Diversity Thursday

Some developments on the "Diversity Statement" front ... or "DEI Statement" or "DEIA Statement" or whatever they are calling it this week.

How do you connect the U.S. Naval Academy to the University of South Carolina, Florida, VMI, and the University of North Carolina System? 

Let's check in where the other school's are, and then we'll finish up what is happening at our Navy's undergrad institution.

Thanks to John Sailer we have a look behind the curtain at the not so innocent "Diversity Statements" that so many colleges are making people fill out when applying for a teaching or tenure track position. Sure, they may tell you that there is no correct answer ... but ...   

The rubrics punish candidates who espouse race neutrality.

They dictate a low score for anyone who states an “intention to ignore the varying backgrounds of their students and ‘treat everyone the same.’” pic.twitter.com/TuQD31NAWG

— John Sailer (@JohnDSailer) March 1, 2023

Oh, how about those sectarian "Affinity Groups" our Navy is so in love with?

The rubrics likewise punish candidates for failing to embrace controversial DEI practices.

They dictate a low score to candidates who object to the practice of racially-segregated "affinity groups." pic.twitter.com/fk4LVog4ku

— John Sailer (@JohnDSailer) March 1, 2023

As Sailer points out, this is being pushed via the federal government grant system - so you're paying for it to the tune of a quarter billion dollars.

In Florida, Governor DeSantis is going right after that part of issue - paying for it. As we've covered on Thursdays for almost two decades, the costs are huge.

“As the Executive Office of the Governor prepares policy and budget proposals ahead of the 2023 Legislative Session, it is important that we have a full understanding of the operational expenses of state institutions,” Spencer wrote in the memo.

The memo said colleges and universities are required to “provide a comprehensive list of all staff, programs and campus activities related to diversity, equity and inclusion and critical race theory.”

In addition, they are directed to detail “costs associated with the administration of each program or activity,” including a description of the activities, paid positions and how much of the money is provided by the state.

...and at one public university - the first of hopefully many moves was made;

New College of Florida's Board of Trustees abolished the office handling diversity, equity and inclusion programs during a contentious and emotional meeting Tuesday ... only recently was the faculty handbook revised so that prospective hires are asked to submit a statement in their job application outlining how they will promote diversity.

Oh, did they? Well, so much for that.  

Under the new regulation, DEI will be defined to include "any effort to manipulate or otherwise influence the composition of the faculty or student body with reference to race, sex, color, or ethnicity."

The definition of DEI also would include: "Any effort to promote as the official position of the administration, the college, or any administrative unit thereof, a particular, widely contested opinion referencing unconscious or implicit bias, cultural appropriation, allyship, transgender ideology, microaggressions, group marginalization, anti-racism, systemic oppression, social justice, intersectionality, neo-pronouns, heteronormativity, disparate impact, gender theory, racial or sexual privilege, or any related formulation of these concepts."

I do love the gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes due to the Greatest Governor in the USA;

If DeSantis gets his way—and he likely will—diversity, equity and inclusion efforts will be eliminated from every public college and university in Florida. https://t.co/JEvIHzhANa

— VICE News (@VICENews) March 1, 2023

The Free State of Florida leads the way!

Heading up to the Mid-Atlantic, there is a quasi-civil war going on at VMI. The weapon of choice is one the left has used for a long time - money. Things got so bad, the mass of alumni are rising up;

The Virginia Military Institute continues to face intense pushback from an alumni group that opposes the military school’s ongoing diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

The activists in recent months upped their efforts by seeking to redirect the institute’s alumni fundraising in an effort to persuade campus leaders to pull back on critical race theory policies and programs.

“The only way you can influence them is by hurting their pocketbook,” alumnus Gene Rice told The College Fix in an interview.

In a Jan. 23 letter to their fellow “Brother Rats of the great VMI Class of ’74,” concerned alumni requested that for their 50th reunion class gift, they do not donate to VMI Alumni Agencies but instead to the Cadet Foundation.

“All contributions directed to the Cadet Foundation would be used to fund programs and projects that directly benefit cadets but not those that would impose divisive changes derived from political agendas and policies on the Corps, Ratline and Honor System,” the letter stated.

“…We desire to take a stand and save what is left of the VMI experience,” the letter added. “… DO NOT fund programs and policies that force changes on the Corps, Ratline, and Honor system, resulting from political agendas and ideologies such as CRT, a divisive DEI Program, and others.”

The donation disruption effort is the latest in an ongoing campaign by a large and vocal company of alumni, cadets, parents and friends of VMI calling for the discontinuation of DEI programs at the school.

Last week there is an even stronger pushback in the University of North Carolina System - which is a lot more than just Chapel Hill;

The University of North Carolina (UNC) System announced plans to ditch diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as well as compelled speech requirements from hiring decisions following a board of governors meeting on Thursday.

The System, which includes 17 public universities serving nearly a quarter of a million students, will no longer “solicit nor require an employee or applicant for academic admission or employment to affirmatively ascribe to or opine about beliefs, affiliations, ideals, or principles regarding matters of contemporary political debate or social action as a condition to admission, employment, or professional advancement,” the resolution reads.

The statement added that hiring practices will further prohibit “statements of commitment to particular views on matters of contemporary political debate or social action contained on applications or qualifications for admission or employment included as criteria for analysis of an employee’s career progression.”

How does this circle back to the U.S. Naval Academy? 

Well, there are a lot of things going on in the background there - a few we've covered here before - and others involving hiring which are off the hook bad that are not my place to publish ... but notice all the concern about the "Diversity Statements" - especially the South Carolina example above? Remember how that shows how they is operationalized.

"Diversity Statements" are already thick in the hiring decisions at Annapolis.

If you want to teach Midshipmen - depending on your academic area of expertise - you will be required to;

"... submit a ... diversity statement" or send "A diversity statement that gives applicant’s experience with or commitment to diversity in service, research and/or teaching."

At the link above you can hunt around all the job openings, but in my brief review I saw a pattern ... a little hint of an internal civil war. Inconsistency.

If you are interested in teaching or applying to an tenure track position in English, Russian/Eastern European History, Mechanical Engineering, Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, you may get variations of the above such as;

(provide) A description of the candidate’s experiences and approach to working with students from diverse backgrounds. For more information on the range of student backgrounds our faculty interact with daily, please see the USNA 2025 Class Portrait (https://www.usna.edu/Admissions/Apply/Class-Portrait.php)

They are already well trenched even in some of the hard sciences and Rickoverian majors - which though not calling them "diversity statement" even Aerospace Engineering is asking for one.

In the teaching or research statements as appropriate, candidates should describe their experiences and approach to working with students from diverse backgrounds, as doing so is integral to success as an educator at USNA. 

Sailing Instructors, Wrestling Coaches,  and those teaching Math will have to read "diversity" a few times in the job posting, but no statement required. You will have to suffer through this;

Applicants are encouraged to submit a Demographic Information on Applicants Form to the Academy's Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion by emailing the form to Renee Sharps at rsharps@usna.edu.  Your responses are optional and will not be shared with the search committee or anyone else involved in the selection process for this position.

