Army tries to boost number of minority officers. Your thoughts?

AS LONG AS this is a recruiting & awareness effort to get more people into the pipeline and doesn't devolve into a quota system, or multiple standards, great - no issues.

We need more great officers of whatever race. If there is a bias (intentional or unintentional) is the recruiting pipeline that makes qualified candidates (minority or otherwise) think that they "shouldn't" seriously consider the military, we should attempt to address that. I read the article as outlining nothing more than stepping up recruiting efforts in demographics that are statistically underrepresented.

Here's an idea. The Army could utilize something known as the "veil of ignorance" in which the age, gender, and other facts about the officer to be promoted are not known. They could literally say, "We have candidate 1 who has these qualifications, candidate 2 who has these" and so forth. If you don't know their names, you won't know these demographic specific things about them. Then you can promote them only on their qualifications.

Not a fan of race-based anything. With that said, my wife is from the Philippines, so I tell all the kids to check "pacific islander" vs "white" just in case.

I don't want to be that guy, BUT in this day and age it seems like the minorities around here ARE the white people. So first can we classify a minority definitively? That point aside so what really it doesn't matter if you are black, white, brown, green, purple, blue or orange. If you are qualified you are qualified a standard is a standard. In a perfect world there is only ONE. I am tired of race/ ethnicity having so much to do with everything in this day and age. For example on a civil service test you automatically get 10 points for "equal" opportunity in some areas. Is that worth 10 extra points when you did nothing to achieve that? If your getting less officers than required there are other options to replenish those ranks rather than bend the standard and push for minorities.

The more society keeps "legitimizing" these statistics, the greater the divide and debate become. Then we start talking quotas, lowering standards to meet quotas, equal opportunity, etc., etc., etc... Haven't we been around this block too many times? We recruit people to join the armed forces because it's something they want to do, believe they should do and qualify to do. Ethnic and racial recruiting - what are we supposed to offer each separate group that's different from other groups to increase the number of enlistments from that group? We recruit in public places that all people go to, we assign ethnic recruiters to go into neighborhoods and events to target specific groups. If the interest is not there what do we do? As a company commander I and my fellow commanders got fragged monthly because recruiting numbers were never where state wanted them to be. State put together a minority recruiting board which when combined with the full and part time recruiting efforts yielded nothing more than what we were bringing in. Why, because we couldn't give any one group anything more or less than another group - there are no special racial or ethnic based recruiting packages and benefits. You have to offer everyone the same opportunities and benefits, no matter what language and what neighborhoods you do it in.

I believe if you want something out of the military it should be earned with dedication and a lot of hard work. Having training and mentorship thrown at you because of your race in my opinion not only makes bitter soldiers who deserve the higher rank but ungrateful ones that are picking up the "handouts"

Finding qualified officers among minorities has long been a problem. All one has to do is look at the criminal statistics for young minority males and see that nearly two thirds have had some contact with the criminal justice system by the time they are 24 years old. That issue alone drastically reduces the potential officer pool greatly. I have to agree with PO Medley in a later post where he said promote from within the Army. I have served with and under excellent minority NCOs and these soldiers would make great officers. Like George, I have served under Mustangs and they have been the best officers in my opinion. These NCOs have paid their dues and are better leaders that some ACGs I have met.

I've never been one to give much attention to studies and graphs. It is possible and it does happen that any set of inputs can be skewed to present whatever view you wish to display. That fact has been shown repeatedly in peer reviewed studies, of course! Be that as it may, the numbers say the percentage of black officers in the Army apparently doesn't match the percentage of black enlisted. I can think of a couple of ways to improve the situation. 1. Promote from within. The Navy calls these types of officers (enlisted to officer) "Mustangs" - some of the best officers I've served with have been Mustangs. 2. Change the rules for recruiting. Give the higher points (or whatever the Army uses) to finding that "gold nugget". For those that rely on using the statistical approach to recruiting - this would appear as a total failure. Most of your professional recruiters will avoid this at all costs - after all recruiting is nothing more than a numbers game.

Personally, the promote from within approach allows the Army to deal with known entities with proven records, which is sometimes a better deal.

It's a poor decision to promote anyone for simply being a minority. If said candidate has the qualifications and experience necessary then by all means promote that candidate. Open additional opportunities for those that didn't make the grade, in the future there will be qualifications and experience.

So there is a pretty significant movement happening in the civilian world, corporate America, where successful companies are striving for better diversity because it is statistically shown to lead to higher performing teams. On Rally Point, everyone is so focused on defending the idea of "Best Qualified" that many comments are pretty much "race doesn't matter at all for anything!"

On a higher level, I wonder how large a difference there is in military thinking vs civilian business thinking. Is the military SO different from all other organizations, that diversity wouldn't have the same positive benefits?