Affirmative Action Policy Statement

It is the intellectual and moral responsibility, but more pertinently, the policy of the leadership of the Connecticut State University System to advance social justice and equity by exercising affirmative action to remove all discriminatory barriers to equal employment opportunity and upward mobility. Accordingly, the System, through this plan of affirmative action, will, with conviction and effort, undertake positively to overcome the present effects of past practices, policies or barriers to equal employment opportunity, and to achieve the full and fair participation of women, blacks, Hispanics, and any other protected group found to be underutilized in the work force or adversely impacted by system policies or practices.

Equal opportunity, as distinguished from affirmative action, is employment of individuals without consideration of race, color, religious creed, age, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, mental retardation, physical disability or prior conviction of a crime, unless the provisions of Sections 46a-60(b), 46a-80(b) or 86a-81(b) of the Connecticut General Statutes are controlling or there is a bona fide occupational qualification excluding persons in one of the above protected groups. Equal employment opportunity is the purpose and goal of affirmative action under Sections 46a-68-31 through 46a-68-74.

Attached hereto and incorporated herein, are listed federal and state constitutional provisions, laws, regulations, guidelines and executive orders prohibiting or outlawing discrimination, identifying classes of persons protected based on race, color, religious creed, age, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, present or past history of mental disorder, mental retardation or physical disability, including, but not limited to blindness, except for bona fide occupational qualifications.

Affirmative action plays a significant role in each step of the employment process. Affirmative action policy is ingrained in the development of effective recruitment strategies including locating and considering a diverse pool of candidates consisting of minorities, women and members of other protected groups.

The affirmative action officer serves as a resource to individual departments and search committees during all phases of the recruitment and hiring process. Such assistance includes placing appropriate job advertisements in publications having extensive readership and/or best-suited to targeting protected group or goal candidate audiences in job relevant labor market areas; developing a job-related selection criteria and conducting recruitment; ensuring compliance with laws and regulations in the interview process; encouraging, supporting and directing cooperative efforts to promote the spirit and intent of affirmative action policy; reviewing and approving search efforts for compliance with affirmative action goals and objectives; and working with diverse search committees in a training and consultative role to assist in the search process.

Clearly, Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity are immediate and necessary agency objectives for the CSUS. We shall affirmatively provide services and programs in a fair and impartial manner. We also recognize the hiring difficulties experienced by the physically disabled and many older persons, and will undertake measures to overcome the present effects of past discrimination, if any, to achieve the full and fair utilization of such persons in the work force.

This policy of nondiscrimination will not be limited to employment practices but will extend, as well, to services and programs provided by the CSUS.

All executive, administrative, and supervisory personnel are expected to discharge their affirmative action responsibilities, in word and deed, consistent with this agency's objective of establishing and implementing affirmative action and equal employment opportunity.

The affirmative action officer responsible for overseeing affirmative action and equal employment opportunity is the Human Resources Officer , Connecticut State University System Office, 39 Woodland Street, Hartford, CT, 06105-2337.

The Role of Affirmative Action in the Employment Process

The role of affirmative action in the employment process is to take positive action, undertaken with conviction and effort, to overcome the present effects of past practices, policies or barriers to equal employment opportunity and to achieve the full and fair participation of women, blacks and Hispanics and any other protected group found to be underutilized in the work force or affected by policies or practices having an adverse impact.

Affirmative action is action taken to ensure an employment process under which all individuals are treated equally with respect to recruitment, hiring, placement, compensation, benefits, promotional opportunity, training, education, transfers and terminations, regardless of their race, color, religious creed, age, sex, marital status, national origin, ancestry, disability, sexual orientation, prior conviction of a crime, or other factor which cannot lawfully be the basis for employment actions. It ensures an employment system in which neither intentional or unintentional discrimination operates.The role of affirmative action is to have equal employment opportunity. The objective of the Connecticut State University System affirmative action plan is to ensure that our employment processes are conforming.