Relates to requiring the hiring of a professional search firm with a history of recruiting minority candidates

§ 355-d. Professional search firm selection.

1. For any position at a state-operated institution in the state university that requires the hiring of a professional search firm to assist in the recruitment of candidates, the hiring institution shall select a professional search firm with a demonstrated history of recruiting minority candidates. Such search firm shall be approved by the state university trustees. The state university trustees shall provide for the approval process for such firms.

2. Potential search firms shall be required to provide to the state university trustees any documents detailing how such firms ensure and pursue diversity in recruiting candidates for positions in higher education as well as other employment sectors. Such documents shall include the ethnic and racial breakdown of the final candidate hired by their clients. The names of candidates and the search firms' clients provided to the state university trustees may be redacted if a search firm's contract with a client is confidential or if candidates have requested their names be kept confidential.

Section 2: Paragraph g of subdivision 2 of section 355 of the education law, as amended by chapter 552 of the laws of 1985, is amended to read as follows: (g).... and to provide for the process of selection of a professional search firm as needed to assist in the recruitment of such positions and the approval of such firm by the state university trustees pursuant to section three hundred fifty-five-d of this article.

Justification

The State University of New York is the largest state-operated system of colleges in the nation with over 465,000 students and over 80,000 faculty and staff. Almost 100,000 of its student body are minority students of which over 40% are from the New York City region. Its current African-American and Latino faculty rates are 4.5% and 3.2% respectively.

For some time now, there has been considerable concern with the lack of diversity on the SUNY campuses. Currently out of its 64 campuses there are four African American college presidents. None are Latino. As the number of minority students increases throughout the system and minority students become the majority of high school graduates in the state, the need to increase diversity in SUNY's faculty and administrative ranks is essential.

The current recruitment process relied on by the SUNY system and individual campuses have failed to yield any positive improvements in terms of diversifying the system. Even with affirmative action officers on their campuses, SUNY colleges and universities have excluded affirmative action staff from searches to fill faculty or administrative positions and at other times has hired professional search firms to recruit for vacant posts.

Around the nation, these search firms are notorious for the lack of diversity on their own staffs and the lack of qualified minority recruits they suggest to potential employers. However, there are professional search firms that have a proven track record in recruiting talented minority candidates for all employment sectors.

This legislation is an effort to ensure that SUNY and its individual campuses hire professional search firms with a proven history of diversifying the pool of candidates they recruit. This legislation requires that SUNY campuses hiring professional search firms must have those firms approved by the SUNY Board of Trustees. This legislation also set forward information that will be required to help the board make a proper determination as to the ability of the proposed search firm to help meet the diversity mantra that the system likes to promote in print, but as it appears by the data, not by real numbers.

Legislative history

New Bill

Fiscal implications

NONE

Effective date

This act shall take effect immediately.