Sociologist: Military officers too white

By WND Staff

By Otway Burns

military

By Ottway Burns

The director of sociology at West Point claims the Army officer corps needs to be racially “representative” of the American public, and diversity makes the officer corps more effective.

In a recent report in USA Today, Col. Irving Smith, an African-American infantry officer who has served in Afghanistan, said, “It certainly is a problem for several reasons.”

But legal experts say both premises have serious flaws.

“Neither justification has been recognized by the courts as constitutionally adequate,” says Roger Clegg, president and general counsel for the Center for Equal Opportunity.

University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax, a prominent critic of race-based employment policy, warns, “For all the supposed benefits of a diverse officer corps, it really would impose weighty risks and costs in promoting less qualified and capable people.”

The ‘problem’ of too many white officers

Smith had written: “First we are a public institution. And as a public institution we certainly have more of a responsibility to our nation than a private company to reflect it. In order to maintain their trust and confidence, the people of America need to know that the Army is not only effective but representative of them.”

But in the article, no examples were offered to show how the “trust and confidence” of the American public could be undermined by a particular racial makeup of its military officers.

Smith said, “Diversity and equal opportunity are important, but most people don’t point out that it makes the Army more effective.”

However, Smith, in a 2010 article for the Army War College journal “Parameters,” had another opinion.

He said then, “[R]esearch on diversity with respect to complex tasks and group performance is rather ambiguous.”

The full context of his remark indicates that there are serious doubts as to whether racial diversity would actually produce the touted benefits: “[S]enior leaders have to communicate precisely why diversity is important. … There are two points that senior leaders should make perfectly clear. The first is that diversity is linked to performance as an institution. This is a difficult message to develop and communicate, because research on diversity with respect to complex tasks and group performance is rather ambiguous.”

Wax thinks otherwise, stating, “The research is not really ambiguous, although agenda-driven psychologists try to make it so.”

A solution in search of a problem?

The USA Today article did not include any experts disagreeing with the choice to define a high percentage of white officers as a “problem.”

And Clegg said, “This is supposed to be an elite group made up of the individuals best qualified to lead troops into battle and to win wars; whether it is demographically ‘representative’ or not is entirely irrelevant.”

To Smith’s contention that Army officers should be racially “representative,” Clegg says, “This sounds like nothing but what Justice Powell called ‘discrimination for its own sake’ in Bakke.”

In the Supreme Court’s 1978 Bakke decision, the justices banned numerical quotas in college admissions. In that Justice Lewis Powell wrote, “Preferring members of any one group for no reason other than race or ethnic origin is discrimination for its own sake. This the Constitution forbids.”

But Smith even has a targeted number in mind for a quota.

According to USA Today, Smith says that “[m]inority groups need a ‘critical mass’ of about 15 percent to feel they have a voice.”

Smith and other supporters of racial preferences also claim that diversity makes the officer corps more effective.

But Clegg?

“One might be able to argue that having people of varying backgrounds and perspectives can result in better decision making.”

But, Clegg said, organizations “should not use skin color as a proxy for backgrounds and perspectives.”

“I think that military problem-solving hinges most on knowing about strategy, tactics, weapons, and the enemy – none of which is enhanced by having a politically correct color mix,” Clegg says.

If the military would favor minorities in promotions in order to promote “diversity” or a more “representative” combat arms leadership, such an approach would meet serious legal challenges. Clegg notes that “the military is also covered by Title VII, which is … unforgiving when it comes to racial discrimination.”

Neither Smith’s essay, nor the USA Today article, provides any evidence that white officers are performing below standard.

Instead, USA Today said, “USA Today obtained the Army’s list of battalion and brigade commanders. Several officers familiar with the personnel on them identified the black officers, which the Army refused to do. The paper considered officers in infantry, armor and field artillery – the three main combat-arms branches.

“The results: In 2014, there is not a single black commander among its 25 brigades; there were three black commanders in its 80 battalion openings. In 2015, there will be two black commanders of combat brigades; and one black commander among 78 battalion openings.”

Attempts to engineer a different racial composition among officers may continue to be largely futile. Thomas Sowell has written that “[m]ilitary forces are seldom ethnically representative of their respective societies.”

Surveying the ethnic composition of militaries around the world, Sowell argues that unrepresentative racial percentages are in fact the general rule.

But Smith said in the USA Today report he would be happy to offer solutions to the military.

“I’ve never had anybody from the Department of the Army come to me. I’m a sociologist. I’ve studied these issues for six years,” he said.

Otway Burns is a pseudonym for an officer currently serving in the United States military. He is a combat veteran with tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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