Name That Section - Frequently Used Education Code and Title 5 Sections for Community College Districts

 best practices in serving on a selection or screening committee; 172

 Targeted recruitment process and community-based/professional organization notification;  A process for gathering information and periodic, longitudinal analysis of the district’s employees and applicants, broken down by number of persons from monitored group status; 173

 Methods for addressing any monitored groups’ underrepresentation; 174 and

 A process for developing and implementing strategies, necessary to demonstrate ongoing, institutional commitment to diversity and equal employment opportunity. 175

b. Hiring Regulations The Title 5 regulations require a proactive recruitment process. In particular, hiring procedures are required to contain the following core features: i. Job Related Screening and Selection Procedures A core principle of non-discriminatory hiring criteria is that they must be “job related.” Job requirements that lack a clear nexus to the knowledge or skills required for the position are suspect and subject to challenge if they have the effect of disproportionately excluding or creating an “adverse impact” on a group based on race, gender or other protected status. 176 Therefore, the regulations require that all screening and selection procedures be based solely on job-related criteria. In addition to articulating this requirement, the regulations require districts to review all local desired and preferred qualifications for any job category where they determine there is persistent underrepresentation of a monitored group. Districts are also required to ensure that “meaningful consideration” is given to whether applicants for faculty and administrative positions demonstrate “sensitivity to and understanding of the diverse academic, socioeconomic, cultural, disability and ethnic backgrounds of community college students.” 177 We read this statutory requirement as establishing, by law, the job-relatedness of “sensitivity to diversity” to all faculty and administrative positions. Indeed, on June 17, 2016, the Chancellor’s Office issued Legal Opinion 16-04 regarding Equal Employment Opportunity, which, among other things, made clear that this requirement functions as a minimum qualification. The Opinion states that“[s]ince it is a job requirement, state law treats ‘sensitivity to diversity’ as similar to a minimum requirement.” 178 The regulations leave to individual districts how to articulate and measure this criterion. What is clear post-Proposition 209, however, is that districts may not consider applicants’ ethnicity, race or gender in an effort to satisfy the “sensitivity to diversity” criterion. Strategies for effectively utilizing this criterion are discussed in Section 4 below.

Name that Section: Frequently Used Education Code and Title 5 Sections for Community College Districts ©2019 (c) Liebert Cassidy Whitmore 59