The recommendations range from making the department’s rural development programs more accessible to women to appointing a “chief diversity officer” in each of the agency’s state offices.
The $8 million assessment by an outside group was spurred by a promise from the Obama administration to bring “cultural transformation” to a department that has been guilty of some of the government’s most egregious cases of discrimination.
“There is a massive effort within USDA to change the culture,” Vilsack said in an interview. “There is a real commitment from the top down.”