Toward a Better City Hall

Last December, Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh announced the creation of the Mayor’s Office of Diversity, an initiative designed to ensure that the demographic composition of Boston’s city government more closely represents the people it serves. We believe that Walsh’s goal is a noble and important one: An office of diversity has real potential to reduce problems with race relations in Boston.

Walsh’s decision was motivated by a report detailing the underrepresentation of minorities in the municipal government. The task of remedying this disparity now falls upon Shaun Blugh and Freda Brasfield, who will serve as the chief and deputy chief diversity officer respectively. Blugh has had experience with working to increase diversity within large corporations, while Brasfield is a longtime city employee. In their new roles, Blugh and Brasfeld are aided by Walsh’s stated commitment to diversity; in the year since he took office, the composition of newly hired city employees so far closely mirrored the demographics of the city.

We hope that the new Office of Diversity will use this strong foundation to inspire its efforts throughout the city. Imposing a racial quota on city jobs is clearly and undoubtedly not the right way to create diversity; instead, this office will be at its most effective if it is able to go into communities with large minority populations and encourage qualified people there to apply for city jobs. A diverse applicant pool is a necessary part of the transition to a diverse workforce, and a major recruiting effort is necessary build up that applicant pool—this is the clearest path towards fixing the current imbalance. Data obtained by the Boston Globe shows that 61 percent of city employees are white compared with only 53 percent of Bostonians, and that white employees are paid 10 percent more than black employees and 14 percent more than Hispanics. An effective diversity office must act expeditiously to correct the imbalances.

There are some minor questions, raised by the Walsh administration, concerning the methodology of the previous administration in collecting the data. As part of their new roles, Blugh and Brasfeld must also develop more effective and accurate methods of measurement.

Finally, we believe that the biggest challenge for the diversity office is appropriately addressing the departments that are most frequently in direct contact with citizens. The need for change is evident—for example, 72 percent of fire department employees are white. Though the outreach necessary to expand the pool of firefighter candidates is naturally more difficult because hiring is exam-based and preference is given to veterans, this is a poor excuse. Especially in the aftermath of the tragic events in Ferguson, Mo., diversity in police and fire departments has been a frequently discussed topic. Cities like Ferguson would be well served to consider implementing similar offices to ensure that citizens are fairly represented in their local governments. While this is hardly the only way to prevent harmful interactions between city employees and the citizens they are tasked with serving, it is a critical place to start.