By Ed O'Keefe
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 15, 2009

Is David Letterman to blame for the lack of diversity at the Department of Homeland Security?

The talk show host's recent admission of trysts with women who worked for him, a Republican lawmaker said Wednesday, has provoked not outrage among his fans and the media, but rather a sense of reluctant acceptance. And Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.) suggested that such a reaction helps promote a belief among women that they have to endure sexual discrimination in order to advance their careers.

"If that message goes out to women -- that a hostile environment as far as a person in authority making it clear how you advance -- that is a terrible, terrible message," he said.

Lungren, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, is especially concerned because the DHS workforce is mostly white and primarily male. The six-year-old department employs more than 170,000 people in roughly two dozen agencies and offices, making it the third-largest federal department. But women account for 32 percent of DHS employees, more than 10 points less than the percentage in civilian and government jobs.

Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Jane Holl Lute assured committee members Wednesday that she will not tolerate a Letterman-like environment at the DHS.

"It is my personal commitment -- it's certainly the secretary's personal commitment -- that Homeland Security will not only be a department where diversity can thrive, but where we are the leading edge of best practice in the federal government for a diverse workforce," Lute said.

Lute added that she and DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano are committed to fixing the gender and racial disparities.

"We don't need a notice for a congressional hearing to know that we have a challenge and a problem with diversity at Homeland Security," she said.

House members conducted Wednesday's hearing to follow up on several reports that highlight the department's lingering inability to recruit and retain women and minorities. (Diary readers may recall that this column discussed the lagging number of Latinos in the federal government just last week.)

Rep. Yvette D. Clarke (D-N.Y.) noted that it could be harder to attract female recruits because of the law enforcement culture that fosters "the same old, same old male-dominated institution building." She seemed unimpressed by Lute's assurances that things will change.

"Being a woman in a nontraditional role myself, I just seem to hear the same commentary over and over. Maybe I'm hypersensitive, but it just appears that way," Clarke said.

In response, Lute, who said she and Napolitano are also women in nontraditional roles, told Clarke, "If the culture doesn't change under our watch, then shame on us."

There are also concerns about Homeland Security's ability to attract and retain minorities. Hispanics make up 20 percent of the DHS workforce -- the highest proportion among top Cabinet-level departments -- but only 6 percent of senior-level positions, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Blacks account for 14 percent of the workforce and hold 5 percent of senior positions. Asians are 4 percent of the workforce and hold 1.5 percent of the senior posts. White employees make up 60 percent of the workforce and hold 87 percent of the senior-level posts.

A 2007 DHS analysis revealed that the department undercut its ability to attract a diverse workforce because of over-reliance on the Internet and noncompetitive hiring authorities to attract job applicants, ineffective Hispanic recruitment efforts, and the use of non-diverse interview panels to question potential hires.

"I do not place blame on you for creating the problems," the committee chairman, Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), told Lute and other department officials. "But I am holding you responsible for delivering solutions."

FEMA Administrator W. Craig Fugate noted that his agency has revised its recruitment process so that it is "not waiting for people to know about a job, not waiting for them to apply online." The agency has done so only because Fugate happened to review a list of applicants for the agency's federal contracting officer positions.

"Not only did I not see any diversity, I didn't see any diversity geographically or in skill sets. It seemed to me that we were almost going to central casting and getting live candidates who all looked the same, all had the same backgrounds and were geographically pretty much from the same area," Fugate said. He vowed that FEMA will do a better job in the future of reaching out to professional associations that represent minority law enforcement and emergency officials.

Though no lawmaker disputed the importance of diversity, a few Republican committee members voiced frustration that the panel is not holding public hearings on the Obama administration's anti-terrorism efforts or its plans to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

"Obviously the issue of diversity is important, but there's other issues, and probably none is more than the threat of terrorism," said ranking Republican Peter T. King (N.Y.).

"There's a direct correlation and a direct role for this committee to play because of the role that Secretary Napolitano will play in the final disposition of Guantanamo," he added.

Joe Davidson is away. He will resume writing this column when he returns. Send your questions and comments to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and read Ed O'Keefe's blog, the Federal Eye, at http://washingtonpost.com/federaleye.