I guess the kind would say this is just to feed the metrics that need reporting ... but really ... do you really believe that statement? "Optional" ... "not shared" ... ummm. Sure. 

If you don't know where to start in writing your Woke Shahada, universities are nice enough to provide a bevy of examples of correct thinking and goodthink.

Will the USNA alumni grow the spine of the VMI alumni? We'll see.

There is an action point here, and Governor DeSantis is showing the way. At some point, a (R) will be in charge of the Executive Branch and will be Commander in Chief.

All (R) looking to have that job need to be asked at some point if they are willing to go after the diversity industry in the military service academies as Florida has at its public institutions?

If not, they really don't know what time it is and (R) inclined voters should be encouraged to look elsewhere for someone who does. 

Diversity Thursdsay

Do I ever tire of DivThu? Yes, every Thursday I tire of it ... but we've been at it so long, why not?

Do I get tired of the topic? Well, sure. Heck, almost 13-years ago I tired of seeing higher education organizations - always claiming poverty - spending millions of dollars a year, especially at the service academies, doing nothing but promoting the division of young men and woman on the basis of race and ethnicity.

...but ... especially in the last few years, there has been a wonderfully blossoming of the understanding of this cancer in higher education that bleeds out in to the general culture.

That glimmer of hope and the fact that we seem to be getting traction is, really, why I keep going here.

To really start to turn to a 21st Century construct of race relations - something that is becoming more and more needed as we have many more mixed race citizens - we need leaders. Serious leaders with a record of success is the one thing that has been missing. Leaders who understand how to use power and influence to effect change through access to the levers of power. That is how the diversity industry got where they are today, and that is the only way you are going to excise them from their bastions.

We now have open advocates in the House of Representatives and the Senate ... but not yet the majority. They are growing in number and influence. What was once only whispered is now openly called out.

The Supreme Court - even at its slow pace - is really ahead of everyone in this area, as I believe we will see further proof soon with the upcoming ruling against Harvard and UNC almost a decade in the making.

To really take action to the next level towards a better, more unified nation, we need help in the Executive Branch. 

It won't take much, but it does take vision and courage. 

What do I mean by "much?" Simple. The best things usually are simple. We just need a leader willing to say, "No." Refusing to let there be any more discrimination and division based in immutable characteristics.

To do the right thing;

Governor Ron DeSantis can ask Florida public universities for information on their spending on critical race theory and “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” a federal judge ruled recently.

...

The requested data includes detailing how the campus programs involve CRT and DEI and the number of employees allocated to them, as previously reported by The Fix.

Follow. The. Money.

If you didn't already, look at the "13-years" link above. It was millions of dollars at USNA alone then, it has to be much more now. I would offer that those asking for metrics need to be careful, as was shown recently, the diversity industry will try to hide what they are doing. 

You have to look not just at the full time and part time nomenklatura, you need to look at "targeted recruiting," travel, and hosting expenses for racialist speakers, panels, and affinity group activities. That is where you are going to find the real expenditure of money. 

You also need to interview faculty under Chatham House rules. From PhD students to professors at civilian and military schools of higher education, I continue to almost daily get reports - most on background not for attribution or sharing - on what is going on. They are in some combination horrified at what is being done, disgusted with what they are participated in, and terrified that they will be seen as not "onboard" with this cult of division.

It's a racket - and a counterproductive one at that. Forget the morally reprehensible insistence that people self-segregate based on self-identified sectarian divisions, even ignore preferential treatment or punishment based on same ... no ... just look at the fact that as what Rod Dreher points out,  what even the well-meaning are doing is counterproductive;

Over the years, social scientists who have conducted careful reviews of the evidence base for diversity trainings have frequently come to discouraging conclusions. Though diversity trainings have been around in one form or another since at least the 1960s, few of them are ever subjected to rigorous evaluation, and those that are mostly appear to have little or no positive long-term effects. The lack of evidence is “disappointing,” wrote Elizabeth Levy Paluck of Princeton and her co-authors in a 2021 Annual Review of Psychology article, “considering the frequency with which calls for diversity training emerge in the wake of widely publicized instances of discriminatory conduct.”

Dr. Paluck’s team found just two large experimental studies in the previous decade that attempted to evaluate the effects of diversity trainings and met basic quality benchmarks. Other researchers have been similarly unimpressed. “We have been speaking to employers about this research for more than a decade,” wrote the sociologists Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev in 2018, “with the message that diversity training is likely the most expensive, and least effective, diversity program around.” (To be fair, not all of these critiques apply as sharply to voluntary diversity trainings.)

If diversity trainings have no impact whatsoever, that would mean that perhaps billions of dollars are being wasted annually in the United States on these efforts. But there’s a darker possibility: Some diversity initiatives might actually worsen the D.E.I. climates of the organizations that pay for them.

That’s partly because any psychological intervention may turn out to do more harm than good. The late psychologist Scott Lilienfeld made this point in an influential 2007 article where he argued that certain interventions — including ones geared at fighting youth substance use, youth delinquency and PTSD — likely fell into that category. In the case of D.E.I., Dr. Dobbin and Dr. Kalev warn that diversity trainings that are mandatory, or that threaten dominant groups’ sense of belonging or make them feel blamed, may elicit negative backlash or exacerbate pre-existing biases.

Many popular contemporary D.E.I. approaches meet these criteria. They often seem geared more toward sparking a revolutionary re-understanding of race relations than solving organizations’ specific problems. And they often blame white people — or their culture — for harming people of color. For example, the activist Tema Okun’s work cites concepts like “objectivity” and “worship of the written word” as characteristics of “white supremacy culture.” Robin DiAngelo’s “white fragility” trainings are intentionally designed to make white participants uncomfortable. And microaggression trainings are based on an area of academic literature that claims, without quality evidence, that common utterances like “America is a melting pot” harm the mental health of people of color. Many of these trainings run counter to the views of most Americans — of any color — on race and equality. And they’re generating exactly the sort of backlash that research predicts.

If you think the worse of what we are seeing in academia isn't at the US Naval Academy, West Point, USAFA, or USCGA - well then you either have not been a loyal reader of DivThu for the last 18-years or so, or you live in willful disbelief.

If you don't think it isn't elbow-deep in to the military ... well ... I'm not sure how far it will take to get you our of your denial.

Again, we will have to wait for the right chief executive, but there is no reason the ground cannot be prepared by Congress.

If Republican really care to act instead of signal, then there are simple things to do. Like Governor DeSantis has done in Florida, they can effect change at our service academies. They need to ask ... no belay my last ... demand that the service academies answer the same question about funding. Be both broad and very specific on the request and audit the answer you get. Salaries, BA/NMP, collateral duty, travel, speakers, panels, consultants, seminars, affinity groups based on DEI's usually subject areas, all of it.

