the city had received about four emails from residents supporting the Equity Commission and a couple opposing it.
The commission can trace its roots to the city’s efforts over the decades to comply with federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job seeker or worker because of that person’s race, color, religion, sex, transgender status, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability or genetic information, according to a city report.
The city recently revamped these efforts through the creation of its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Program. The program includes the commission, as well as an Equal Employment Opportunity Plan, Language Access Plan (which includes providing translations at council meetings for residents who don’t speak English) and an Americans with Disabilities Plan.
The Equity Commission is the restructuring of the city’s dormant Equal Opportunity/Disability and Human Relations commissions.
The City Council unanimously approved the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Program in January and unanimously appointed the first six members of the Equity Commission in late August, which apparently is when the flyers started appearing at people’s homes.
Modesto officials have said this effort includes making sure residents with disabilities can use city parks and that city services, such as street paving, are allocated fairly and equitably to all neighborhoods.
