The Foreign Service Journal, September 2020

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 2020 31 Service, you’ll glide smoothly to promotion. Fail to meet the stan- dards, and you will be low ranked and eventually removed. Make Diversity and Inclusion Count State Department leadership says diversity and inclusion are important, but we know that no one is judged on their ability to help underrepresented officers improve their performance or secure important assignments. No one gets promoted because they burnished the quality of decision-making by expanding the diversity of viewpoints and backgrounds brought to the table. And no one is held back because their bureau, embassy, office or sec- tion lacks inclusiveness. As the GAO report made clear, you can walk into meetings at State daily and know instantly that everyone who should be there isn’t. The homogeneity of race and gender around the table is the lived experience of those GAO charts. And the evidence is so stark that everyone notices, those who are underrepresented and those who are not. We have solvable problems. Where the department needs help is in holding itself accountable. Without account- ability for those who select, assign and promote employees, it will continue to be easy and acceptable to overlook, leave out and avoid hiring both women and minority officers. To finally get this right in the Foreign and Civil Service, every promotion, every job prospect and every assignment must depend, in part, on the employee’s ability to ensure inclusion and development of underrepresented talent. Just as I knewmy ability to communicate in Arabic would help my supervisor advocate for my next promotion, today’s diplomats must know that their men- toring of underrepresented officers, for example, will strengthen their case for promotion. If you want the workforce to care, make it clear that embracing inclusion counts. Fixing Responsibility Unfortunately, shaping the department’s diversity and inclu- sion performance sits in too many places, including the Director General’s office and individual bureaus. An empowered Direc- tor General could make a difference. But responsibility for increasing diversity is so diffuse that everyone gets to throw up their hands and say, “Not me!” No one senior official has the responsibility or authority to focus on this foundational issue. Or to hold others to account. We know the department programs that are supposed to help level the playing field for underrepresented minorities, and we also know they often falter under the burden of being “affirmative action” programs. When I joined the Foreign Service, my A-100 class of 52 had two Black people and 13 women. I remember attending a happy hour as a new FSO and overhearing a group of guys derisively speculating on which woman had used the Mustang program to get in because they “couldn’t pass the test.” The Mustang program, a process whereby experienced and qualified Civil Servants transfer into the Foreign Service as specialists, is a great program that ben- efits State by bringing experienced officers into the Service. But the stain of “special program,” unfair as it is, harms our colleagues and deprives us of badly needed expertise. No one wants to undermine the professional Foreign Ser- vice by eliminating a healthy ladder to senior positions for any FSO, but there is no incentive for departmentwide, bureau- wide or individual efforts to improve representation. Favors are paid. Favorites are rewarded. The process is opaque. The saying in the Civil Service is “women get the training; men get the jobs.” Hurdles for experienced and capable Civil Service employ- ees to transfer to the Foreign Service are unnecessarily high, as well. This is important because the Civil Service has tradition- ally been more diverse than the Foreign Service. Strong candi- dates with experience in foreign affairs and already working at State who are interested in the Foreign Service could help build diversity. They can be quickly put to work because they come with security clearances and experience in the department. ALEXANDRABOWMAN