The Foreign Service Journal, November 2011

L E T T E R S N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 1 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 9 fill USAID slots, commensurate with every other group’s percentage of the U.S. work force — why is diversity not occurring? I can only think of two rea- sons: Either the qualified want to work elsewhere, or the agency is not giving the qualified a fair shot because of race and other ethnic-related factors. In the former case, it seems there isn’t much more to be usefully done; otherwise, diversity imbalances would have disappeared long ago. If the latter is the case, is Mr. Zamora’s article sug- gesting that discrimination is trumping diversity at the agency? If so, why does he not come out and say it? Why does he not suggest ways to make USAID’s hiring/promotion system more ethnic /race-neutral? If institutional discrimination is no longer a factor, maybeMr. Zamora’s so- lution is to reintroduce it in favor of Hispanics and other groups. Does he really believe that installing some di- versity-producing employment reform would “more strongly project our val- ues to the world and make us more credible as we help other countries adopt democratic principles”? For what it’s worth, I’ve always thought it injurious that American val- ues should have color or ethnic content. I believe the hiring process should be free of it — let the chips fall where they may. I don’t believe that solving Amer- ica’s credibility problems abroad de- pends one whit on setting up a diversity regimen at USAID or anywhere else. Mr. Zamora denies he wants to set up quotas, and calls instead for dis- mantling the “barriers to equal oppor- tunity.” I wish he had identified a few of these barriers at USAID. Had he done so, I might have agreed with him. Richard W. Hoover FSO, retired Front Royal, Va.