...and interview, in private, the active duty and civilian instructors who are there. 

No one said doing the right thing is easy.

Make sure and come back next week where we will be reviewing some of the nasty-bits in the "Academic Year 2021-22 Institutional Effectiveness Assessment Report" from the US Naval Academy.

Yes, it is about as bad as you think.

Diversity Thursday

Anyone who has studied the left's march through the institutions and the regular examples of the O'Sullivan's Law in action, knows the drill knows what happens to previously non-political or even conservative institutions.

The signs of their socio-political presence shouldn't be a shock to anyone. They are just less bloody versions of what Orwell, Huxley, Dith Pran, and others warned us about.

While you were paying attention to other things, their world view is already deep in our military institutions of higher learning, specifically today the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, PA.

What already is well past the nose in the tent involves in not just narrowing the Overton Window of acceptable speech, but in now compelling speech through membership filtering, fear, and humiliation.

It demands written and spoken self-criticisms - and later (see any of the required DEI training events) often confessions of crimes you did not commit. Like the religious original sin, it is something you simply have by being and must atone for and perhaps never wash the stain away.

Yes, it is socio-political, but mostly political. It is its religious aspects that folds in to the compelled speech - you have to say certain words in certain ways in order to be accepted. A leftist Shahada, in a fashion. 

As we have warned here for over a decade and a half, the vanities, trends, and sociopolitical fads of academia are seeping in to our military's higher education system. Each passing year our war colleges have been trying to be more like a college and less about war. Our service academies are well down that path as we will show again next week, but what about our war colleges? 

Today we'll take a gander at the gates of Carlisle.  

Let's say you were interested in applying for a job as a Professor of Military Studies at the U.S. Army War College Department of Military Strategy, Planning and Operations over in that beautiful part of America in Carlisle, PA.

Looks good. You have all the requirements, what documents do you have to provide with your application?

How about that last little bit again?

"A short narrative of one page or less that describes how you would contribute to an atmosphere of diversity at the U.S. Army War College through teaching, scholarship, and/or service."

If you aren't familiar with this Orwellian experience, well ... you showed up on The Front Porch on the right Thursday.

You can google "sample diversity statement" and get untold numbers of examples. This is such a rote exercise that some universities like UNC even give you examples about what they expect you to say. They don't care if you actually mean anything you say, they just require you to say it.

As will be outlined below, it is a useful gatekeeping function. 

- If you are gullible enough to think these ideologs are not serious, then you will not say the right things: you go in the "no" stack. You might be difficult to control.

- If you don't believe them but are easily intimidated by careerist or simply needing to feed your family, you will say what they want you to say: you go in the "yes" stack. You are easily controlled.

- If you don't believe that this has anything to do with the job and respond incorrectly: you go in the "no" stack. You are not of the same confession and won't be a good fit and will be difficult to control.

- If you are a true believer, you will say all the right things: you go in the "yes" stack. You will be an asset.

There is another category. Those who do not wish to be part of an organization that is so clearly worm-ridden with a hostile, rigid socio-political ideology completely unrelated to the subject you spent years of your life learning and desire to teach. You won't apply. They won't even know these people exist.

That is how, over time, you lose an institution. It starts with leadership that is either a true believer or is of the mindset that if they feed the lions today hoping they will eat them last. Then years of filtering will distill an institution's cadre whose center culture will not just be left, but hard-left - if not in absolute terms, then at least relative to the population they serve. This trend is so well known, there is no need to outline it here. In the unlikely event you are not up to speed, you can start your understanding here. 

So, back to the topic at hand. What is so bad about "diversity statements?"

These requirements are not unusual;

A recent American Association of University Professors survey found that DEI criteria are included in consideration for tenure at 21.5 percent of colleges and universities, and at 45.6 percent of large institutions of higher education.

"In many cases, these policies threaten to restrict employment or advancement opportunities for faculty who dissent from the prevailing consensus on DEI-related issues of public and academic interest," warns the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). "These policies may even negatively impact faculty who broadly agree with their institution's DEI values but disagree on some of the specifics, or who simply cherish the right to speak without compulsion."

FIRE acknowledges that private institutions have the right to adopt any ideological requirements they wish (public institutions are bound by the First Amendment). But it says DEI mandates threaten the commitments to free speech and academic freedom that most universities espouse.

"Academics seeking employment or promotion will almost inescapably feel pressured to say things that accommodate the perceived ideological preferences of an institution demanding a diversity statement, notwithstanding the actual beliefs or commitments of those forced to speak," agrees the Academic Freedom Alliance in a statement released last month.

It is infecting not just universities, but surrounding institutions. At last, some are taking a stand;

Last week the New York University (NYU) psychology professor announced that he would resign at the end of the year from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, his primary professional association, because of a newly adopted requirement that everybody presenting research at the group's conferences explain how their submission advances "equity, inclusion, and anti-racism goals." It was the sort of litmus test against which he has warned, and which he sees as corroding institutions of higher learning.

"Telos means 'the end, goal, or purpose for which an act is done, or at which a profession or institution aims,'" he wrote in a Sept. 20 piece published on the website of Heterodox Academy, an organization he cofounded that promotes viewpoint diversity on college campuses, and republished by the Chronicle of Higher Education. "The telos of a knife is to cut, the telos of medicine is to heal, and the telos of a university is truth."

"The Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP)—recently asked me to violate my quasi-fiduciary duty to the truth," he added. "I was going to attend the annual conference in Atlanta next February to present some research with colleagues on a new and improved version of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire. I was surprised to learn about a new rule: In order to present research at the conference, all social psychologists are now required to submit a statement explaining 'whether and how this submission advances the equity, inclusion, and anti-racism goals of SPSP.'"

Such diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) statements have proliferated at universities and in academic societies, he notes, even though "most academic work has nothing to do with diversity, so these mandatory statements force many academics to betray their quasi-fiduciary duty to the truth by spinning, twisting, or otherwise inventing some tenuous connection to diversity."

By design, this movement has gone beyond well intentioned feelgoodism;

Almost all of the publicly available rubrics used by recruitment search committees resemble the University of California, Berkeley’s “Rubric for Assessing Candidate Contributions to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging,” which dictates that applicants should receive a low score if they “[discuss] diversity in vague terms, such as ‘diversity is important for science,’” or if they “state that it’s better not to have outreach or affinity groups aimed at particular individuals because it keeps them separate from everyone else, or will make them feel less valued.”

Most notably, the Berkeley rubric explicitly punishes any candidate who expresses a dislike for race-conscious policies, requiring a low score for anyone who “states the intention to ignore the varying backgrounds of their students and ‘treat everyone the same.’” Conversely, it rewards those most committed to the cause: Candidates receive a high score for “discuss[ing] diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging as core values that every faculty member should actively contribute to” and “convincingly express[ing] intent, with examples, to be a strong advocate for diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging within the department/school/college and also their field.”

