INS Admits Lack of Diversity in Top Jobs : Discrimination: Agency announces reform plan, conceding that blacks and Latinos are underrepresented in supervisory positions. Critics call the move a superficial reaction to class-action lawsuit.

Acknowledging an underrepresentation of racial minorities at supervisory and management levels, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service unveiled a series of steps Friday designed to bolster minority presence nationwide and combat alleged discrimination in the workplace.

The INS, in a statement released in Washington, stopped short of conceding the existence of racial bias--an allegation made by 19 African-American agents based in Los Angeles who are pursuing a class-action complaint.

However, the agency said an internal investigation has concluded that African-Americans and other minorities are underrepresented in the agency’s upper levels. The task force inquiry reviewed statistics and interviewed INS employees at 24 sites during a nine-week period, the agency said.

INS figures show that African-Americans, who hold more than 11% of the 16,500 full-time INS jobs, have fewer than 6% of the best-paying, mostly supervisory and management positions. Latinos, who represent slightly more than 25% of the full-time work force, occupy about 10% of the high-level slots.

In an effort to address such disparities, the INS said it would take a number of actions, including the creation of a new affirmative action plan, a targeted recruitment effort and a strengthening of the agency’s equal employment opportunity process.

Acting INS Commissioner Chris Sale, who launched the in-house investigation, called the task force report a valuable first step toward improvement. In response to the bias charges, the acting commissioner imposed a freeze last month on filling open INS management slots.

The promised reforms come at a time when the INS is under increasing pressure to diversify an organization that, like the FBI and other federal agencies, has long been dominated by white males. Earlier this year, the FBI finalized a settlement with African-American agents who alleged they had been unfairly denied promotions and otherwise subjected to discrimination.

The African-American agents who have filed the class-action complaint against the INS are seeking improved access to management ranks and broad reform of INS hiring, training, evaluation and promotion policies. Their action was a catalyst for the task force investigation.

David L. Ross, a Los Angeles attorney who represents the 19 agents, said the INS task force report and the promised reforms amounted to a superficial response. “The INS is trying to placate the political forces,” said Ross.

U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), who has pressured the INS to open up its ranks to African-Americans, said that the report demonstrated that “the ‘old boys’ network is alive and well at INS, where appointments to senior positions largely go to white men.”

Saying that the situation is intolerable, Conyers, chairman of the House Committee on Government Operations, said he expressed his concern this week to Atty. Gen. Janet Reno, who heads the Justice Department, the parent body of the INS.