Panel supports position to monitor policies on equal employment, affirmative action By Craig M. Kibler The Layman Online Thursday, July 1, 2004 2004 General Assembly Richmond, Virginia June 26-July 3, 2004 General Assembly news index RICHMOND, Va. – The 216th General Assembly will be asked to create a new position in Louisville that will monitor policies within the Presbyterian Church (USA) to ensure that equal-employment opportunities and affirmative-action principles are included. The General Assembly Committee on Mission Coordination and Budgets, after a long afternoon and evening Tuesday of tinkering with the language in the "On Creating a Process of Change within the Presbyterian Church (USA)" report, also will ask commissioners that "cultural proficiency" training be offered to staff members. The PCUSA "has done a marvelous job of integrating people into the workplace," said the Rev. Curtis Jones, the chairman of the Advocacy Committee for Racial and Ethnic Concerns' task force that wrote the report and also the executive director of the denomination's Office of Black Congregational Enhancement. Where the denomination "has not done as well is in the hiring of people of color" further up the employment chain, he said. ""I remind you that we are here because of the absence of people of color in the upper management offices." The goal of the task force's report, Jones said, was to "steer clear of quotas and focus on what we see to be a cultural change, a transformation process." The members of the task force felt that the creation of a staff position to ensure these things, he said, would target the failures of "inclusiveness," "representation" and "systemic misuse of privilege and entitlement" that the report identifies. Earlier, saying that the task force felt it best that people name themselves, Jones asked that a suggestion to change in all PCUSA communications the words "Native American" to "First Nation" be withdrawn from the report. Two Native American speakers, one a member of the task force, supported the move, saying that no one had asked Native Americans what they thought about such a designation. The committee rejected a similar word change in communications, a suggestion to replace the term "racial-ethnic" with "emerging majority."

Respond to this article

Home · Archives · The Layman · PLC Publications Presbyterian Lay Committee · Feedback · Links