The rubric published by the University of Colorado Denver mimics parts of Berkeley’s rubric verbatim, but also takes it a step further: In one category, candidates receive a middling score for espousing the “golden rule” (“I will treat others as I want to be treated”) but the highest score for espousing the “platinum rule” (“I will treat others as they want to be treated”). Meanwhile, some institutions employ even more overtly ideological language. At Western Oregon University, high-scoring statements provide “at least two or more strategies for contributing to advancing racial equity and eliminating systemic racism” and identify “at least three inequities and … how they would address those inequities if employed at WOU.”

The left isn't just creating a filtering mechanism for only their fellow travelers - they are effectively eliminating alternative points of view from even trying to have a career ... or like we have seen ... compel speech;

DEI criteria have become increasingly dominant not only in hiring practices, but in tenure decisions. In the American Association of University Professors’ recent survey of tenure practices, 21.5% of all surveyed institutions reported including DEI criteria in their tenure standards, and 38.9% reported that they were considering adopting such criteria. For large institutions, 45.6% had adopted the criteria, and another 35.5% were considering them. Only 18.8% of the large universities surveyed had not implemented DEI promotion and tenure criteria and were not considering doing so in the future. Presumably, some number of them will eventually flip.

That the policy is an open question at so many universities underscores an important point: DEI measures tend to inflate. Large fleets of university diversity officers need a raison d’être, which is why universities are adopting DEI strategic plans, and ennumerating dozens of new policies created by and for DEI officers, at accelerating rates. The universities that have not yet done so face mounting pressure. In April of this year, Ohio State University’s Task Force on Racism and Racial Inequities released a report with a laundry list of “Grand Challenges and Priority Action Steps,” recommending the creation of an institutionwide diversity action plan. If that plan looks like the College of Engineering’s Racial Equity and Inclusion Action Plan, it will include establishing language in its promotion and tenure manual “concerning the assessment of equity and inclusion in annual reviews.”

Given the public health disaster of the last two-and-a-half years, and the gravity of the discipline, it’s particularly jarring to see this development unfold in the medical field. The Oregon Health and Science University School of Medicine was recently reaccredited, but the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), which accredits medical schools, found it lacking in faculty diversity. In response, the medical school released its DEI strategic plan, which was created “in alignment with accreditation requirements,” and which promises not only “consequences” for faculty who don’t get on board but also to “develop and incorporate DEI, anti-racism and social justice core competencies in performance appraisals of faculty and staff.”

The UNC School of Medicine likewise created a Task Force for Integrating Social Justice Into the Curriculum, which recommended, among other measures, adding social justice criteria to the school’s promotion and tenure policy. As of May 2021, the school’s promotion and tenure guidelines require faculty to submit a diversity statement and list DEI contributions, examples of which include “Application of material learned in DEI trainings (e.g., Safe Zone, Unconscious Bias, Implicit Bias, etc.) to promote an environment of cultural awareness, knowledge, and sensitivity.”

All of this is well within the lifelines of the US military's institutions of higher learning. It has been a long, slow, march allowed under the noses of all political parties. 

There are a few cornerstones to our republic that have - in fits and starts - served it well.

First is no religions test, second is a military free of partisan politics.

At the core, the Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity agenda isn't just political - which it clearly is - it is a world view that people should first and primarily be judged by their race, creed, color, or national origin - and done so in a 19th and early-20th Century "one drop" world view that requires officially sanctioned sectarianism.

At no time in human history has a military or a nation prospered under such a structure. In the end it degrades good order and discipline, promotes conflict at the personal and institutional level, and never moves the ball towards equality. 

It never reaches that point because that isn't the goal. The goal is sectarian division because it is from that division that you can better control a people and promote your own desire for power.

The lust for power, money, and sex; the primary drivers of corruption and conflict in our species - and they're all being spot welded on to a discipline whose performance is degraded by all three. 

Build More Carriers and Send Some to CENTCOM

At a time when nations at the front line facing a rising People's Republic of China such as Japan and India (and the PRC herself) are expanding their aircraft carrier fleets as fasts as budgets and politicians will allow, in the United States the carrier debate continues in to another decade.

It is natural; aircraft carriers are very expensive - and they bring a lot of capability with that cost. They are vulnerable because they are a high-priority target specifically because of the threat they pose to any opponent. Both sides have a point, but the question is who has the better point given our place in time.

In another chapter in the carrier debate, we're honored to have Bryan McGrath returning here with a response to a recent article in the U.S. Naval Institute's Proceedings by Lieutenant Commander Stephen Walsh, U.S. Navy at the link below.

Bryan, over to you.

---

There is little in the opinion-writing world more attractive to editors and readers than the thoughts of someone questioning closely held tenets of what would appear to be the affinity group of the author. So, when an aircraft carrier aviator pens a piece questioning the value of aircraft carriers in a major piece of U.S. geo-strategy, one is forced to take notice. That several members of the tight fraternity of un-listened-to and marginalized navalists to which I claim affinity cited the work with praise and hosana also caught my attention. Having now read and digested the work, I am considerably less impressed by the substance of the argument, and I set out here to address its shortcomings. 

First though, I wish to congratulate LCDR Walsh on his effort. He is a fine writer and thinker, but most importantly, he has taken the time to submit his views to scrutiny. The world is full of opinions, but there are precious few (especially among naval officers) who are willing to address and/or stoke controversy publicly in such a lucid and well-documented fashion. That I will spend the remainder of my time here criticizing his argument should be taken as a sign of respect. Were his argument not worth addressing, I would not be writing this on a national holiday. 

Walsh’s Argument

Readers are urged to digest Walsh’s argument in full. I will only summarize it here to frame my own thoughts, and I apologize for the shorthand approach. Here goes: aircraft carriers are valuable elements of the Navy’s contribution to Joint warfighting, and as there are a finite number of them, their application to U.S. grand and defense strategic objectives must be carefully considered. This consideration extends to both the effectiveness of that application, and the consequences to force readiness that flow therefrom. In applying carrier air power to the strategic objectives of CENTCOM commanders, Walsh believes that carriers have been misallocated, as other elements of the Joint Force have been more effectively employed. Walsh asserts that the misapplication of carrier air power to a theater of secondary strategic importance (behind Indo-PACOM and EUCOM in that order, presumably) has wasted carrier readiness that should either be held in reserve or applied more liberally in the other theaters (this much is not as clear). This is not an outlier’s view. It tracks closely with the warp and weft of the Trump National Defense Strategy which shifted emphasis to the Indo-Pacific at the explicit expense of CENTCOM (and EUCOM). 

