The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2021

68 JULY-AUGUST 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Legal Defense Fund September 2020 FSJ T his board’s tenure saw the greatest necessity and largest use of the Legal Defense Fund in AFSA history. In September 2019—just a few months into this board’s term—a whistle- blower accused President Donald Trump of “using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election.” AFSA imme- diately prepared to support the Foreign Service officers who would be called to testify in the upcoming impeach- ment trial by spearheading a campaign to raise funds to cover their legal costs. In just three months, AFSA raised nearly $750,000 from members and supporters. AFSA assisted 12 members with legal fees, spending roughly $468,000 of those funds raised. Publications/ FSJ ism, diversity and inclusion in the foreign affairs agencies. We con- tinue to seek out and publish diverse voices to facilitate dialogue, to challenge the status quo and to offer perspectives on what can be done to advance diversity and inclusion (see more than a dozen articles in the Sep- tember and October editions). One of the most popular articles of 2020 was Senior FSO Julie Chung’s “The Making of a Real American Diplomat.” Since July 2020, every edition has included at least one article relating to the theme of diversity. Following an extensive search, AFSA signed with a new printer for the FSJ in January 2020. The new relationship got an early boost in February 2020 when AFSA President Eric Rubin, FSJ Editor Shawn Dorman and Managing Editor Kathryn Owens toured Sheridan’s New Hampshire plant, just as the first FSJ printing there came off the presses. Not only have quality and service been enhanced with this change, but printing costs were reduced. In June 2021, The Foreign Service Journal won a Gold EXCELAward in the “Dedicated Issue” category for our September 2020 focus on diversity. In July 2020, the FSJ won two TRENDY awards for publishing excel- lence fromAssociation TRENDS—a silver in the I n the midst of several major crises for the For- eign Service—and the world—AFSA published 20 editions of The Foreign Service Journal , aim- ing to tell the story of the U.S. Foreign Service and serve as a space for discussion of issues of concern to the foreign affairs community. The first impeachment of President Trump was challenging for the Foreign Service. The FSJ covered that highly political event carefully and in depth, remaining nonpartisan while highlight- ing the importance of diplomacy and career pro- fessionals in managing U.S. foreign policy. How the FSJ did this was featured in the November/December 2020 Signature magazine, “Staying Diplomatic: The Foreign Service Journal During Controversial Times.” In response to the declaration of a pandemic in March 2020 and the huge U.S. government undertaking to bring Americans home over the summer of 2020, the FSJ shifted focus to cover the impact of COVID-19 on the Foreign Service. The July-August 2020 FSJ featured articles on public health diplomacy as well as 18 dis- patches from the field on how the Foreign Service worked for the American people during the global crisis. The April 2021 edition asked whether diplomacy can be done virtu- ally, exploring both the limitations and the innovations the pandemic disruption caused. The FSJ continues to put a spotlight on issues of rac- It is for these reasons that the Legal Defense Fund was initially created in 2007. Over the years, the LDF has provided financial assistance to more than two dozen members, enabling them to retain outside attorneys with expertise in a particular area of law. As for the remaining approximately $300,000, AFSA has invested those funds to ensure our members will be protected in the future when new cases arise. Cases that receive LDF financial support have been— and will continue to be—limited to those with legal issues that have far-reaching significance for the rest of the Ser- vice, such as cases involving due process or fundamental fairness. AFSA TERM REPORT