Support Comprehensive Analysis of Civil Rights Compliance Co-sponsor the Cardin Amendment No. 1542 to MAP-21 (S. 1813)

Recipient: U.S. Senate

Dear Senator:

On behalf of The Leadership
Conference on Civil and Human
Rights,
a coalition charged by its
diverse membership of more than 210 national organizations to promote and protect the
rights
of
all persons in the United States,
we urge you to co-sponsor the Equal Opportunity Assessment
Amendment, Amendment No. 1542 offered
by Senator Ben Cardin, D.
Md. to
S.
1813, the Moving Ahead
for Progress in the
21st Century Act (MAP-21). The Leadership Conference believes that
comprehensive
and coordinated data collection is necessary to ensure
compliance with
civil rights
laws, and the Equal Opportunity Assessment Amendment will provide
a critical new resource to
help
meet
this goal.

The Equal Opportunity Assessment Amendment would
require
a quadrennial national report that
would
analyze data on demographics
and
compliance with existing civil rights laws
in federal transportation
programs. The data currently collected by the
U.S. Department of Transportation and
its
operating administrations are not reviewed and analyzed comprehensively and are
collected using different methods
with
minimal public transparency.
Thus, this new tool would provide
a comprehensive
analysis of compliance with civil rights
laws
in federally funded transportation
programs
and could assist federal, state, and local transportation officials
in increasing transparency and accountability and avoiding lapses in civil rights safeguards.

The Equal Opportunity Assessment Amendment would improve efficiency and
predictability, as it would help identify problems that agencies and recipients
may
take coordinated measures to
address;
and would ensure that governmental resources and guidance intended
to
target barriers to
equal opportunity are doing so effectively. To
date,
there has been
no comprehensive and nationwide assessment of the impact of transportation
funding and projects
on vulnerable populations protected by our nation’s civil rights laws. Communities of color, low-income people,
and communities with disabilities are disproportionately affected by the decisions
of
both rural and urban transit agencies,
given that they are the most transit dependent communities
and
negotiate their daily lives on
mass
transit. ¹

In addition, the Equal Opportunity Assessment Amendment would promote interagency cooperation around the analysis of data on
equal opportunity,
by requiring the
Secretary of Transportation to
consult with the
Secretary of Labor in assessing equity in
employment and contracting opportunities
related
to
federally-funded transportation
programs. 
The collected data would include an
analysis of impediments
to
equal opportunity and non-discrimination and
recommendations for compliance. Women
and minorities are
underrepresented in
transportation
construction
employment.  Of the
roughly eight million
people
employed in
the
transportation
construction industry in 2008,
African Americans comprised
only 6 percent and
women comprised less than
3 percent. ² Latinos are disproportionately employed in lower-paying transportation sector jobs and are concentrated in fewer
occupations. ³

We urge you
to co-sponsor Amendment No. 1542, the Equal Opportunity Assessment Amendment to
MAP-21.

Sincerely,

Wade Henderson
President and CEO

Nancy Zirkin
Executive Vice President

1  Racial minorities are four times
more likely than Whites to
rely on public transportation
for their work commute. Clara Reschovsky, “Journey to
Work: 2000,” Census 2000 brief. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census, Bureau, 2004 at
http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/c2bkr-33.pdf.

2  U.S. Bureau
of Labor
Statistics, “Household Data Annual Averages, Table 11: Employed Persons by Detailed Occupation, Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin,” 2008.

3  Singley, Catherine. National Council of La Raza – Steering
Economic Recovery: Latinos
in
the Transportation Sector,
http://www.nclr.org/index.php/publications/steering_economic_recovery_latinos_in_the_ transportation_sector/.
April 1, 2011.