By Mansfield Frazier
The news that Cuyahoga County “will spend up to $250,000 to study its contracting practices” should be welcomed, if not for the fact the City of Cleveland and the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District have both commissioned similar disparity studies designed to verify if discrimination against women and minority-owned firms is occurring when the construction and contracting pies are being cut up hereabouts.
Both previous studies found that indeed discrimination existed, but little was done to rectify the problem, which could have more than a little to do with the methodology of the work. The PD found that the study commissioned by the city (which cost taxpayers $758,000) was, in part, “identical to studies the firm had preformed in other cities.”
This could mean one of two things: either that discrimination is allopatric and remarkably similar no matter the locale, or that the company that conducted the study for the most part simply did a cut-and-paste job.
The federal government (under a 1989 Supreme Court ruling) requires that such studies be carried out before a governmental entity can set up a program to eliminate such discrimination. In other words, first you have to prove that such discrimination exists.
Which really isn’t all that hard. For a few hundred bucks anyone can rent a Lolly the Trolley and do a drive-by of construction sites in the county and see how predominantly white the work forces stubbornly remain. And this is after over 40 years of attempts to rectify the problem of discriminatory hiring and bidding practices.
County Councilman Pernel Jones sponsored the ordinance to perform the study, saying at the time that he wants the county to “stay on the cutting edge of economic inclusion,” and that it will cost “significantly less than what has been charged in the past.”
While the county has selected two Atlanta area firms to do the work on its disparity study, what will the results actually mean? Will anything change if the study does indeed verify that discrimination exists within the county (something that everyone already knows)?
Will the recently signed Community Benefits agreement solve the problem or will it take more from the real power brokers in the county to bring an end to the deeply embedded practices of bias based on race and gender that have existed in Cuyahoga County for so long that some folks actually believe that certain work and jobs should be reserved for whites only?
Jones’ efforts are certainly welcomed since the county at present has a program in place to encourage hiring small businesses, but doesn’t have one that encourages the hiring of women or minority-owned firms.
“If the study shows there is a disparity, that would give us the legal standing to put one of these programs in place,” said County Fiscal Officer Mark Parks. And we know what would happen then … it would most likely be challenged in court … or simply ignored.
During the construction of large projects such as Jacobs Field and the Browns Stadium, requirements were in place that minorities be included, but what did the contractors do? They ignored the rules and simply paid the fines that were in place for doing so … since they had factored in the costs of such fines when they bid on the projects.
Contractors and unions feel they can continue their discriminatory ways no matter what studies show simply because they have been so successful at doing so for so long. Indeed, why should companies contracted to study the problem break a sweat when they know (based on history) their studies mean absolutely nothing?
But there is a organization that could bring about immediate change if its members were of a frame of mind to do so: The Greater Cleveland Partnership. The ball is really in their court in terms of real change and inclusion in the county. It will be interesting to see what they do with it: move the county forward, or simply punt.
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.