Still Seeking the Ideal

Opening its door now to attract the best and brightest minorities will strengthen the profession for the future. Several obstacles put African-Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans at a disadvantage in the CPA profession. Each group faces unique challenges, yet all face some similar ones, too. These minority groups, targeted for encouragement by the AICPA minority initiatives committee, are disproportionately financially disadvantaged; they are less likely than majority-group members to have adequate preparation, career guidance and role models in the accounting field; and they face continued discrimination. Today's more global marketplace and culturally mixed customer base may mean the time finally is right for the CPA profession to embrace diversity "in fact as well as in ideal." This goal was expressed more than 30 years ago in AICPA President Ralph Kent's inaugural address. Although progress has been made in CPA minority representation since that speech, the accounting profession still lags behind many other fields.  By 1989 there were 2,500 among 400,000 CPAs. The number of Hispanic CPAs also increased dramatically during this period. Despite these gains, African-American representation among CPAs remains below 1%. According to a 1990 report in USA Today, only airline pilots and navigators had a smaller percentage of African-Americans in their ranks. The AICPA's 1997 Report on Minority Accounting Graduates indicates that Hispanics and Native Americans also remain underrepresented among accounting professionals in nonminority-owned public accounting firms. Although Hispanic representation increased in the past two decades, African-American presence in nonminority-owned CPA firms actually declined, from 1.8% to 1.4%, since the AICPA began keeping statistics in 1976 (exhibit 1, at right). This happened despite the fact that the number of African-American and Hispanic accounting graduates rose steadily during the same time period (exhibit 2, page 77). [Exhibits 1-2 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] As minorities move up the ladder, from newly hired graduate status toward partnership levels of a firm, each group experiences different degrees of upward mobility. The percentage of African-Americans and Hispanics at upper levels is markedly low (exhibit 3, page 77): African-Americans constitute 2.6% of hires but only 0.1% of partners; Hispanics constitute 2.7% of hires but only 0.3% of partners.  College and graduate school attendance is a rarer opportunity for these groups because of economic disadvantage, and this exacerbates their low levels of representation among CPAs. Poorer students are less likely to attend the elementary schools, high schools and colleges that provide the skills necessary for succeeding in this demanding profession. Although these statistics indicate some of the obstacles common to minority groups, their experiences have features unique to them. Hispanics, for example, have emigrated from more than 20 countries and constitute the fastest-growing minority group in the United States. While other groups' incomes rose, Hispanic household income declined during the 1990s. This is true even for Hispanics who are not new immigrants. A recent study indicates that language barriers and lack of educational opportunity are the main causes of this decline. Similarly, a substantial portion of the Native American community is entrenched in poverty: 38% of Native Americans live on reservations, where poverty rates and unemployment are high and professional preparation is minimal. …

Field of study: Business