Post by John P. Cordle, Dr. Eng, Pdt (Prolific Disruptive Thinker)

An excellent and informative article that states the point I’ve been trying to make in much more articulate fashion. The only thing I would change is adding the word “perceived” to the term “Diversity Hires”. The paragraphs below are very well written to address this nuance. An excerpt: “The suggestion — implicit in Hegseth's framing, even when not stated outright — is that minority officers who advanced through the ranks did so because of DEI rather than despite a system that, by every historical measure, made advancement considerably harder for them. It assumes the corruption of their credentials without establishing it. It treats demographic category as disqualifying evidence. These officers did not devise DEI. They did not engineer it for personal advancement. They served under it, alongside it, and in many cases in spite of the additional scrutiny it generated around their fitness reports and promotion packets. Attributing their careers to a system they inherited rather than to the deployments they completed, the decisions they made, and the leadership they demonstrated is not accountability. It is imputation — the assignment of motive and cause without evidence, driven by the convenience of the conclusion.” Well said.