Affirmative Action Program

Arizona State University is committed to equal opportunity and affirmative action in all aspects of employment for qualified minorities, women, individuals with disabilities, and protected veterans. As a federal contractor, ASU is required to identify job groups (similarly situated job classes that are linked by a common purpose, skill set, or education or certification requirement) where women and minorities are “underutilized,” which is defined by law as having fewer women or minorities in a job group than is reasonably expected based on their availability in the labor market. For underutilized jobs, ASU is required to establish placement goals for those job groups; these placement goals serve as a target – not quotas or preferences – that ASU must make good-faith efforts to achieve broader representation in job groups where there is underutilization. Good faith efforts are appropriate steps to ensure that persons of an underutilized group, whether women or minorities or both, as well as all others, have equal access to participate in the selection process. Such efforts generally take place during the recruitment process and are designed to attract a diversity of qualified candidates into the applicant pool and remove barriers in the selection process that may affect equal employment opportunities. Good-faith efforts to employ and advance protected veterans and persons with disabilities are also required.

ASU's Affirmative Action Program is an important tool used to advance the work of ASU’s charter and meet Federal Equal Employment Opportunity regulations. The program also acts as an audit tool to help identify areas of underutilization for these groups.

Federal contractors, like ASU, are legally required to continue to comply with affirmative action program obligations under the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP). ASU remains committed under Equal Opportunity Policy to provide equal employment opportunity without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or genetic information.

The University usually determines placement goals for gender and minority status based on the wider availability pool percentage for each job category and national benchmarks established by the OFFCP which has a national benchmark goal for federal contractors, including ASU, to attain 7% representation of individuals with disabilities in the workforce. As of March 31, 2024, OFCCP has set a national benchmark goal for every federal contractor to attain 5.2% representation of protected veterans in the workforce.