Examining Race in City Hall

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — University of Arkansas researchers have found that across the United States, cities that have an African American mayor or city manager are much more likely to have more African American administrators in certain departments, such as housing, fire, welfare, and streets and highways. They also found that the percentage of African Americans on city councils is generally unrelated to the percentage of African American administrators holding city jobs.

Using data from the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission, four researchers in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences -- Brinck Kerr, Will Miller, Margaret Reid and William Schreckhise from the department of political science -- studied the distribution of African Americans in administrative jobs in municipal government agencies from 1987 through 2001.

The resulting paper they published, “If Politics Matters, When Does It Matter? Re-examining the Determinants of African American Municipal Employment Patterns," recently won the 2006 Jewel Prestage Award for the best paper on race, ethnicity, gender and political behavior from the Southwest Political Science Association.

The award, which includes a cash prize, was presented during the association’s annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas, April 12-15.

The researchers chose to study municipal government agencies because they are more directly involved in the daily activities of traditionally disadvantaged groups, unlike state and federal agencies. Jobs in municipal government not only offer attractive salaries and benefits but also provide opportunities for traditionally disadvantaged groups to influence city policies.

Kerr offered theories on why some African American mayors have little or no effect on the percentage of African American administrators in departments such as community development, sanitation and sewage, and utilities.

“These departments are less relevant to the interests of African American citizens than many other departments. Thus, these departments may not be a high priority for city elected officials. Also, there is evidence to suggest that the upper echelons of agencies such as utilities and community development are dominated by engineers, bankers, and commercial real estate brokers - African Americans tend to be underrepresented in these employment fields. Therefore, it may be difficult for elected officials to recruit African Americans into these public sector jobs. The private sector compensation for these positions is generally much higher,” Kerr said.

Margaret Reid said that in 2003, the book the researchers wrote on glass ceilings and glass walls represented a culmination of several years of work to determine what factors might explain why women and minorities employed in state and local agencies were confined to certain job categories or found it difficult to advance to the highest levels of their organizations.

“While it is important to look at how organizational missions might affect representation of those groups in administrative settings, it is equally important in public sector environments to consider if and how political forces might affect hiring decisions,” said Reid. “In this paper, we focused especially on the question of whether having an African American mayor, council members or city manager mattered in increasing the share of African American administrators in municipal governments.”

The researchers concluded that African American executives, whether mayors or city managers, are generally successful in building African American administrative cadres in departments that provide general budgetary, personnel and policy support functions such as financial administration, in some departments that have street level contact with African American constituencies, such as fire departments, and in departments that have traditionally served large African American constituencies such as housing, public welfare, and parks/recreation.

They also found that in cities with growing Hispanic populations, higher levels of African Americans administrators were found in several agencies, including community development, fire, health, police, sanitation and sewage, and utilities. The parks departments were the only area in which higher numbers of Hispanics were employed and fewer African Americans held administrative jobs.