The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2021

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY-AUGUST 2021 25 others in hiring, promotions or assignments can leave those not preferred aggrieved. How, they ask, can personnel actions based on group characteristics accord with merit principles? Tension between affirmative action and merit principles erupted in the 1990s, when budget and personnel cuts com- bined with rising numbers of political appointees to produce a shrinking Service with dwindling opportunities for promotion. In 1987, the Foreign Service numbered about 9,400 officers and specialists. By 1992 that number had fallen to 8,000, and by 1997 to around 7,000. Members of the Service, especially midrank officers, had reason to fear for their futures. These pressures made changing the demographic composi- tion of the Service more difficult and resistance to change more intense. When several officers complained in the pages of the Journal about discrimination against white males, the Thursday Luncheon Group responded in a forceful August 1994 letter: Only 268 of nearly 4,000 officers are black, “fewer than 15 blacks have entered the Foreign Service since 1991,” white officers could not be threatened by these numbers, and “diversity and excellence are not mutually exclusive.” A 1989 report by the General Accounting Office (now the Government Accountability Office) found the State Department short of EEOC targets for minorities and women in the federal workforce. In response, the department funded two academic fellowship programs, named for Career Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Congressman Charles Rangel, that provide financial support, mentor- ing, professional development and assistance for (primarily) minority-background students interested in a Foreign Service career. USAID launched a similar program, the Payne Fellowships, in 2012. To improve diversity in the candidate pool, the State Department sent diplomats in residence—recruiters—to historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and to Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs) where a large proportion of the student body has a Latino background. After the turn of the century, the department modified its Foreign Service entry Tension between affirmative action and merit principles erupted in the 1990s. procedures in ways that increased chances for minority candi- dates to reach the oral assessment. These efforts failed to produce the hoped-for results (see chart). Foreign Service hiring surged in 2001-2004 and again in 2009-2012, but minority hiring did not. Black officers were a smaller percentage of the officer corps in 2015 than in 1987. Hispanic and Asian American officers fared better, and women made significant gains. During the recent hiring freeze (Jan. 23, 2017, to May 15, 2018), the department under congressional pressure brought on board about 60 Pickering and Rangel fellows, slightly increas- ing the share of minorities at the entry level. At the senior level, however, minorities fared poorly. Ambassador (ret.) Michael McKinley wrote in The Atlanti c that “the most visible high-ran k- ing Hispanic, African American, South Asian and female career officers were fired, pushed out or chose to leave during the first year of the Trump administration.” President Donald Trump appointed, and the Senate confirmed, 189 career and noncareer ambassadors: only five were Black. SOURCES:GAO,DEPARTMENTOFSTATE. 1 987 FSO 5,200 22 6 4 2 No data All FS 9,400 24 5 3 2 <0.5 2 005 FSO 6,300 37 5 5 No data 6 All FS 10,900 34 6 6 5 2 2 010 FSO 7,500 39 5 4 No data 7 All FS 12,700 35 6 6 6 3 2 015 FSO 8,300 40 5 6 7 6 All FS 13,500 35 7 7 6 4 2 020 FSO 8,000 42 6 7 7 6 All FS 13,700 37 8 8 7 7 African Year Total Women American Hispanic Asian (%) Other (%) (%) (%) (%) Foreign Service by Gender, Race and Ethnicity (round numbers)