University Affirmative Action Plan

An affirmative action plan or program is a management tool designed to ensure equal employment opportunity. A central premise underlying affirmative action is that, absent discrimination, over time a contractor's workforce, generally, will reflect the gender, racial and ethnic profile of the labor pools from which the contractor recruits and selects.

Affirmative action programs contain a diagnostic component which includes a number of quantitative analyses designed to evaluate the composition of the workforce of the contractor and compare it to the composition of the relevant labor pools.

As part of UB's federal contractor responsibilities, UB regularly reviews its workforce by job category to determine if our current representation by gender, minority status, disability status and veteran status is comparable to the available relevant labor pool.  If the incumbency in a job category does not reflect the availability pool, placement goals are established for the affected job categories to encourage recruitment and outreach efforts, and to help measure the effectiveness of these efforts.

Goals are targets, not quotas and represent the good faith efforts UB uses in trying to address the gap between our labor force and the wider availability pool. Good faith efforts are the additional outreach and recruitment efforts undertaken to increase placements by gender, minority status, disability status and veteran status in a job category.

Placement goals for gender and minority status are usually determined by the wider availability pool percentage for each job category. 

The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) has recently set a national benchmark goal for every federal contractor such as UB and the Research Foundation of SUNY at UB to attain 7% representation of individuals with disabilities in the workforce. OFCCP has also recently set a national benchmark goal for every federal contractor to attain 5.2% representation of protected veterans in the workforce.

As University community members, we all share responsibility to ensure policies are applied uniformly and that we interact respectfully with one another.

As a member of your department or unit, you must provide equal access to training and advancement opportunities, support positive outreach and recruitment efforts to provide a more diverse pool of applicants for open positions, and prevent harassment of any kind in the workplace.

As a hiring department or search committee member, you should be knowledgeable of the current representation and availability for the open position and inquire if a placement goal exists.  If a placement goal exists, you should focus part of your recruitment efforts toward that goal.

Individuals may direct their requests to review relevant portions of the Affirmative Action Program to the University Affirmative Action Officer and Director of the Office of Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI).