The Foreign Service Journal, December 2022

36 DECEMBER 2022 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL William R. Rivkin Award for Constructive Dissent by a Mid-Level Foreign Service Officer Jennifer Davis Ensuring Due Process and Support for Colleagues W hile serving as consul general in Istanbul from 2016 to 2019, Jennifer Davis faced a particularly difficult period in the U.S.-Turkish bilateral relationship. Ms. Davis and her team were challenged by terror- ist attacks that killed and injured U.S. citizens, the ordered depar- ture of family members, terrorist threats against Ms. Davis herself, a constant stream of disinforma- tion frommalign actors about the U.S. mission’s activities, and the politically motivated arrest of three of the mission’s longest- serving locally employed (LE) staff. In 2018, against this backdrop and at the request of the chargé d’affaires, Ms. Davis conducted a media interview with a Turkish journalist who had written a story containing inaccurate information about the U.S. strategy to obtain the release of the wrongfully arrested LE staff. During the interview, she explained the U.S. position regarding the LE staff. Jennifer Davis. Jennifer Davis poses with U.S. Consulate Istanbul staff in 2019 in the peace garden they planted for her as a sign of their gratitude for her efforts to protect them and wrongfully detained colleagues. Two years later, after Ms. Davis had returned toWashington, D.C., she learned she was the subject of a disciplinary action related to that media interview, but was given no information about why she was under investigation by Diplomatic Security (DS). The State Department then decided her case; she was only told she could “appeal the decision.” It was not until three years after the media interview that Ms. Davis was afforded an understanding of DS’ concerns and allowed to submit evidence in an appeals process. To her dismay, informa- tion regarding her case was leaked to the press, causing additional injury. Following her appeal, DS’ decision was reversed. Throughout the ordeal, Ms. Davis conducted herself with grace and courage. At every stage, she told the truth—that she gave the interview in Istanbul to protect her staff, which was her paramount duty, and that she did so entirely in keeping with State Department policy. “As an attorney prior to being a diplomat, I was concerned that some of the practices of our investigations and discipline system lacked certain basic elements of due process protections—for example, that an investigation is conducted in a timely manner so memories do not fade,” Ms. Davis tells the FSJ . “Because details of my case were leaked, I became a public face for what far toomany diplomats were also encountering. The leak was perhaps the most hurtful part of it, but it gave me the opportu- nity to hear from and provide support to others, particularly senior women, facing similar challenges.” In 2021 Ms. Davis wrote a dissent letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and a set of reformproposals for Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources BrianMcKeon. With con- tributions from senior officials, former and current diplomats, and