In a scathing letter to CDC Director Robert Redfield, a group of over 1,200 CDC employees called for ‘7 Acts of Change’ to address what the group considers to be acts of ‘workplace racism and discrimination’ by the federal agency.

These ‘7 acts of change’ are as follows:

  1. Declare racism a public health crisis in the United States
  2. Increase Black representation among senior leadership and diversify the talent pipeline for future leaders
  3. Acknowledge and take immediate, direct action to address toxic culture of exclusion and racial discrimination
  4. Dismantle the visible and invisible barriers to career advancement for Black employees
  5. Move from talk to action: implement policy changes that hold our leaders and colleagues accountable for measurable change
  6. Make implicit bias training and cultural sensitivity education mandatory for all staff
  7. Resolve pending EEO cases of racial discrimination

From what I gather, the requests are fairly clear. At this point, we can only wait to see whether there will be a response and what that response will be.

References:

  1. CDC Employees Call Out Agency’s ‘Toxic Culture Of Racial Aggressions’. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/07/13/889769017/cdc-employees-call-out-agencys-toxic-culture-of-racial-aggression. Last accessed: 7/14/2020.
  2. CDC Employee Letter to Address Workplace Racism and Discrimination. https://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html?id=6986780-Cdc. Last accessed: 7/14/2020.

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