N.J.A.C. 4A:7-2 Division of Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action
Every section of N.J.A.C. 4A:7-2, Division of Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action: 3 rules with full text, amendment history and citing decisions.
- 4A:7-2.1Division responsibilities: State service
State service only. This section puts no obligation on a county, municipality or school district. It sets out what the Division of Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action does for State employees in the career, senior executive and unclassified services, and the fourteen duties fall into three groups. Goal setting: each State agency's goals for minorities and women have to match availability, meaning the share of people in the agency or the relevant recruitment area who have the requisite skills or could acquire them, and agencies must make good faith efforts to open opportunities to persons with disabilities at all levels. Policing: monitor agencies for compliance, seek correction of discriminatory policies, recommend sanctions to the Commission, review every certification disposition, and analyse job specifications, selection devices and testing procedures for barriers. Reporting: review discrimination complaints under Title VII, the Law Against Discrimination and the State Policy, and send the Governor progress reports at least twice a year.
- 4A:7-2.2Equal Employment Opportunity Advisory Commission: State service
An eleven-member body appointed by the Governor, at least six of whose members are to be minorities, women and persons with disabilities, meeting at least quarterly. Its stated function is to advise the Division of EEO/AA and make recommendations on improving the State's affirmative action efforts. That is the whole of what the rule gives it: advice and recommendations. An employee with a discrimination complaint does not bring it here. Complaints go to a supervisor, to the agency Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action Officer, or to a designated alternate, under the model internal complaint procedures.
- 4A:7-2.3Appointing authority responsibilities
The gap between local and State service here is the gap between may and shall. A local appointing authority may establish equal employment opportunity and affirmative action programmes, and the Division of EEO/AA will advise and assist on request. Nothing more is asked of it. Every State agency, by contrast, carries a list of mandatory duties: appoint at least one EEO/AA Officer, full time and reporting to the agency head or a designee in that office, unless the Chairperson and the Division Director approve otherwise; submit an affirmative action plan to the Director for approval; file quarterly reports and an annual update covering the number, subject matter, processing time and disposition of every discrimination complaint; adopt the model internal complaint procedures; and make a good faith effort to meet its own goals, with sanctions and penalties available if it does not. Final letters of determination must be signed by the agency head or a designee at deputy or assistant commissioner, chief of staff or equivalent level.