New Mass. office seeks to root out discrimination

A nondiscrimination executive order issued by Massachusetts Gov. Deval L. Patrick in January 2007 led to the creation this year of a new Bay State office that will, over time, aim to identify and eliminate discriminatory practices in bidding, hiring and other governmental practices.
The program stems from Executive Order No. 478, which set guidelines for all state agencies to cut discriminatory practices and “identify, recruit, hire, develop, promote and retain employees who are members of underrepresented groups. The executive order also called for state agencies to decide on specific goals and timetables for remedying any potential problems in bidding practices, according to Patrick’s office.
The issuance of that order coincided with other anti-discrimination efforts, said Ronald Marlow, who on May 1 was tapped to run a new Massachusetts program under the title assistant secretary for access and opportunity.
“That order in part did get the ball rolling, but the other element was that there was a group of civil rights advocates [that] urged the creation of an office of civil rights, to be headed by a senior adviser,” he said in an interview last week. “And, over the course of [the past year], the title” evolved.
The phrase – “access and opportunity” – was designed as a more encompassing term than “civil rights.” “While civil rights has a noble and honorable tradition, the other reality is that the term has taken on a perception that would define it less inclusively than [this program is] meant to be defined,” Marlow said, offering an example that “typically, the white male does not see himself under the rubric of civil rights.”
The program is meant to create a government that’s accessible to everyone, he said. That can include small minority- and women-owned businesses, but it doesn’t have to cut out options for others, he added.
One of the potential changes might be breaking down the bid structure for some state work.
Marlow used an example: Instead of offering one procurement project for $25 million, it might be possible to break it down into five separate contracts for $5 million each. Those smaller contracts might be more attractive to smaller businesses or minority businesses, he said.
“On the [one-contract bid], you’re being super efficient – and I have no knock on efficiency – but government also has to be concerned about what I call equity of opportunities,” he said. “So you sacrifice a little bit of efficiency to ensure that as many people can at least participate in the process. … You’re not going to guarantee an outcome to anyone, but you’re going to guarantee the ability to compete.”
But there’s also an extreme on the other end, Marlow said. For example, it would be inefficient to break a $25 million contract into 25 $1 million contracts, he said. “That would make a farce of what you’re trying to do,” he added, “but there is a balance there.”
The access to bidding for smaller companies is only one of the issues that Marlow’s office – he’s working alone, at least for now – is tackling. He’ll also be pushing to reestablish hiring techniques and to push for better communication between government agencies. For that, Marlow will work to pull together the Affirmative Market Program and the organizations that certify women- and minority-owned businesses. “That’s something that hasn’t always been the case in state government – one agency exists in one state office and the other two sit in another place,” he said. “For whatever reason, the lines of communication – let alone the efforts collaboration – haven’t been as succinct as they could have been.”
And the effort to improve that communication with an official state office might be unique to Massachusetts, Marlow said. He hasn’t seen another state that has yet created an office to look at the issues that he has been charged with solving.
Marlow joined Patrick’s administration in May 2007, as director of the Development Cabinet. Prior to that, he had worked for six years as chief of staff for state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson.
Marlow also has a history of creating equal-opportunity social programs. He had served as COO with Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corporation, as vice president of the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations and he held various positions at the Boston Housing Authority.
His background in community development and politics has a “strong tie in” to his new position, he said. Both fields of work “ask the simple question of, ‘How do you create opportunities for people to advance their lives from an economic perspective?’” he said. “The common theme that has emerged from my background has been to always be in a position where those elements were central and key.”
Since May 1, Marlow has held three meetings with state department heads. Two results that are now “in progress” are the opened lines of communications between agencies that work with minority- and women-run businesses and the creation of a disability task force that’s working through the state’s human resource practices and will “come up with some recommendations by the end of the summer,” Marlow said.
“The goal, and I call it an effort because it’s going to take time, is to create a way of working that’s going to be so engrained into the administrative operations of state government,” he added, “so that at some point in time my position should not even have to exist.” &#8226