McGrath’s Argument

Whether one points to the Trump NDS or the current administration and its Interim National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy, it is hard to conclude that the current bi-partisan fashion animating national security thinking is not “managing decline” (or re-arranging deck-chairs). No one in authority puts it this way, but it is the elephant in the room. At some point after the fall of the Soviet Union, maintaining our position as the world’s dominant power and leader of the free world lost currency. Now that this position is actively challenged, our efforts seem more geared toward efficient allocation of declining resources than in addressing the challenge head-on. Decline strategists would have one believe that what they are doing is making tough choices, which after all, is the zenith of strategy-making. The problem with this approach is that they have already made (or recognized the existence of) the decision NOT to be globally powerful. Their approach and logic is internally consistent and whole all the way from “B to Z”. The problem is that I am unaware of the consensus in American defense and national security thinking that codified the step from “A to B”—that we were (as a nation) comfortable with relative decline and that our approach henceforth would be to draw out that decline for as long as possible. 

My argument is this: I am unafraid to draw Cold War parallels to the current strategic environment. We either tool up and build out for it, or we accept decline and the consequences of living in a world where we are not the dominant power. Where Walsh would have us believe that promiscuous employment of aircraft carriers to CENTCOM is leaving us ill-prepared for higher priority conflict elsewhere, I would argue that we do not have the number of aircraft carriers (or a properly sized Navy) we need to meet our legitimate security requirements. They are of course—different arguments. But if you buy into Walsh’s argument, you never get to mine. 

Does the Carrier Deter?

Deterrence of any variety is difficult to prove without exquisite intelligence, as the problem of “proving the negative” confronts any claim made without it. Additionally, the fact that Iran appeared “undeterred”, carrying out aggressive global and regional terror attacks (in addition to direct military action) while aircraft carriers were present in theater, adds to the nagging question of carrier effectiveness as a deterrent. 

Yet there are important questions to consider before concluding the ineffectiveness of the carrier as a deterrent. The very existence of the ground-breaking “Abraham Accords” points to the growing wariness of Iran in the Arab world and the discomfort felt there in U.S. overtures during the Obama Administration (re-started in the Biden Administration) toward Iran. The presence of a carrier may or may not have stopped Iranian adventurism, but was the carrier part of a regional approach to deterring a larger war between Iran and the Sunni-Arab world? I do not know the answer to this, but I suspect CENTCOM Commanders believe that it was. And the suggestion that CENTCOM Commanders might “pull punches” to preserve carrier readiness for use in another theater strikes me as misunderstanding what those officers are paid to do. We pay the Secretary of Defense to make punch pulling decisions.

Walsh points at this, as senior civilians in both parties responded positively to CENTCOM requests for aircraft carriers. Walsh would have those civilians be less open to these requests, relying on other parts of the Joint arsenal for deterrence and saving carrier readiness for other conflicts. But for whatever reason, those civilians and those CENTCOM Commanders believed that the theater needed BOTH carrier air power and land-based air.  What if what was really happening was not shoddy and reflexive staff work by the combatant commander and his staff, validated by the Joint Staff and the Secretary of Defense, but the dirty business of everyday American national security? What if the CENTCOM Commander really was making a good case for these forces? What if—at the end of the day—the intelligence from both within DoD and the rest of the intelligence community indicated that overmatch was having an impact on Iranian behavior? Criticism of combatant commanders for insatiable appetites is the new national pastime. But I fear far more, a world of passive combatant commanders than I do the fear of sub-optimal carrier employment. 

Troublingly, I read little in Walsh’s treatment of carrier employment in CENTCOM of the role of crisis response from forward deployed forces. While the work he and his co-workers were doing was somewhat mundane, that he and they were there ready to respond is not to be undervalued. 

And then there is the whole business of counting bombs dropped in theater as a measure of effectiveness or utility. While this might be frustrating to the aviators participating in missions found less exciting than others, of all the metrics to apply to the effectiveness of a deterrent, this seems the least relevant. Carrier Air Wings throughout Indo-PACOM and EUCOM routinely return to homeport without having fired a shot in anger. Are we to assume their readiness was similarly wasted?

                        CENTCOM AOR

The Priority Theater Issue

Walsh begins his piece thusly: “The Department of Defense (DoD) has allocated aircraft carriers to U.S. Central Command (CentCom) for Iranian deterrence at the expense of strategic competition with China and Russia repeatedly over the past decade. DoD is locked in a cycle that regularly deprives Indo-Pacific Command (IndoPaCom) and European Command of the carriers necessary for strategic competition.” Forgive me if I impugn motives unfairly, but until late March of this year, most discussions of this sort were solely focused on Indo-PACOM, with both EUCOM and CENTCOM relegated to lesser positions. Then came a war and now EUCOM has the attention of naval force structure analysts. My point here is that the U.S. has enduring interests in all three AOR’s, and those interests drive the need for dominant naval power in each. Setting up this shell-game of priority theaters has a veneer of strategic thought, but the real-world gets a vote, and commitment of forces to lesser theaters is not always a sign of weakness in decision-makers. Sometimes it is the least bad decision. 

The Stationary Carrier

In his second paragraph, Walsh writes “Iran can and must be deterred from aggression—but without continually holding an aircraft carrier in a stationary and strategically disadvantageous position.” I do not mean to be a noodge, but with routine operations in the North Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Oman, the Gulf of Aden, AND the Arabian Sea, aircraft carriers in more obvious deterrence postures vis-à-vis Iran cover a lot of ground. In fact, to buttress the claim that “It is equally difficult to argue that a carrier is necessary for CentCom’s maritime security”, Walsh points to the 1988 “Operation Praying Mantis” in which the USS ENTERPRISE (CVN 65) “…remained outside the Strait of Hormuz, and her aircraft required assistance from an Air Force KC-10 to reach their targets.”  

Clearly the ENTERPRISE was in this case, not a stationary carrier. More importantly though, how ENTERPRISE was employed is illustrative of how we would prudently employ the CVN in conflict. To wit, carrier operations ought not be conceived as singular charges of the maritime light brigade deep within the contested zone at the beginning of a battle (especially in confined waters), followed by the establishment of long-duration frontline sanctuaries for carrier operations. Rather, they should be conceived as sequential hit and run operations that gradually degrade an adversary’s ability to fight effectively in the contested zone’s outer reaches, which in turn creates the conditions that allow the process to be repeated closer to the adversary’s shores. Put another way, attempting to operate an aircraft carrier in the North Arabian Gulf in wartime is a far different undertaking than doing so in restive peace. 

Walsh Sees a Demand Problem; McGrath Sees a Supply Problem

Again - Walsh is appropriately reacting to a set of facts that he is presented with. We have a finite number of carriers, and he believes they are being misused, which exacerbates their readiness challenges and renders the U.S. less well-prepared for higher priority uses. His prescription is to use them less. My prescription is to have more of them.  I will concede that his view is the dominant one, the most likely to be followed, the most logical one given the political environment in which we live. But because it accepts decline, it raises a very uncomfortable question: if we are accepting decline and are in essence trying to run out the clock, is not every penny we spend in this pursuit wasted if the result is essentially pre-determined? Put another way, why not just accept decline, re-orient a goodly portion of the defense budget to other uses, and accept the resulting world order as the new status quo?

