The curtain has finally been pulled back on the Biden administration’s approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) within the American foreign service. The State Department, after a much-anticipated review, has confirmed what many discerning Republicans have been suggesting all along: under Biden, wokeness was not just a suggestion, it was practically a prerequisite.
The previous administration seemed intent on embedding DEI policies in every crevice of foreign service operations. It was like a DEI blitzkrieg, featuring materials that even touched upon Black Lives Matter, white privilege, and systemic racism. Now, while the department has chosen not to release the toolkit used to indoctrinate, sorry, educate the foreign service instructors, the breadcrumbs left suggest there was an attempt to make DEI more ubiquitous than a Starbucks on every corner.
It wasn’t enough that American diplomats had to navigate the complexities of geopolitics; they also had to ensure they were carrying the DEI torch brightly. Documents revealed that DEI wasn’t just a casual conversation but was baked into one of the five core principles for evaluating promotions. Diplomats weren’t just promoting American interests abroad; they also had to flash their DEI credentials like a badge of honor. In Biden’s world, strengthening the State Department apparently meant morphing it into something of a diversity pageant.
Yet, with the arrival of President Trump, the script flipped. His administration swiftly ordered the removal of DEI performance metrics from consideration in foreign service promotions. With the bewildering logic that promotions should be based on merit rather than one’s mastery of corporate buzzwords, Trump’s team aimed to restore focus on experience and skill. Predictably, some raised eyebrows at the apparent lack of transparency in deciding who received retroactive promotions, but at least there seemed to be an effort to turn the focus back to diplomacy over diversity workshops.
In the great hall of foreign diplomacy, it seems the current administration’s approach swings wildly between prioritizing agendas that mirror a college campus protest or restoring sanity by focusing strictly on merit. While diversity is no doubt important, using it as the yardstick for evaluating diplomats seems about as useful as judging a fish based on its capability to climb a tree. As the conversation continues, one thing is clear: the foreign service should ideally reflect the best of American excellence, sans the ideological hoop-jumping.
