The Foreign Service Journal, September 2017

48 SEPTEMBER 2017 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL The Concerns Employees’ concerns regarding the assignment restrictions process were plentiful: it was unfair, lacked transparency and was based on ethnic origin or family heritage. Our advocacy to the State Department on the issue began in 2009 and continued in earnest through 2016. The case was framed by input from countless numbers of employees who came to us expressing real frustration, disillu- sionment and anger over the lack of transparency and account- ability in the process. In some cases, the department had prioritized hiring these officers because of their language skills, only to turn around and preclude them from using those valued language skills overseas. While assignment restrictions affect many State department employ- ees of different back- grounds, we accumulated substantial anecdotal evidence that it has dis- proportionately affected employees of AAPI descent. Our data sug- gested assignment restrictions were levied with race as a factor, with disregard for mitigating circumstances and even based on incorrect facts. This seemingly disparate impact of the adjudicative process on AAPI employees was harmful to morale, restricting employ- ees from using their language and cultural expertise to further diplomacy, diverting careers and hindering the full use of the department’s diverse workforce. This also created the per- ception that assignment restriction decisions were based on ethnic origin and ill-defined concerns that AAPI employees may be vulnerable to foreign influence or preference, or that the employees themselves were threats rather than the targets of foreign influence. For example, some employees were prohibited from serving in China, even though they did not have close and continuing contacts there. Meanwhile, AAFAA observed that employees of other races who did possess such connections were not barred. Such disparate treatment fueled suspicions of bias, unconscious or otherwise, against AAPI employees. The lack of oversight and transparency for assignment restrictions exacerbated the problem. Working with the Ameri- can Foreign Service Association, we discovered that the process for restricting employees from assignment in certain countries was not grounded in any regulation or guideline, and thus lacked an adequate appeals process. In other words, employ- ees affected by assignment restrictions had no opportunity to appeal that decision. We also found that the department did not maintain demo- graphic data related to assignment restrictions, even though such information is essential for evaluating the fairness of these programs. Without such records, it is unknown who faces assignment restrictions, for what reasons, and to which ethnic and racial groups they belong. Such information gaps rendered transpar- ency and oversight for these programs impos- sible. The impact of these procedural deficiencies was serious, for both the State Department and AAPI employees. The department recruits many AAPI employees to draw on their abilities in super- hard languages and cultural expertise. Unwarranted assign- ment restrictions deny such employees the opportunity to contribute these abilities, thereby hindering the department’s efforts to utilize its diverse workforce and better use limited resources. Ultimately, these issues damaged the inclusive pro- fessional atmosphere the department seeks to foster and that remains essential to its mission. Constructive Dissent Resonates To remedy the above-mentioned problems, AAFAA worked diligently over the years to advocate for increasing the trans- parency and fairness of assignment restrictions and to bring this matter to the most senior levels of the department in an effort to seek a resolution. We pushed this issue forward despite concerns about possible detriment to our own profes- sional career advancement, but with the greater good of all our colleagues and the State Department in mind. Successive presidents of AAFAA consulted with lawyers and senior leaders in the department to try to work within the system to advocate for change. Mariju Bofill first raised the issue with the Secretary of State in 2009, after consultations In some cases, the department had prioritized hiring these officers because of their language skills, only to turn around and preclude them from using those valued language skills overseas.