New reporting from The Assembly confirms what many of us already knew to be true: DEI bills from the General Assembly this Session are simply performative political posturing. This legislation shows Republican leaders are taking the lead from Washington instead of seeking policy changes that would actually improve the lives of working North Carolinians.
From The Assembly’s reporting:
— Labor Commissioner Farley’s “DEI” rescission removed a benchmark added by Republican Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry in 2015.
— North Carolina state law requires state employees to be “hired on merit, without preferential treatment for gender, race, or ethnicity.”
— The only preferential treatment given is for qualified military veterans and state employees whose jobs were cut (unrelated to their performance).
— Policies removed in the State Auditor’s Office mirrored those put in place at Labor. The last two Auditors said that employees were “hired exclusively based on merit.”
— Bill sponsors could not cite a single example of a qualified candidate for state employment being overlooked due to preferential treatment given to someone else for their race or gender. SEANC has not heard of any issues either.
— The Labor Commissioner’s office could not cite any specific training that was problematic or needed to be rescinded.
— North Carolina has not had any quotas for hiring since a 1993 lawsuit that required more women to be hired in State prisons.
“This reporting makes obvious what so many of us have understood from the start: These performative bills are solutions looking for problems, all the while doing nothing to improve working conditions for North Carolina’s devoted state employees,” House Democratic Leader Robert Reives said. “We should be focused on how to recruit and retain the best and brightest for state employment. Investing in our state employees would be a good place to start instead of tilting at windmills.”