The Problem of Time

Where Walsh’s good sense and my howling at the moon are most opposed is in the question of time. For instance, if what Walsh is trying to say is that FOR NOW, we need to cut back on what he believes are wasteful applications of carrier air power to store up readiness for a “Davidson Window-like” conflict with China, his argument has some attraction (although it could hardly be differentiated from a decline management approach undertaken across the same period). My argument is that we must undertake a massive naval building program over the course of a generation beginning immediately, the tangible fruits of which are unlikely to manifest for several years. In the meantime, the force we have must be employed as consistently as possible to extend and deepen American security and prosperity, and we must fund the training, parts, and maintenance necessary to achieve that readiness. Announcing such a building program and then allocating the necessary resources will send a clear message of seriousness that has not yet been achieved.  

Conclusion

We are engaged in a multi-generational security struggle and unlike when last we faced such a challenge, we are attempting to manage it rather than rise to it. LCDR Walsh has offered that because our interests in the CENTCOM AOR are not nearly as important as those in Indo-PACOM and EUCOM, and because in his view, those interests are not advanced by what carriers do when they are in the CENTCOM AOR, we ought not send them there anymore, or at least not as often. I am struck by the degree to which his advice has already been taken, its strategic flaws notwithstanding. 

More importantly though, I am troubled by the resignation that I read in his essay. The sense of “because it is this way it will always be this way” is strong in it, and its acceptance of current circumstances places constraints on thinking about what is possible. At the very least, we could properly resource readiness across the fleet to address the deficits created by the capacity/need mismatch. More holistically though, we must consider a dramatic increase in spending on our Navy across the board, so that both current readiness and future capacity can be achieved. 

Bryan McGrath is the Managing Director of The FerryBridge Group LLC. His views and opinions are his own.

Diversity Thursday

This is one of those DivThu that could be a, in a word, tome.

As such, I am only going to pull a small portion of the things I normally would. You will have to do some reading yourself.

Trust me on this, depending on your areas of concern, you will find many items worse than I will pull out on today's post.

Poison wrapped in a few nice marshmallows...but poison nonetheless.

The focus of this week's DivThu is what is going on at the US Naval Academy. I've had all sorts of people, from active duty to retired USNA alumni (and others...ahem) reach out to me - a NROTC guy - because they want to get the word out concerning what is going on.

Not only do they love their school, they know how important USNA is to the Navy writ large. What starts, or stops there, is brought in to the fleet. Good or bad, it comes in.

As we have covered over the years, the diversity industry, their fellow travelers and useful idiots, have had USNA in their sights for a long time. As it is military, you have a high degree of control over the student body. As it is - wrongly - trying so hard to compete with other universities, it has brought on faculty who are true believers - or want to be seen as true believers - in all the latest fads in academia. No one has stood in the way of their push to bring to Annapolis what they find in Oberlin.

The quasi-woke religion as promoted by the CNO provided all the supporting fires they needed and the commissariat decided to make hay while the sun shines.

You know the drill.

Do you want Political Officers, USNA's own Zampolit? You'll get them.

Want blue and gold Red Guards? You're going to have them.

You want red in tooth and claw racism, quotas, and different standards based on self-identified racial groups? You're going to have more of it.

First let's pull some nice bits from the governing document; COMDTMIDNINST 1500.5, the "Diversity Education Program" from February of this year. You can read it at the link, or below the pull quotes;

BEHOLD!

1. Purpose. To provide guidance and designate responsibilities for implementation of the Diversity Peer Educator (DPE) Program. 

...

b. DPEs support moral development at USNA by facilitating small group conversations that educate and inform midshipmen, faculty, and staff and foster a culture of inclusion across the Yard, resulting in cohesive teams ready to exert maximal performance and win the Naval service's battles. 

I'm not sure you could get more Orwellian ... but they're going to try;

4. Responsibilities

a. USNA Chief Diversity Officer. The Chief Diversity Officer is the final approving authority for all matters pertaining to the DPE Program and will ensure the program is in line with Department of the Navy and Superintendent's guidance in reference (a). 

a. DPE Program Manager. The program manager for DPE is an active-duty officer appointed by the Chief Diversity Officer. Faculty/staff from the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership, the Naval Academy Athletic Association (NAAA), or other cost-centers on the Yard will aid the program manager. 

Yes, the football booster organization will "help" the Zampolits. Huh. You see that, yes? Pull that thread...

c. Brigade Dignity and Respect Officer. Reference ( c) delineates the roles and responsibilities of the Brigade Dignity and Respect Officer (BDRO) who is accountable for the training, development, and qualification of the DPEs. However, the DPEs are organized and managed by the Midshipman DPE Lead.

d. Midshipmen DPE Lead. A midshipman selected annually by the DPE Program Manager and confirmed by the USNA Chief Diversity Officer. The Midshipmen DPE Lead is typically a  First Class Midshipman. Responsibilities include:

    (1) Work with the DPE Program Manager to ensure the mission of the program is met.

    (2) Provide feedback and keep the DPE Program Manager informed regarding anything that may impact the DPE program.

    (3) Serve as the senior DPE, and as the program representative to the BDRO.

    (4) Lead and provide guidance to the DPE Midshipmen.

    (5) Appoint and manage DPE leads in each battalion, company, varsity athletic team and club sport team. 

I'll let you do the math on how many bodies "each" means. That is a lot of Zampolits. I guess MIDN have a lot of extra time.

Again, I want you to ponder the opportunity cost of this across USNA and how it relates to professional development.

g. DPE. Midshipmen who have attended DPE Education, completed all DPE qualification requirements including Personnel Qualification Standards (PQS) and who are designated in writing by the DPE Program Manager. Responsibilities include:

(1) Conduct a minimum of two small group discussions within their company each semester. These sessions should include fewer than 15 participants per session when possible. A session will consist of an open conversation about leading a diverse group of people, ensuring that everyone is treated with dignity and respect and feels a sense of belonging in the group.

(2) Conduct a minimum of one small group discussion per varsity/club sports team per semester.

(3) DPEs have the ability to hold additional sessions or events at the discretion of their Company Officer, Senior Enlisted Leader, or Coach.

(4) Participate in at least one Diversity and Inclusion Program event per semester. These include, but are not limited to: Cultural Affinity Group/Extra Curricular Activity events, Midshipmen Diversity Team events, etc.

(5) Attend the USNA Diversity and Inclusion Conference.

(6) Participate in any continuing education as prescribed by the DPE Program Manager.

(7) Assist with the planning and execution of Office of Diversity Equity and Inclusion (ODEI) led events at USNA. 

As all Zampolits must do ... one must have a record of events and who is at them;

6. Records Management

a. Records created as a result of this instruction, regardless of format or media, must be maintained and dispositioned for the standard subject identification codes (SSIC) 1000 through 13000 series per the records disposition schedules located on the Department of theNavy/ Assistant for Administration (DON/ AA), Directives and Records Management Division(DRMD) portal page at httpsl://portal.secnav.navy.mil/orgs/DUSNM/DONAA/DRM/Recordsand-Information-Management/ Approved%20Record%20Schedules/Forms/Allltems.aspx.  

