Affirmative Action Compliances
Responsibilities and Recordkeeping Requirements
All University of Illinois Extension employees have some degree of responsibility to provide equal opportunity in program delivery and access.
What are your responsibilities?
- Study demographics
- Seek input from diverse groups
- Clearly define program objectives
- Identify potential audience
- Identify demographics of the potential audience
- Record the data on civil rights charts / reports
- Decide on the best methods to reach your audience
- Make all reasonable efforts to reach those protected by civil rights laws
- Keep records on outreach and all reasonable efforts
- Keep records on actual participants
Document and record affirmative action activities
Without adequate documentation and record keeping, affirmative action compliance is difficult or impossible to demonstrate. One of the most common shortcomings of affirmative action efforts is a failure to document such efforts. While there is no one best way to document many efforts, staff should develop what is called an “auditable trail.” An auditable trail provides verifiable documentation or at least explains how one achieved or attempted to achieve compliance with affirmative action requirements.
Any affirmative action activities that cannot be reflected in numerical data should be recorded in narrative format. A good approach is to keep a file folder handy to store such information.
What should you include in your file?
- News releases with notations on how they were used for all reasonable effort, especially those communications to underserved groups such as church bulletins, weekly newspapers and newsletters, and broadcast programs likely to reach targeted groups.
- Copies of letters that can be used to reach out to underserved people, for counties with smaller minority populations this could include mailing an Extension calendar to specific individuals and families.
- Mailing lists outlining the demographics of recipients.
- Media contacts including newspapers, radio, television or other media contacts.
- Personal notes – notations of phone calls and meetings about outreach efforts.
- Letters about University of Illinois Extension non-discrimination policies.
- Documentation from partners – identifying outreach activities along with any meeting notes.
