One week after President Biden announced his second historic Executive Order 14091, Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through The Federal Government, mandating racial equity across policy and practice within the federal government, our team at Race Forward in partnership with PolicyLink are releasing our review of a sample of the Equity Action Plans (EAPs) presented early last year by federal agencies.
More than 90 federal agencies and departments, including all cabinet-level agencies and over fifty independent agencies, prepared EAPs as mandated by President Biden’s first racial equity historic Executive Order 13985, Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.
The findings show that while the EAPs demonstrate a clear distinction between equity and equality, only half of the thirty plans reviewed explicitly referenced racial equity. Despite the executive order’s explicitness in naming racial equity in the title, the initial federal plans have adopted a less prescriptive framing.
“Prioritizing equity is a clear departure from previous administrations,” said Carlton C. Eley, Senior Director for Federal Strategies at Race Forward. “Still, strategies to achieve racial equity differ from those to achieve equity in other areas. A strong racial equity framework targets the differences between individual, institutional, and structural racism as well as the history and current reality of inequities.”
A summary of additional findings of the 30 EAPs reviewed in the report include:
- All of the plans correctly distinguish between equity and equality.
- 28 plans include actionable strategies that have a strong chance of improving racial equity outcomes.
- Eight reference equity tools developed by experts or utilized by other government partners.
- Only three explicitly named “institutional racism” and “structural racism.”
The release of this report is another important step in racial justice work to advance equity at the federal level. We thrive as a country when everyone is included, and all can participate, prosper, and reach their full potential. It is through this collective effort that we can transform this nation by fulfilling the aspirations of a true multiracial democracy and anti-racist government.
In Solidarity,
The Race Forward Team
(We are grateful for the generous support of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Ballmer Group, the Ford Foundation, The JPB Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, MacKenzie Scott, Open Society Foundations, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Salesforce, and the Skoll Foundation, as well as extend our gratitude to Three Views Strategies, LLC for providing research and analysis that contributed to this report.)
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