Recruitment and Advertising for Employment: A Civil Rights Issue
Staff integration is an important part of school desegregation. A segregated staff infringes on the rights of all students to be educated by, and interact with, a non-segregated staff. Any employment practice that results in system-wide segregation is a violation of federal laws.
There are many things a district can do to attract minority and/or ethnically diverse candidates for job openings, including:
- Advertise in major city newspapers
- Advertise on the Internet
- Advertise in minority newspapers, e.g., Buffalo Challenger, El Diario
- Develop a data bank of qualified minority candidates
- Use a county-wide civil service list
- Send vacancy notices/job postings to colleges and universities that have a high percentage of minority students enrolled
- Send a letter to minority staff members asking them to recommend any qualified minority person(s) they know for job openings
- Contact community-based agencies and organizations that represent the minority population and ask for recommendations and/or referrals
- Send job notices to minority leaders in the community
Districts might inadvertently advertise in a way that may perpetuate the non-diverse makeup of an employment pool. Some inappropriate practices include:
- Only posting vacancy and/or job notices in a district facility;
- Only using applications already on file in the district
- Using civil service lists comprised only of district residents (preference may be given to district residents when filling a vacancy only if there is a reasonable pool of minorities residing within the district);
- Advertising in papers not likely to reach minorities.
Last Updated:
March 16, 2011