The Foreign Service Journal, May 2013

18 MAY 2013 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL A LONGSTANDING COMMITMENT FOCUS DIVERSITYWITHIN THE FOREIGN SERVICE Editor’s Introduction BY STEVEN ALAN HONL EY T his issue of The Foreign Service Journal spotlights a cause that the American Foreign Service Association has long championed: the promotion of diversity within the Foreign Service, both in terms of its membership and as an institution representing the United States across the globe. While we have explored that topic in various ways over the years, this is the first time we have done so in a concentrated fashion. Regrettably, diversity was not a major concern for AFSA’s founders in 1924, nor for several decades thereafter—much less a goal to be actively pursued. But by the 1960s, even a cursory examina- tion of the pages of The Foreign Service Journal reveals a growing consciousness among the association’s leaders, andmembership, that the Foreign Service did not truly reflect the shifting demo- graphics, and values, of the society it represented abroad. That is one of the reasons why AFSA was a key proponent of the Foreign Service Act of 1980, which declared that “members of the Foreign Service should be representative of the American people.” By the 1990s, AFSA had formally recognized theThursday Luncheon Group, Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agen- cies, and several other organizations as affinity groups. It has also consistently lobbied the Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development and other foreign affairs agencies to set upmechanisms through which to recruit qualified women and minorities for the Foreign Service, and eliminate barriers affecting assignments and promotions to encourage them to stay. In conjunction with AFSA’s yearlong celebration of its 75th anniversary, the May 1999 issue of The Foreign Service Journal was a special commemorative edition devoted entirely to that milestone. As you can see on this page, its cover vividly encapsulates a uni- fying theme of that issue: the transformation of the modern Foreign Service over the same period, going back to the May 1924 passage of the Rogers Act. In her congratulatory letter to AFSA, published in that issue, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright declared: “The Foreign Service of today is very different from that of 1924. Women, previ- ously relegated largely to supporting roles and denied the option to combine family and career, are an ever-increasing component of the Service. We also now recognize the importance of a Foreign Service which truly reflects the diversity of America, and we will continue our concerted efforts to attract the best and brightest from across the entire spectrumof American society.” Is the Glass Half-Full or Half-Empty? We have indeedmade real progress toward that goal, par- ticularly whenmeasured against the situation in 1980, when the current Foreign Service Act was passed. AFSA President Susan R. Johnson observed in her December 2012 President’s Views column, “Building a Truly Diverse, Professional Foreign Service,” that “members of the Foreign Service [then] were overwhelmingly The May 1999 FSJ.