If you just need an explainer as the full document is just too much, the Salamander Underground helped you out. Just click here. 

I know you are dying to see the training material - or at least some of it. 

Sal's spies have not failed you. Here you have the "Diversity Peer Educator Study Guide" to help the blue and gold version of the Red Guard.

Review the whole thing at the link above, but here's a few of slides to make you proud to be an American. I'm not sure how our Navy survived without this until now, TBQH. 

I can't wait until this structure is implemented Fleet wide:

Like I said, Zampolit. Everywhere.

...and no, going to the fleet is not hyperbole ... no one is hiding the ball here. (NAAA pun not intended)

Who will be the first person to have, "...a walking safe space..." as a FITREP bullet?

One positive thing here is that they are no longer denying that this is all political. They are daring you to say there is anything wrong.

You'll be put on a list.

This would not be complete without the official Diversity and Inclusion Plan of March of 2021. Go ahead click the link and read page four. 

Orwell blushes.

This is full of problems, but here is where they let the mask slip for those still holding out for something benign and worthy of our republic;

Action 3d. Bring equity to the leadership and training opportunities for all populations. 

Step 3d1. Intentionally develop selection panels with representation from different populations. Intentionally use different panel members from underrepresented populations to include multiple perspectives in the selection process.

That is a quota system. We know what the Navy's definition of "equity" is - it is not equality or equal opportunity; it is equal outcomes.

This whole effort isn't just about bureaucratic growth or supporting more paid positions for otherwise unemployable "diversity and inclusion" nomenklatura, no ... it is much worse.

This is about developing a system of indoctrination normalizing a system of incentives and disincentives to provide advantages and disadvantages to individuals based upon their membership in self-identified sectarian blocks - and inculcating and then enforcing ideological support for enforced sectarianism.

Recall, they are doing this starting with a cohort of young men and women most of whom were in 1st and 2nd Grade when Obama was sworn in as President.

This is about identifying people who are opposed to racial discrimination and encouraging their disfavor or better, elimination from the Navy.

There you are.

Diversity Thursday

As we watch another war wage in Europe fueled to a large degree by ethnic hatred and division, we find again people who are trying to promote the same cancerous mindset in our wonderfully diverse nation and Navy.

One of the primary ways to inflame sectarian tensions is to encourage separation while at the same time instituting a series of preferences and punishments - unequal treatment - based on what group you are defined as. In the zero sum game that is promotion and desirable billets that impacts income and career prospects - that's just accelerant.  

The Diversity Bullies' diktat makes you disconnect your critical thinking skills. The fear that the commissariat has injected it to the bureaucracy guarantees that few will challenge statements the commissars ask that you make in public - regardless of how discredited or detached from reality they and their socio-political theories are.

I still stand by a simple standard - the benchmark from which all things in this area are measured. An American standard;

How far we have strayed ... but ok - it just means we need to keep trying.

This isn't a popular position in many areas of our society. It sure isn't popular in the senior ranks of our Navy. Few make it very far challenging today's diversity industry push to divide the people and set one group against another - so you can pretty much guarantee that leaders either are reading exactly what their UIC's diversity commissar gave them, or they are a true believer.

If you are going to swallow whole the diktat from the socio-political zampolits on your staff promoting division and sectarianism, then that's on you.

Recently, I don't think we've seen a senior Navy leader step in it so openly and so deeply as the Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Adm. John Nowell Jr., USN last summer.

It is about time for someone to step up, I guess.

Behold, Commander of Naval Surface Forces Vice Adm. Roy Kitchener, USN at Naval Surface Force Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Symposium April 7-8 in Norfolk, Va;

Commander of Naval Surface Forces Vice Adm. Roy Kitchener said ... thinks that focusing on diversity and inclusion can help the force gain further advantage over potential adversaries in multiple ways.

“Our adversaries think differently than we do,” Kitchener told Navy Times April 7 after speaking at the first-ever Surface Force Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Symposium in Norfolk, Virginia. “We have a lot of people in our country with a very diverse thought process, and that is a real strength when you’re teaching people tactics.

“When people can say, okay, what do you think the opponent is going to do? … Your opponent is not necessarily thinking like you, and what I found is that, if you can have people on our team that can think out of the box, perhaps different than the conventional Western way to think, it really is a game changer.”

How many Thursdays have we seen this mindset? You can see it a mile away. Let's take out the playbook.

So we all know that the Navy does not track "diversity of thought." It sure does not promote diversity in educational and socio-economic background in its senior leadership.

No, the Navy only defines "diversity" with regards to race, ethnicity, sex, etc ... you've seen the metrics. You've filled out the reports. You've seen the affinity groups. It is all in the open.

So, the implication here is, in essence, that a person's opinion is genetically coded and you can predict a person's way of thinking by their race and ethnicity. To say that is red in tooth and claw ethnic determinism.

Is that a Navy you want to be part of? A nation? No, not me either.

There are, of course, more inflammatory ways to describe a mindset that states that how and what a person thinks is somehow genetically coded - but I am not going to assume the worst of the good VADM. That being said, he has absorbed a world view that has the most brain-stem simplistic view of the people around him and is responsible for untold hundreds of millions of people slaughtered through the ages.

Looking first at a person's value on the basis of their perceived race, creed, color, or national origin is the cornerstone to disorder, sectarianism, division, and ultimately group violence.

You can tell that he has not intellectually pondered well what he's saying or is very well read on the topic.

There is this discredited talking point that he rolls out there like it is a fact;

More broadly, he added, “it’s a proven fact that the more diverse you are, you’re going to be a better and more high-performing organization. But I just see it simply from the warfare perspective, where being able to have a team that can think with that kind of agility against an opponent that probably doesn’t have that agility is a huge advantage.”

Proven? Really? 

What did Sarah Kaplan say in FastCompany?

Pamela Newkirk points out in her new book, Diversity, Inc.: The Failed Promise of a Billion-Dollar Business, that the main beneficiary of the business case for diversity so far has what we might call the Inclusion Industrial Complex—consulting firms and Diversity & Inclusion professionals who can profit from putting diversity management programs in place.

HURTING THOSE WE ARE MAKING THE CASE FOR

The other reason the business case doesn’t work is that it hurts those the case is designed to help. Women or racial minorities, who are the supposed beneficiaries of the “business case for diversity,” may experience negative consequences.

The latest experiments have found that exposure to an organization’s business case for diversity decreased a sense of belonging to that organization for women and for members of the LGBTQ community, which was then associated with lower desire to join and lower performance on the job. The business case language has a way of making people feel “othered” and devalued.

Even more insidiously, the presence of diversity policies tends to make the majority groups feel like the organization is doing its part, which then legitimizes the status quo. While creating roles such as Chief Inclusion Officers or Directors of Diversity and Inclusion can drive action by giving a point person a mandate to make change, it also risks disengaging everyone else in the organization because they figure someone else has “diversity” covered.

