MADISON, Wis. — As progressive and inclusive as Madison likes to promote itself as being, a minority-based organization provided a wake-up call on Wednesday: African Americans are routinely getting passed up for promotions and leadership positions.
Over the past year, the African American-Jewish Friendship Group of Madison ran a study looking at employment trends in our area. Researchers collected data from 178 employers and more than 75,000 employees across Dane County. The group found something jarring: the Madison area has serious work to do in workplace diversity and equality.
Researchers behind the study said their findings back up a problem already known and felt in our area.
“The issue of African American employment in Madison has best exemplified why Madison is a tale of two cities,” said Gerald Sternberg, a member of the survey’s writing committee.
The study looked at employment trends across four different sectors. The first was local business; which found that, despite making up 6.5% of the greater Madison area population, non-professional jobs filled by African Americans were found to be nearly double that percentage. Data also noted especially low numbers in executive and management positions.
The second grouping observed was government bodies and found, with the exception of the City of Madison, municipalities employ less than 2% of Black employees, with most governmental bodies employing zero African Americans.
Education was the third sector included in the study, with researchers expressing that the number of African American teachers is glaringly insufficient. The report found five school districts have no African American teachers, two school districts each have one black teacher, one district has two black teachers, and five school districts have none. MMSD employs the highest percentage of Black teachers at nearly 3%, but it’s worth noting the district also has the highest rate of African American students, making up 18.5% of the student body.
The last category of the study looked at religious organizations. Though only nine responded to the anonymous survey, still, only one had any African American employees, which were two non-professional roles.
Researchers do note some positive strides, pointing to recent appointments of African Americans to the top agency posts, such as the City of Madison Police chief, Dane County sheriff, and superintendent of MMSD. Still, they say their survey’s findings back up a problem that may be even worse than what’s shown in the data.
“As problematic as the numbers in this report are, those obtained by survey may be more likely reflecting organizations that are more interested in what we’re doing than not,” said Bruce Thomadsen, another survey writing committee member. “And if that’s the case, the true situation may be even worse than what we’ve seen here.”
To view the entire 36-page report, click or tap here: African American-Jewish Friendship Group of Madison: Full Survey Report
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