A new mentorship program in the federal court system aims to create a “psychologically safe space” for “minoritized staff,” according to Fox News.
The two-year mentorship program within the Probation and Pretrial Services System (PPSS) will allow self-identified minority employees to participate in an effort to improve retention, according to a memo obtained by Fox. The memo lists police brutality and racial tensions in the U.S. following the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery as an impetus for the program in the memo.
The Assistance Inclusion Diversity Equity (AIDE) program was created after the 2020 Federal Judiciary Strategic Plan recommended new mentorship programs and the strengthening of “the judiciary’s commitment to workforce diversity, equity, and inclusion by expanding diversity program recruitment.” (RELATED: Over Half Of America’s Top Medical Schools Now Teach Critical Race Theory)
The federal court system is working to establish a mentorship program aimed at creating a “psychologically safe space” for “minoritized staff” within its probation and pretrial offices, according to a memo obtained by @FoxNews https://t.co/qoRlWfxV2T
— Patrick Hauf (@PatrickHauf) November 30, 2022
“This looks to me a violation of not only civil rights but the judicial cannon,” Giancarlo Canaparo, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told Fox. “It parts them into arbitrary classification. It assumes mentors will have beneficiary advice for employees solely based on the shared identity of their group.”
The memo doesn’t state which minority groups are welcome in the mentorship program but clarifies that one doesn’t need to be racial minority, noting that sexual and religious minorities and other underrepresented groups are included.
“The employees may fall into any number of categories defined very broadly — race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability, or more broadly, a single father, the sole female on a management team or a young staff member, for example,” a spokesman for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts told Fox. “The idea is to provide mentors that the employees relate to as they navigate the early phases of their careers or transition to new roles or responsibilities. The goal is to improve recruitment and retention of excellent pretrial and probation staff.”
The PPSS works on probation cases in all 94 U.S. district courts, and two of the 13 district courts in the U.S. have already started the mentorship program, according to Fox.
The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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