How about Katherine Klein over at the Wharton School?

Do companies with women on the board perform better than companies whose boards are all-male? Many popular press articles and fund managers make this claim, citing studies by consulting firms, information providers and financial institutions, such as McKinsey, Thomson Reuters and Credit Suisse.

...

But research conducted by consulting firms and financial institutions is not as rigorous as peer-reviewed academic research. Here, I dig into the findings of rigorous, peer-reviewed studies of the relationship between board gender diversity and company performance.

Spoiler alert: Rigorous, peer-reviewed studies suggest that companies do not perform better when they have women on the board. Nor do they perform worse. Depending on which meta-analysis you read, board gender diversity either has a very weak relationship with board performance or no relationship at all.

Sarah Todd does a good job summarizing this intellectual FOD as well;

“I’m a big believer in responsible diversity, and I’m a minority myself—I would love [the McKinsey] studies to be true,” says Alex Edmans, a professor of finance at London Business School who was not affiliated with either the McKinsey papers or the new study. “But it’s important to make sure anything we say is based on rigorous research.”

...

When Hand and Green followed the McKinsey model, measuring firms’ financial performance between 2015 and 2019, they found “statistically insignificant relations” between the racial and ethnic diversity of a given executive team and that company’s financial success. This applied both to EBIT margins and to a number of other measures of financial performance, including industry-adjusted sales growth, gross margin, return on assets, and return on equity. McKinsey declined to comment on the study’s findings.

When a study’s findings are too good to be true

The authors emphasize that this isn’t definitive proof that there is no connection between racial and ethnic diversity and profits—more research is needed on that front. They also note several other important caveats, including that S&P 500 companies are not a random sample of public US firms, and that their method of identifying race and ethnicity among executives (using faces and names) is likely to overestimate the number of white executives. But they criticize McKinsey’s methodology, including its metric for measuring diversity among executives. They conclude that “caution is warranted in relying on McKinsey’s findings to support the view that US publicly traded firms can deliver improved financial performance if they increase the racial/ethnic diversity of their executives.”

Among the additional research that Green and Hand call for is a way to better examine whether there is any causal relationship between a firm’s diversity and its financial performance. McKinsey, by its own admission, is only looking at correlation. Green and Hand are working on a longitudinal study that will look at causation by gathering historical data on the racial and ethnic makeup of firms’ leadership teams in different years, then looking at the companies’ financial performance before, during, and after those years.

...

From an academic researcher’s perspective, he says, it’s unclear why McKinsey looks only at companies in the top and bottom quartile on diversity, as opposed to the top third or bottom third or not splitting them up at all. Also unclear is why the McKinsey studies focus on whether the most- and least-diverse companies beat the industry average of profitability. “The most standard way to do it is to say what’s the average profitability of diverse versus the average profitability of non-diverse” companies, he says.

In general, when reviewing a study, as Edmans explains in his 2017 TEDx talk “What to trust in a post-truth world,” it’s always worth asking whether the authors would have published it had they found the opposite result. “It’s really easy to get away with sloppy research if it confirms what we’d like to be true because we’ll accept it uncritically,” he says.

I think we can make a good guess about why McKinsey would do this. It is the same reason the Navy's branch of the diversity industry continues to feed such divisive, sectarian, and just plain incorrect socio-political talking points to our senior leaders.

Kitchener was joined by Rear Adm. Brendan McLane, the commander of Naval Surface Force Atlantic. McLane was once Commander, Navy Recruiting Command. Trust me, he knows exactly what metrics are tracked and what decisions are made about them.

Let's take this little pull quote from the same event apart. Words mean things.

“Retaining the very best people that we have and promoting them, that I think is an individual inside-the-lifeline task that each captain has to take on,” McLane said. “And that’s the reason we’re having this conference.

The title of this conference again  is, "Naval Surface Force Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Symposium" - this isn't "tips on breaking out your best junior officers" so one must ask McLane to define, in detail, by what he means by "very best" in the context of this conference.

“If we can create an environment on every ship that’s inclusive — which is something I think our millennial sailors expect — and then everybody is treated equally, 

That 'If" there SURFLANT, let's pull that thread. Are you implying we don't have that on every ship? Really? For those ships you are under your C2 diagram, which do not - by name? Why not? What action have you done to correct that? Maybe it's me - but that sounds like news...but wait;

and then we actually go above and beyond that and actually have equity so everybody’s getting everything that they need to succeed, I think the diversity part is going to take care of itself.

OK, so "everyone is treated equally" is not good enough? So we have to go to "equity?' Let's pause for a moment here.

Regulars on the front porch know this, but we have new readers every day, time to define our words closely. I'll let the social justice warriors over at RISE define that for us;

Key Takeaways:

- Equity and equality are different.

- Equality means everyone is treated the same exact way, regardless of differences.

- Equity means everyone is provided with what they need to succeed.

That is it. You can see exactly where he's getting his talking points from. Unless you missed the nuance - base upon your self-classified category under "equity" you may be given more or less of a thing of value - billets, rankings, time to qualify, etc - than someone who self-classifies as a different, less favored category.

He would like to see a Navy give and take away opportunity based on something as meaningless as race, creed, color, etc.

Quick, name one military or nation that has prospered under a racial or ethnic spoils system? Does that create unity or division? Does that create good order and discipline, or disorder and conflict? The Austo-Hungarian Empire? The Soviet Union? Yugoslavia?  Rwanda?

“The talent part is going to take care of itself, but I think that’s just part and parcel of good leadership — of taking care of your sailors.”

Taking care of some of your Sailors more than others, it appears. I wonder if he's made that connection - or he considers a racial and ethnic spoils system is good for all Sailors?

So, there you go. There's your snapshot.

I've avoided this topic for awhile - and I didn't even cover the USAA sponsored sectarian festival over at USNA ... but you can play around at that link on your own time. This is enough I think.

Both Kitchener and McLane are great and accomplished professionals. Smart men doing the best they can in hard jobs of importance. As such, they have a lot on their plate. I'm not sure they should get a pass here. Nothing is more fundamental to a gloriously polyglot republic like ours than unity and - especially considering our history - an ongoing drive to be one people, not have our own government underwrite and encourage sectarian division. However, if people really believe otherwise, they should take action in the open - personally.

A final note here that should be clear to everyone. Both Admirals here are men of European extraction. One went to a small liberal arts college in Maine and the other at the US Naval Academy. You know the old saw ... if you really wanted "equity" then lead from the front.

Billets at this level are a zero sum game. If you want equity on selection boards, and if you really believe that diversity makes a "better and more high-performing organization" and that you love our Navy, then by all means lead from the front. Step aside and give your billet to someone that improves the metrics on the slide. That will make VADM Nowell feel better about his pictures too.

Make the future you want Admirals...but don't do it with people under 30. Be the change you want - don't make yourself feel better on the backs of young men and women born after the turn of the century - young enough to be your children.