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HipChick

(25,485 posts) Sat Sep 9, 2017, 01:40 PM Sep 2017

More White, More Male, More Jesus: Pompeo Is Quietly Killing the Agencys Diversity Mandate

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/09/08/more-white-more-male-more-jesus-cia-employees-fear-pompeo-is-quietly-killing-the-agencys-diversity-mandate/

In early summer, Judy and Dennis Shepard bought plane tickets to give a speech to the workforce at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. The Shepards in 1998 had founded the Matthew Shepard Foundation in honor of their late son — a 21-year-old college freshman who was viciously attacked and left tied to a fence before he was brought to a hospital where he died of his injuries. One of the most notorious anti-gay acts of violence in U.S. history, his death led to some of the country’s first federal hate crime laws.
The Shepards had been invited to the CIA to talk about diversity and LGBTQ rights, joining a long line of guest speakers at the covert overseas spy agency including lawmakers, former officials, authors, and celebrities.
The schedule was set, and the details arranged, but in the 11th hour, the senior leadership shut down the event. The seventh floor, where the director’s office sits, had the Shepards’ speech canceled, questioning what value it would bring to the CIA mission.

For those who have worked inside the agency, the backtracking on diversity represents a threat to the workforce and national security, according to Nada Bakos, a former CIA analyst who helped track high-level terrorist targets like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.“This isn’t just about today’s diversity issue. It’s about tomorrow’s lack of diversity that will erode the agency,” Bakos told FP. “You can’t hire someone who’s typically white American to walk around Baghdad.” In March 2013, John Brennan was appointed director under President Barack Obama, and the new CIA head moved to make diversity and employee rights a priority. Senior leaders competed for spots to speak at employee gay pride events and accompanied the director to diversity events and celebrations.While embraced by many, Brennan’s policies drew the ire of right-wing publications like the National Review, which claimed his diversity and inclusion strategy was just a way to make the agency more “politically correct.”

During his first eight months at the CIA, Pompeo has expressed little interest in attending diversity-related events, including those designed to honor the work of those at the agency, and also to recruit from minority communities at universities and other locations. One source familiar with the matter noted that Pompeo stated he should be called upon to attend a diversity event only as a last resort and preferred other senior leaders to go in his place.Brennan was particularly concerned about the alienation of the CIA’s Muslim employees. “Over the last couple years, we really tried to make a real effort to have the Muslims within the CIA workforce feel that they were as special and as valued and important as everyone else,” Brennan told FP. “Too often, there has been unfortunate rhetoric that has been the equivalent of Muslim-bashing. A lot of employees took that rather personally.”