§5452 Office of Minority and Women Inclusion

Summary

Each listed agency must create an Office of Minority and Women Inclusion within 6 months after July 21, 2010. The Bureau gets 6 months after its designated transfer date. Agencies that already had similar duties must move those duties into the new Office. The Office will not enforce civil‑rights laws, but the Director must work with the agency head on designing and putting into place any remedies when civil‑rights violations happen. The Director is picked by and reports to the agency head and must be a career Senior Executive Service position or equivalent. The Director must set rules to promote equal job opportunities and more racial, ethnic, and gender diversity in the agency’s staff and leaders; boost the use of minority‑owned and women‑owned businesses in agency programs and contracts, including technical help for those businesses; and review the diversity policies of entities the agency regulates (without changing their lending policies). The Office must create procedures to include minorities and women fairly in all agency business, including procurement and contracts. Contract reviews should, where allowed by law, consider an applicant’s diversity and require contractors to state they will try to include women and minorities in their workforce. If a contractor fails to try in good faith, the Director can recommend ending the contract; the agency head may then end it, refer the matter to the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, or take other action. The rules apply to all agency service contracts, including those with banks, brokers, underwriters, accountants, lawyers, and contracts for issuing or guaranteeing debt or equity, selling or managing assets, making equity investments, or running economic recovery programs. Each Office must send Congress one annual report that shows total money paid to contractors since the last report, the share paid to qualifying minority or women businesses, successes and problems in outreach, hiring and contracting challenges, and any other findings or recommendations. Agencies must take steps to recruit diverse staff at all levels, consistent with law, such as recruiting at historically black colleges and universities, Hispanic‑serving institutions, women’s colleges, and other majority‑minority schools; sponsoring job fairs in cities; advertising in minority‑oriented media; partnering with groups that place minorities and women in internships and jobs; and, where feasible, working with inner‑city and girls’ high schools on financial literacy and mentoring. Definitions: “Agency” names the specific federal financial agencies listed in the law; “agency administrator” means the agency head; “minority,” “minority‑owned business,” and “women‑owned business” are defined by the federal code sections cited in the law; and “Office” means the Office of Minority and Women Inclusion.