On Diversity, Bloomberg Remains Silent; New York Times, 6/30/10

David Chen, New York Times; On Diversity, Bloomberg Remains Silent:

"The Times reported on Monday night that at the top levels of the Bloomberg administration, by several measures, more than 70 percent of the senior officials are white, even though the city’s non-Hispanic white population is 35 percent.

Ever since, many people have weighed in, both to defend the mayor and to criticize his hiring practices. The City Council is weighing oversight hearings because of what some members consider Mr. Bloomberg’s poor record in appointing minorities.

More than 230 people so far have posted comments on the Times’s Web site, engaging in a lively and, for the most part, civil debate. Many others have sent e-mail messages to reporters for The Times with messages that have ranged from institutional praise to racial epithets.

So, after all that, how does Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who declined to be interviewed for the original article as well a follow-up one, feel about the matter?

He isn’t saying yet.

A reporter for The Times who on Wednesday attended Mr. Bloomberg’s first public event since the article was published was not selected by the mayor to ask a question, even though the reporter was sitting in the center of the front row and even though the mayor’s staff knew that diversity would be the topic."

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/on-diversity-bloomberg-remains-silent/?scp=3&sq=diversity&st=cse