E-Mail This Article to a Friend AFFIRMATIVE INACTION Stealth hearings BY ADAM REILLY

If you haven’t been thinking about Mitt Romney’s diversity council lately, that might be because it hasn’t been in the news. In June 2003 — on Bunker Hill Day — Romney signed an executive order that dismantled the Office of Affirmative Action, created a new Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity, and eliminated dozens of guidelines aimed at bolstering the hiring of women, minorities, and disabled persons. When Romney’s move finally came to light two months later, the ensuing furor forced the governor to backtrack. He created a new 15-member task force (full name: the Governor’s Diversity and Equal Opportunity Advisory Council) to review which of the old affirmative-action guidelines should be kept and which should be scrapped. And he promised to postpone any changes until the council issued its recommendations.

That time may be drawing near. On Tuesday, Romney’s council held the first of three public forums in Springfield. Two more forums are scheduled next week: one in Boston (on May 24, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., in the State House’s Gardner Auditorium), the other in Worcester (on May 26, from 1 to 5 p.m., at the Worcester State College student center).

Activists who criticized Romney’s initial gambit say there’s just one problem: nobody knows these forums are taking place. You won’t see fliers publicizing them around the city. And press coverage has been nonexistent.

Horace Small of the Union of Minority Neighborhoods — who learned about the meetings thanks to a leak from the diversity council — thinks that’s by design. "That’s how the Romney machine works — they operate in stealth," Small says. "They’ve planned three hearings, all of them in the daytime, knowing full well that if people really wanted to testify or have some type of input, they would need to have night meetings so working people could come and bring their families and speak on the record."

Romney spokesperson Nicole St. Peter sees the situation differently. "The governor said at the very beginning that he would like to have this executive order for public comment, and he’s making every effort to ensure that as many people who’d like to comment can do so," she says. Information on the forums is available on the Mass.gov Web site, she adds, and was distributed to the calendar sections of newspapers in Boston, Springfield, and Worcester.

And the forums’ daytime scheduling? St. Peter terms it "standard practice" and insists persons who can’t make it can still participate in the process. "We invite anyone who has comments to write in to the governor’s office, and we’d be happy to take those under advisement," she says.

For those who think Romney signed his original executive order on a Suffolk County holiday to avoid scrutiny, these assurances will provide minimal comfort. "Romney’s won this round, essentially," Small says. "There’s nothing that we can do at this point to stop what’s going on. What we can do is make their lives miserable with phone calls, faxes, all kinds stuff. We’re going to coordinate that. And we want to get together to figure out collectively what the response needs to be."