Diversity of skin color...

Or diversity of opinion. Which would be better?

I've found this article a few months back and it was interesting. One of the quotes attributed to my favorite general, Patton, "If everyone's thinking alike, nobody's thinking." Now every since "diversity," and "multiculturalism," became the watch words in education, government and business, the people pushing quotas have moved forward. I recall back in the 70s, the left openly said they wanted quotas for minorities and women. Seeing Americans favor merit and qualifications over quotas, they changed the names to diversity and multiculturalism.

Now one thing I do miss from the Trump administration is T-Rex, Rex Tillerson at the State Department. Foreign Policy, Foreign Affiars, etc were horrified that he was not filling every position. He was giving the bureaucracy something needed for decades, a diet. Foggy Bottoms has needed a downsizing for ages. Too many bureaucrats, and they will find something to do. And it will be stupid and painful.

For example, here is the latest from Foreign Policy. Oh, the horror!

State Department Struggling on Diversity, New Report Finds

The most comprehensive study to date shows that State has in some ways become less diverse than it was in 2002.

The U.S. State Department’s efforts to increase diversity in its ranks have fallen short and in some cases resulted in an actual decline in the percentage of women and ethnic and racial minorities employed there, according to a new study from a U.S. federal watchdog...

...The study appears to contradict statements from senior State Department officials. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, along with his predecessors, touted the importance of recruiting a pool of talent for the State Department that extends beyond white men, who have dominated the institution for most of its existence. In an email to employees in November 2019, he said the department was “building an increasingly diverse team,” saying diverse candidates applying for the two fellowships aimed at recruiting racial and ethnic minorities—the Charles B. Rangel International Affairs Fellowship and the Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship—had doubled from 844 to more than 1,600 applicants.

In September 2018, then-Policy Planning Director Kiron Skinner said in an interview that “given some the trends in the U.S. against diversity—especially racial diversity—the State Department is doing much better.” Skinner, one of the most senior-ranking African American women in the Trump administration, was removed from her post in August 2019.

Senior State Department officials have repeatedly said in public that they are prioritizing diversity at the department and that it is a work in progress. The State Department has several long-standing initiatives to do so, including a diplomat-in-residence program in which ambassadors serve as recruiters at universities, and an emphasis on recruiting from historically black colleges and Hispanic-serving universities...

The diversity problem predates this administration, but some State Department officials fear it’s getting worse.

The proportion of women working at the State Department slightly decreased during that time period, from 44 to 43 percent of State’s overall full-time workforce. Women’s promotion rates compared with their male counterparts were lower in the civil service and higher in the foreign service.

The proportion of African Americans working at the State Department fell from 17 to 15 percent between the 2002 and 2018 time period of the study—though the overall number of employees increased from 16,570 to 22,806. The proportion of African Americans in the foreign service increased only from 6 to 7 percent between fiscal years 2002 and 2018. The proportion of African American women at State overall decreased from 13 to 9 percent and within the foreign service increased from 2 to 3 percent.

I find this interesting. In the time the number of women and minorities were "declining," the agency was on a hiring binge. And the four Secretaries of State were, in order, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice (they served under George W Bush, not a government cutting conservative), Mrs. Bill Clinton, and John F Kerry (Under the quota king, Obama). Now the stats don't discriminate between Bush and Obama years, but knowing how the Democrats are, it is likely more of the growth occurred after 2009. So how is it Obama let this happen?

Possibility, a lot of younger minorities, coming from the bureaucracy feeding colleges, didn't want to serve in a Republican administration in general, and under Trump in particular. Then there is the practical hiring freeze at State by Tillerson.

Whatever the cause, I'm not overly concerned. I'm not worried of diversity of skin color, I'm worried about diversity of opinion, thought, capability, education, and qualifications. And hopefully Secretary Pompeo insures he is served by thinking people who remember, they served the United States, not the United Nations.