Social Justice Activism

trainings, new web pages, and potential revisions to staff manuals and handbooks. Subagencies
began reviewing their existing training in 2012 and in their April 9, 2012
reports to the USDA EJ steering committee, sub-agencies were asked to describe their
goals for enhanced EJ training. This internal, educational undertaking appears to be
new in the 2012 Strategic Plan. The Strategic Plan targets Responsible Officials,
meaning office and program managers, for the trainings, as well as the SES-level points
of contact required by the Secretary's message. [education, study, compliance and
enforcement]
The EJ Strategy tasked each sub-agency with developing its own EJ strategy document
by spring 2012, although as of May 2012 the sub-agencies were still in an evaluation
stage and had not issued final documents. For many sub-agencies, the 2012 process
has been their first focused assessment of their EJ impact and opportunities. Going
forward, sub-agencies will submit twice-yearly reports to NRE about their
implementation of the Strategic Plan's goals; the first of these was due April 9, 2012,
and as of May 2012, the USDA's EJ steering committee was evaluating the first reports.
Establishment of Performance Metrics
As part of its effort to ensure that EJ communities have the opportunity to participate in
USDA programs, the Strategic Plan requires each sub-agency to set measurements
through which it can track increased EJ community participation in USDA technical and
financial assistance programs. This must be done by April 15, 2012. As of late April
2012, the sub-agencies were still in the process of describing a baseline of current
activities and determining the metrics to evaluate improvement, such as staff time, grant
funding or increased programming. The ultimate metrics are likely to be somewhat
subjective, and must be flexible given the broad range of undertakings by the subagencies.
Also related to evaluation, the Strategic Plan requires the sub-agencies to
determine an effective methodology with which they can evaluate whether USDA
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